Broadcasting a PowerPoint Presentation with SharePoint 2010

One of my favorite new features out of the box when pairing Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 (with Office WEB Apps) is the ability to broadcast a PowerPoint presentation.  Lets start by defining broadcast.  Simply put – I am able to stream my presentation (effects and all) to multiple people while maintaining full security on the experience.

So what do you need to do all of this:

• Office 2010 running on a PC (sorry MacFanBoy – Office for MAC doesn’t have the feature to broadcast.
• SharePoint 2010 (Foundation or Server)
• Office WEB Apps installed and running correctly (is that too much to ask?)

When the Office WEB Apps are installed you get a brand new Site Collection template called “PowerPoint Broadcast Site”.  This site collection is never intended to hold any content but to be a “broadcast point” for your presentations and to maintain security of the attendees.

Open you PPTX in PowerPoint 2010 and select File > Save and Send > Broadcast Slide Show.

The next window that comes up will ask you to select or add a Broadcast server.  Add the URL to the Broadcast site collection you created on your server.  You will then be provided with a link to the Broadcast site which will include a custom GUID that will only be used once.

In the screenshot below you can see the presentation being shown on my desktop – while I am receiving the presentation via a FireFox browser:

To take things a step farther and really scramble you eggs – here is a picture of my “presenter” screen in the background with an iPad and an iPhone both receiving the presentation. 

This feature is going to make it so much easier for employees to work together or with their business partners and customers.

Enjoy!