Adobe Connect 12.11 Release Notes

Adobe Connect enables you to create rich digital training, webinars, and collaboration experiences. For an overview of Adobe Connect, see www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html.

Adobe Connect 12.11 is a minor release introducing new features, improvements to existing features, greater accessibility, and fixes to known issues.

Release dates

Adobe Connect 12.11 will roll out in the following phases:

What's new in Adobe Connect 12.11

Survey Pod

Adobe Connect 12.11 introduces a new Survey Pod that allows hosts to design and deliver structured feedback forms directly within a live session. The Survey Pod extends the existing Poll Pod capabilities by allowing multiple questions to be presented together, offering a more streamlined and cohesive way to gather participant insights. 

Key Features

• Supports Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, and Short Answer question types.
• Hosts can add up to 25 questions per survey, reorder them, and mark any question as mandatory.
• Each survey can have a title and description, helping hosts frame the intent or instructions for participants.
• Surveys can be configured as anonymous, ensuring privacy for respondents when needed.
• Results are automatically captured in the Session Dashboard after the session, grouped under a new Survey Activity Report.
• Surveys can be exported for reuse and stored in the Content Library, enabling quick setup for future sessions and ensuring consistency across events

Resources Pod

The new Resources Pod replaces the previous Files and Web Links pods, providing a single, unified way to share resources during live sessions.

Highlights:

• Hosts can share documents, links, or files from one centralized pod.
• Hosts can reorder the list of files and links within the Resources Pod to organize items in the desired sequence.
• The reporting behavior remains unchanged, and download and click activities will continue to be tracked separately for files and links.
• Simplifies pod management by combining two commonly used pods into one easy-to-use experience.

Backward Compatibility

When a room created in an earlier version is launched for the first time after the upgrade to version 12.11:

• All existing Files and Web Links pods will automatically be replaced by Resources Pods that contain the same content.
• Each replaced pod will retain its title, size, and position in the layout to ensure a seamless visual transition.
• If a layout includes multiple Files or Web Links pods, each will be replaced by a corresponding Resources Pod.
• The content from multiple pods will not be merged into a single pod. This ensures that the layout and behavior remain identical to how they appeared before the upgrade.

Download Resources During Recording Playback

Participants watching a recording can now download resources that were shared during the original session. This feature allows attendees who view the recording to access the same materials that were available during the live session, improving engagement and extending content value beyond the session itself. 

Host Controls and Settings

Hosts can now manage the availability of shared resources through a new Settings option available in two places:

• From the Connect Central homepage, against each recording listed.
• From the side panel within Edit recording.

This new settings panel also provides a convenient way to:

• Enable or restrict resource downloads for recording viewers.
• Control the availability of transcripts associated with the recording.
• Manage access permissions for the recording in one place.

Resource Visibility Rules

• Only resources from Resources Pods that appeared on layouts visited while the recording was actively in progress will be listed for that recording.
• If a Resources Pod was not added to any layout, or if it was present on layouts not visited while the recording was in progress, its contents will not be listed in the Resources panel.
• This ensures that viewers of the recording see only the files and links that were visible to participants during the portion of the session that was recorded.

Camera Pod (previously Video Pod) and Name Tags

With Adobe Connect 12.11, the Video Pod has been renamed to Camera Pod to provide clearer distinction between live camera video and other forms of video content such as MP4 files shared via the Share Pod. This change helps reduce confusion for new users and aligns terminology across the application.

Along with the renaming, the Camera Pod introduces a new enhancement that allows users to display additional information under their name on their video cell.

Name Tags Enhancement

Users can now add a subtitle such as their job title, company name, or role beneath their display name in the Camera Pod.

How it works:

• Select the three-dot menu on your camera video cell and choose Edit display name.
• Enter the desired text in the Subtitle field and select Save.
• The added subtitle will appear directly below the participant’s display name on their video cell.
• Admins can control the font size of these name tags from Connect Central → Admin → Compliance Settings and Control → Pods Management.

Quoted Chat Reply in Chat Pod

The Chat Pod now supports quoted replies. Attendees can reply directly to a specific message in the chat, helping maintain context in fast-moving discussions.

