Digital Samba 570

Available from 11 September 2023

In this update, we are introducing a new "Lock Room" feature, allowing moderators to control room entry. When this setting is turned on, participants will have to wait until they are accepted into the room.

Additionally, this release features a new branding setting, allowing teams to customize their CNAME records; and a new dashboard feature allowing users to end sessions directly from the dashboard itself.  

In our Samba Live app, we have added a new functionality allowing users to test microphone and speaker devices in the join screen.

Read more about our latest updates and bug fixes below.

Digital Samba Embdded

Dashboard and API

New Features

• We have enhanced our dashboard with a new feature allowing teams to end sessions directly from the dashboard. This change facilitates the efficient termination of sessions when users remain in the room after the discussion or lecture has concluded, ultimately helping teams optimise their resources.
  

• Minor cosmetic improvements on our automated email template footer.
• We have introduced an automatic email notification system for team owners. This system triggers an email alert when any of the following metrics—concurrent session usage, concurrent participants usage, or participation minutes usage—approaches 80% of its limit. This feature will assist team owners in effectively managing their allocated resources.
• We have implemented a cookies banner on our signup page that provides users with clear information about the purpose of the cookies used by the application. Users now have the option to either 'agree and proceed' or 'reject non-essential' cookies. This gives users control over which cookies the app can use and provides transparency about the data stored by these cookies, both when accepting and rejecting them.
• We have added an optional 'initials' token param allowing integrators to specify custom initials to be displayed in participants' avatars. When this value is not populated, the displayed initials are dynamically extracted from the user's name, as usual. This new param gives teams greater flexibility by allowing them to manually customise the participants' initials.

SDK

New Features

• We enhanced our Initial Settings Object with a new 'app language' setting, allowing integrators to preset UI language individually for each user on join.
• We added an ability for integrators to listen to document events, allowing them to spark custom logic on their application's side, e.g., 'keyup'.

In-Room

New Features

• We’re releasing ‘Room entry control’, a new feature allowing our customers to optionally set a moderated room to be locked so that participants have to wait until they are accepted into the room. Moderators with the permission to ‘control room entry’ will have the power to accept or reject waiting participants to join the session. Participant acceptance and rejection can be executed individually as well as in bulk. Moreover, the feature supports unlocking the room, which automatically accepts all waiting participants into the room while setting the room to allow latecomers to join without waiting; and re-locking the room—at any moment during the session. It’s important to note that moderators with permission to ‘control room entry’ or to ‘start session’ will always be able to seamlessly join sessions in locked rooms, without the need to be expressly accepted. This feature enhances the security and management of Digital Samba sessions by giving organisers greater control over who can access the session. Note that this release is limited to moderated / multiple-role rooms.

• We've expanded our branding options by introducing support for custom CNAME records. Starting from the Launch plan and above, teams can now personalise their platform's URL by configuring their preferred DNS CNAME record.
• We update the E2EE-specific unsupported browser message to suggest using Firefox 117 or later, additionally to Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and other Chromium-based browsers, given that Firefox has started supporting E2EE on their latest version (117).
• We moved room cleanup to the unload event which gives integrators the chance to trigger custom logic for events such as prevent tab closing with a confirmation.

Fixed

• We resolved an issue where an error page was displayed on attempting to turn on the camera after transitioning to a role without broadcast permission. With this fix, after transitioning to a role without broadcast permission, users will no longer see the actionable notification, effectively removing the possibility of attempting to turn on the camera when broadcasting is unavailable.
• We resolved an issue where joining a room and initiating an audio and video broadcast caused problems for participants using Firefox. In this scenario, the video stream appeared frozen, and audio was not transmitted to the participants. This issue has been fixed to ensure seamless audio and video communication for all participants, including those using Firefox.
• We fixed an issue affecting Chrome users where the name input field in the pre-join screen was autosuggesting completion with credit card details stored in the browser.
• We fixed our link to our Privacy Policy in the pre-join screen, which appeared broken when the UI language was set to German.
• We resolved an issue wherein clicking multiple times on the join button of the pre-join screen would create multiple websocket connections, leading to recurring reconnection retries to a websocket that doesn't do pings, consequently breaking video streams. We have now locked the join button to prevent this from happening, so users can now rapidly click multiple times on the join button without this resulting into broken video streams.
• We have resolved an issue wherein participants with a broken or malfunctioning camera could not join sessions. With this fix, participants with a broken camera can also participate by broadcasting audio-only.

Samba Live

In-Room

New Features

• We've enhanced our join screen with a 'test audio' functionality. Participants now have the opportunity to test their microphone and speaker devices ahead of joining, ensuring a seamless experience for their session.
  

Fixed

• We've resolved an issue where Bluetooth speakers didn't work as expected. Previously, when switching to Bluetooth headphones, audio was not rerouting correctly. Now, if you switch from any speaker to your Bluetooth speaker in audio settings, audio plays as intended through the chosen device, ensuring a smoother and more flexible audio experience during sessions.
• We fixed a minor cosmetic issue affecting Firefox users on Windows, with Samba Live set to 'thumbnail' mode.
• We fixed an issue affecting Safari users. Previously in the join screen, they wouldn't be able to preview their published stream. With this fix, Safari users can now confidently view themselves and ensure everything is functioning smoothly before they join the session.
• We have resolved an issue related to navigation through multipage documents. Previously, users without permission to control content were able to paginate by swiping up and down on mobile. With this fix, we have made sure that only users with permission to control content can flip through pages, even when they are on mobile.
• We resolved an issue affecting Chrome and Firefox users where the microphone device would fail to update. After these users had selected the new microphone, remote users would still hear their audio coming from the old one. With this fix, the affected users can smoothly update their microphones and be sure that everyone hears audio coming from the correct source.