Help and Documentation
Help is on the way…
If you’re reading this page you’ve probably already downloaded the latest version of Footprints. To use the pod, simply upload it into any Adobe Connect Pro Meeting and you’ll be ready to start seeing how much your use of remote conferencing and collaboration is saving your organization and the planet.
For detailed information, please consult the appropriate Help Page below:
Frequently Asked Questions
How Does Footprints Calculate Carbon Savings?
Every computer on the Internet is assigned an IP Address (think of it like your home or business phone number) that allows us to obtain an approximate Latitude and Longitude for each attendee of an Adobe Connect Pro Meeting or Virtual Classroom.
Once we know the physical locations of the attendees, all it requires is a little High School mathematics to calculate the physical distance of each of those people from the person designated as the Host of the web conference. We then use a series of generally accepted formulae to convert these distances into Carbon emmissions that would have been generated had you actually traveled to a physical meeting at the Host’s location. You can obtain more accurate calculations by entering your postal code or zipcode using the “Refine My Location” button in the top right corner of the pod.
Why is my calculated distance from the Host larger than my actual distance?
We use the calculated distance from your IP Address (or supplied postcode) to the Host’s location and then double it. After all, we assume that if you travelled to the meeting, you’d need to get back home again afterwards too. All Carbon Emmissions and Financial Savings are then based on the roundtrip distance rather than the one-way distance.
How does distance affect the calculations you use?
All our calculations use one of four different rates per mile / km based on the total distance of the one-way journey. These four rates classify the distance as being made by car, short-haul air, medium-haul air or long-haul air. Short distances (under 100 Miles or 160Km) are assumed to be driveable and not to require hotel and lodging while long-haul air travel is assumed to require not just the travel component but hotel and related expense as well.
How accurate are the calculations?
There’s an old saying that says “Don’t Assume Anything…” but a tool like Footprints is only possible when you make a large number of assumptions, any one of which can make the calculations inappropriate. For example, two attendees in a virtual meeting might have shared a car journey in real life but Footprints will assume that each of them is taking a separate vehicle. Footprints cannot know how long you might have stayed in a hotel or the price of meals and accommodations on your trip and so we have no choice but to calculate the savings purely on one of our four flat rates that you can set for your account. Similarly, multiple individuals can be sitting at a single computer and Footprints will see them all as one attendee for calculation purposes unless you indicate the number of attendees using the “Refine My Location” button.
We also have to use arbitrary cutoffs between the different modes of travel which might not accurately reflect actual behaviour. An executive may fly between two cities that are close enough to drive to, while a salesperson might drive a distance that we assume would be completed by a short-haul air flight. As they say… your actual mileage may vary!
Footprints is not displaying the right location for some attendees?
We rely on IP Address Lookup tables to determine each attendee’s location. While these tables are generally quite accurate they do create some inconsistencies as well.
The recorded Latitude and Longitude for a computer’s IP address is generally set by the owner of the network. Typically, this is set for a entire corporate network or an ISP (Internet Service Provider). Frequently this means that our accuracy is limited to the city level or more precicely, to the location that is registered for the ISP. You may be meeting with a client on the other side of town but you may both show up in Footprints as being in the identical location.
To compensate for the fact that attendees in the same building or on opposite sides of the same city may appear to have the same location (and therefore be in the same physical place) we assume a minimum Carbon Footprint of 2½ miles (4Km) in each direction for all our calculations; remember, even getting in an elevator to visit a colleague 10 floors down in a high-rise building, has an impact on the environment.
You can always enter a Postal Code or Zipcode in the pod using the “Refine My Location” button for more accurate calculations but these will generally still only be accurate to within a few miles.
The opposite problem occurs if your corporate network spans a wide goegraphical area. For example, Adobe employees in corporate offices across North America all have IP addresses that appear to originate in San Jose, California even though they may be physically sitting in New York, Chicago or San Jose. Users of AOL may also appear to originate in Virginia (the location of their proxy servers) even though the user might be anywhere on their network.
While the use of IP Address to auto-generate a user’s apparent location is probably only 90% accurate we consider the calculations made by Footprints to be a good overall indication of the Carbon Emmission savings generated by meeting virtually. The “Refine My Location” button will typically overcome these problems and we also plan to add Google based address lookups in a future version of Footprints for results that are accurate to within a few hundred feet or meters.
Is Footprints free and what kind of licenses are available?
Footprints is free to download for an unlimited 30 day trial. The license is based on your Hosted Adobe Account Number or your Licensed Adobe Server installation and applies to unlimited numbers of users under that account and for use in unlimited numbers of live meetings.
After the 30 day trial period has expired, you will need to purchase a license to continue using the tool. We currently offer three types of licenses for Footprints:
Enterprise License
This provides unlimited access to all of the features of Footprints for unlimited meetings and unlimited users, and should be chosen by most organizations that make regular use of Adobe Connect Pro. In addition to the built-in features, Enterprise users receive access to a password protected administrative panel that allows them to view statistics, graphs and maps about their meetings showing the Carbon and Financial Savings by Meeting, Host, Month etc.
Enterprise users can also place our unique “Web Widgets” on their corporate web pages that report in real-time the Carbon and Cost Savings for the corporation or for specific departments or clients. All HTML code required on your web pages is generated for you. We also offer the opportunity to add custom functions to users who might need additional features.
The Enterprise License for the Footprints Pod costs US$4,995 (one-time fee) plus $1,000 per year for mainenance, unlimited upgrades and unlimited use of web-widgets.
Registered Charitable Organizations and Acredited Educational Instututions can purchase the Footprints Pod Enterprise License at a 50% discount from the regular price (regular rates apply for maintenance).
Small Business / Single User License
This license allows small business and individual users of Adobe Connect Pro to access the many of the benefits of Footprints at a lower cost. The SBSU License includes all of the features of the Enterprise license but limits access to 15 meetings per month for a single Adobe Connect Pro Account. This version does not provide access to the Web-Widgets feature. For full details of which features are unavailable in the SBSU License version please consult the features listings.
The One-Time Fee for the SBSU License is US$495.00
Footprints Lite Edition
This license allows small business and individual users of Adobe Connect Pro to access the many of the benefits of Footprints at a lower cost. The Lite Edition does not include all of the features of the Enterprise or SBSU license (custom logos, custom colours, custom travel rates, corporate history etc.), has no back-end reporting or Analytics access, no Web-Widget feature and limits access to 10 meetings per month for a single Adobe Connect Pro Account. For full details of which features are unavailable in the Lite version please consult the features listings.
The One-Time Fee for the SBSU License is US$295.00