How it works:

• Hover over any message and click the Reply button to create a quoted response
• The quoted reply displays a snippet of the original message above the new text, along with the sender’s name
• Selecting the quoted snippet scrolls the chat view to the original message, making it easy to trace the discussion thread

This improvement helps prevent fragmented conversations and allows multiple sub-discussions to happen in parallel without losing context.

Enhanced Room Interface Experience

Adobe Connect 12.11 introduces a refreshed and more modern room interface, built on Adobe’s latest Spectrum 2 design framework, aligning with the visual language used across other Adobe products such as Creative Cloud and Experience Cloud.

A More Modern Look and Feel

The update brings a clean, lightweight, and contemporary aesthetic to rooms:

• Rounded corners across all pods and panels for a softer, more approachable visual style
• Transparent pod backgrounds that fade into the room when inactive, helping the interface feel lighter and placing more emphasis on shared content
• When a pod is active or hovered over, it becomes fully opaque, clearly showing where the user’s focus is
• In the Backstage view, transparency levels now make it easier to distinguish between on-stage and backstage pods, especially when using light-colored room backgrounds.
• New iconography consistent with Spectrum 2 and used across all Adobe apps, improving visual familiarity and ease of recognition
• Consistent icons and text labels throughout menus and pods, making navigation easier for both new and experienced users

These refinements make the room feel more spacious, with better contrast and focus on the session content rather than the interface.

Improved Accessibility and Keyboard Navigation

The new UI enhances accessibility by introducing a clear focus outline for users navigating with keyboards:

• When a pod or control is selected via keyboard, it is highlighted with a blue focus outline
• The pod also becomes opaque, ensuring clear visibility of the active element
• This helps users relying on keyboard navigation easily identify their current focus area, supporting a more inclusive experience

Performance and Design Consistency

Adobe Connect’s move to Spectrum 2 ensures the platform remains consistent with the broader Adobe design system. The update also introduces lighter rendering and improved responsiveness for pods, ensuring smoother transitions and a more responsive experience when interacting with layouts and controls.

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

Share Pod

• Updated menus for Document and Whiteboard inside an empty Share Pod
  • Clearer terminology and improved access to recent files
• New central buttons added inside an empty Share Pod
  • Screen, Document, and Whiteboard buttons now appear prominently
  • Improves discoverability for new users

Camera Pod

• "Video Pod" renamed to Camera Pod to avoid confusion with MP4 playback.

Chat Pod

• Hosts can now mention all attendees at once using @everyone tag
• This will trigger a notification to all participants
• Useful for announcements, transitions, or when attention is needed

Breakouts – Attendees Pod UI Update

• Refreshed UI inside the Attendees Pod during breakouts
• Improves visibility and discoverability of breakout controlsUser Interface & Accessibility

Recording UI Refresh

• Recording interface updated with Spectrum 2 components, icons, and a modernized side panel
• New settings panel (in Edit mode) to configure resource access, transcripts, and permissions.

Events

• Co-hosts now get full edit access to event recordings.
  • Co-hosts can access and edit recordings from Connect Central homepage
  • Previously restricted only to room/persistent host
  • Improves event team workflows and reduces dependency on primary hosts

Accessibility

• Clear blue focus outline when navigating pods via keyboard

Mixed Audio Meetings

• When joining a room that uses mixed audio (VOIP + Telephony), participants will now see VOIP pre-selected in the audio device dialog. 
• This helps minimize telephony costs for accounts that rely on both audio methods. 
• Users can still join via phone by selecting the Telephony tab. 
• Participants without mic rights will continue to default to the Telephony dial-in/out tab.

System requirements

For the latest system requirements, see the Adobe Connect Technical Specifications page.

Upgrade paths for on-premise deployments

Here are the prerequisites for this release:

• From Adobe Connect 9.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.10 before applying this patch
  
• From Adobe Connect 10.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.10 before applying this patch
  
• From Adobe Connect 11.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.10 before applying this patch
  
• From Adobe Connect 12.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.10 before applying this patch
  

Issues resolved in server version 12.11

Accessibility improvements in server version 12.11