daknetworks.com

We had our first interaction with Webex Room Kit recently. After hashing it out for a few days, here are a couple of tips that might help:

1- Webex Meetings and Webex Teams are 2 separate products.

Webex Meetings is traditional Webex. You can host/schedule meetings and other people can join. The meetings can be for small 1-on-1 type of meetings or they can be webinar type of meetings where one person presents and everyone else is muted. Up to 1000 people can attend.

Webex Teams is like Skype. Others ring you and you can ANSWER or DECLINE.

2- Webex Meetings and Webex Teams are 2 separate software.

Since they function differently, you will need both, if needed. My recommendation is to skip Webex Teams altogether. More on that later.

Here is the current link for Webex Meetings (Windows):
https://akamaicdn.webex.com/client/WBXclient-39.4.5-5/webexapp.msi

You can install silently by:
msiexec.exe /i "webexapp-39.4.5-5.msi" ALLUSERS=1 /qn /norestart /log output.log

3- Close Outlook when installing Webex Meetings.

When Outlook is closed, Webex Meetings buttons will install into Outlook. You can use the buttons to Start a Meeting or Schedule a Meeting directly from Outlook.

These buttons are not available for Webex Teams. This is a deal-breaker for Webex Teams.

4- Licensed Accounts are only needed for people who START/HOST/SCHEDULE meetings.

If a user is not going to START/HOST/SCHEDULE a meeting, they do not need a license.

They can still attend meetings that others START/HOST/SCHEDULE.

5- Webex Meetings (& Teams) is licensed per NAMED-USER (colloquially called PER-USER) or ACTIVE-USER (colloquially called CONCURRENT-USER).

In NAMED-USER, you will pay for every person that has an account. If they never HOST/SCHEDULE a meeting, you will still pay.

In ACTIVE-USER, you pay for the number of meetings that can happen at one-time. Like incoming/outgoing phone lines, once they are used up, someone will have to wait till a spot is free to make a call.

6- ACTIVE-USER (aka CONCURRENT-USER) starts at 40 licenses.

This is kind of a bummer for small companies. It would be awesome if a 5 license option were available for smaller companies who may want the features of Webex but don't host meetings too often.

For larger companies, with ACTIVE-LICENSE, you can install on everyone's computer (say 250 computers) and only pay for 40 licenses. Awesome option!

7- Webex Room Kits are Webex Teams by default.

In thinking about it, it makes sense. If you have a conference room of 4 people and they need to call another room, that other room will have to ANSWER for anything to happen. If not, it just rings like a phone until a NO-ANSWER message shows. It will not just show the other conference room and wait for other people to show. That would be kind of creepy.

8- Webex Room Kit TouchPanel has a Directory which is Webex Teams by default.

So if someone starts a Webex Meeting and you try to join via Webex Room Kit by calling their name from the Directory, it will not join the Meeting. It will just ring. This has been the single biggest source of frustration with the Webex Room Kit. People stomp away cursing under their breath about how the stuff doesn't work.

I'm trying to see if that can be changed.

9- Call the Personal Room.

If you start to type in someone's name, they will show twice. Once as their name and a second time as a PERSONAL-ROOM. By tapping on their name, you are calling them via Webex Teams. By tapping on their PERSONAL-ROOM, you are calling them via Webex Meetings. This is "fix" for the frustration above. Trying to communicate (educate?) people on this has proven to be difficult.

In short, call the Personal Room.

10- Adjust the Options from https://admin.webex.com

This web site can control the Webex Room Kit. Options like Whiteboard focus, so that the camera can focus on the person in the conference room along with a Whiteboard and options like Standby-Branding, so that you can display a web site on the TV while the Webex Room Kit is not being used are both options can be found by a little digging.

11 (Bonus!)- Siri/Cortana is Built Into the Webex Room Kit

OK, it is their version of Siri/Cortana but you can say, "Hey Webex, call John" and it will do your bidding. Of course, use caution on the whole Teams/Meeting Personal Room aspect.

Conclusion

In the end, Webex Room Kits along with Webex Meetings is one of the best all around options available for video conferencing and can change the entire culture of the company while providing best-in-class service to customers. Webex Meetings is great but needs a bit of class time to get the full features out of it. Webex Teams,while perhaps necessary, is very confusing to communicate and for users to pick up on their own. Having 2 options only serves to increase support times. Do yourself a favor and ditch Webex Teams going with Webex Meetings only is the way to go.

Now to see if it is possible to change that darn Directory in Webex Room Kit Touchpad to only show Personal Rooms...