Best Practices
Contents
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Onboarding - 101
Getting Started
When you access the VirBELA application, you will arrive at the campus entry portal. You are
represented by an avatar in the middle of the screen. You can walk up and speak to other users.
Profile
Navigate to Your Name in the top-left menu. Selecting Profile allows you to create and make
updates to your profile. Learn about other users driving the future of work by accessing their
bio. Right-click on the avatar or click on their name in the user list.
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Preferences
Find Users
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Selecting the Gears icon and clicking on Find Users, you can view who is currently active in
VirBELA and find their location.
You can find more information about a person by right-clicking on their avatar. This
will allow you to see their bio if they set it up.
Mic Settings and Preferences
Room Settings
Communicating
Take a look at the lower-left side of your screen. There, you will see a microphone icon.
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Microphone
Note, when you enter the VirBELA campus your microphone is muted.
To enable your microphone, click on the microphone icon. The microphone icon will turn green
and read Mic is On. This will give you the ability to speak with other users in VirBELA.
Note -
Distance affects volume. The further you walk away from someone the quieter their
voice will become.
In the Gear icon you can select Mic Settings. Mic settings and Preferences allow you to adjust
and customize your audio and visual settings.
Microphone (Continued)
A secondary option for using the microphone is the ‘push-to-talk’ function by holding down the
“1” key on your keyboard. This option allows you to use the microphone like a walkie talkie –
press and hold down the number “1” key to enable and release to disable.
Text box
Directly to the right of the microphone is the text box. Once this field is selected, you can begin
typing your message.
To the right of the text box is a smiley face emoji. Clicking the smiley face gives you the option
to include emojis in your text message.
To the right of the smiley face emoji is an upload option. Clicking on this function allows you to
upload a file from your computer to share.
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Walking
Option 1 (Keypad)
To move your avatar, you can use the arrow
keys on your keyboard.
Option 2 (Mouse)
Locating
Take note of the mini-map on the lower-right side of your screen.
The arrow is your avatar and shows your position on the campus
map. The plus and minus sign allow you to zoom in and out.
Private Volumes
Private Volumes (the blue lines on the floor) can be found throughout the campus.
Entering a private volume allows you to have a private conversation with only those
inside. Both voice and text are limited to the users inside the blue lines. No one outside
the blue lines can hear the conversation inside.
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Blue circles and dotted lines indicate private talk and text zones.
Teleporting
If you look to the upper-left side of your screen, you will see the GO TO menu. Go To allows
you to navigate to various rooms.
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Standing, Sitting, Viewing
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Looking Around (When Standing)
By default, the camera view is locked behind your avatar and follows your movement. By
pressing the spacebar you can unlock the camera and use the mouse to look around. Your
avatar’s head will tilt in the direction you are looking.
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Raise Hand
Under GO TO, you will see ‘Your Name,’ which always lives on the top left side. Click on your
name and choose Raise Hand.
Emotes
You can click on the desired emote or hold the Shift key with the corresponding F-number key
(located at the top of most keyboards) to initiate a gesture. Give it a try.
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To lower your hand, under GO TO,
click on your name and choose Put
Hand Down.
Sticky Note
You can use Sticky Notes to share and brainstorm ideas, direct traffic, and facilitate organization
activity.
To create a sticky note, under GO TO select ‘Your Name’ and click Sticky Note. A new sticky
note will appear and follow your mouse. Click on the desired location to place the sticky note.
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You can change the color of the sticky note by clicking a color that appears on the right-hand
side.
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Customization
Image Panels (still images)
Booth exhibitors, admins, and moderators can customize and brand your image panels.
Right-click on the
image panel you wish to edit.
* For still images, click the blue box with the up arrow to search for and select the file
(image or video) from your computer you want to upload. You can link the file by typing/
copying in the URL you wish to link to in the bottom box. Then hit APPLY.
* For videos, simply type/copy the URL in to the top box. If you want to link the video you
need to type/copy the URL in to the bottom box as well. Then hit APPLY.
Onboarding - 102
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How to Play Live Video
We recommend playing live video in VirBELA with PowerPoint or Google Slides.
User’s can have complete control playing, pausing, and restarting a video when the video
is embedded within a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation. (Although uploading a
YouTube video is quickest and easiest.)
After you create and title your new presentation, find the Insert menu and choose Video.
Copy and paste your desired URL video link and click the blue highlighted search function.
Choose the desired video and click select.
Before you copy and paste the Google Slides presentation into a VirBELA web screen, you will
want to make sure link sharing is On - Public on the Web. Now your video will be viewable by
others in VirBELA.
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Help
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