Increase Engagement With Microsoft Teams Rooms

In this blog, we address some of the key challenges in hybrid meetings and how a meeting room solution, such as Microsoft Teams Rooms, can solve these challenges and increase engagement in hybrid meetings.

The Challenge Of Hybrid Meetings (Microsoft Teams Rooms)

Anyone who has sat on either side of a hybrid meeting would likely have experienced some of the challenges associated with hybrid meetings.

In hybrid meetings, external participants can often feel left out, especially if there are more personal participants than external participants. This feeling can also make it difficult to interrupt personal side conversations or participate effectively in discussions.

For personal participants, it can be challenging to read external participants’ facial expressions or receive input from external participants, especially if external participants are muted or do not turn on their video cameras.

There are also universal challenges with hybrid meetings, such as poor video quality when personal participants share a single device, or feedback loops when multiple devices are used.

What Are Microsoft Teams Rooms?

Microsoft Teams Rooms is a software and hardware solution that transforms meeting rooms into collaborative Teams experiences for hybrid meetings.

Some of the hardware in Microsoft Teams Rooms include touchscreen consoles, computing modules, cameras, microphones, external screens and HDMI input. Some vendors specialize in Teams Room hardware, such as Yealink, EPOS, Poly and Logitech. Most of these vendors have a range of devices suitable for specific use cases.

The software component of Microsoft Teams Rooms are application licenses for the devices. For companies with only a few meeting room devices, the Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic license has all the functionality needed to enable effective hybrid meetings. The more expensive Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro licenses offer more features, such as AI-powered noise reduction, content cameras and front row feature.

How Microsoft Teams Room Can Help

Improve The Audio And Video Quality

Unless your meeting rooms are designed with hybrid meetings in mind, it is likely that audio and video quality are not conducive to productive hybrid meetings.

Some larger Teams Rooms implementations include multiple cameras, such as a wide-angle camera to show the entire room and a secondary camera that detects who is speaking and focuses on it. They will also include multiple microphones to ensure that regardless of who is speaking, remote participants can easily see and hear them.

For smaller meeting rooms, there are all-in-one Teams Rooms devices with the camera, microphone and speaker in one small device. Implementations for smaller meeting rooms also include a touch screen, allowing participants to participate in meetings without the need for a laptop or work device.

Promote Inclusiveness In Hybrid Meetings

Microsoft Teams Rooms is packed with features that promote inclusivity in hybrid meetings.

One way Microsoft Teams Rooms does this is by using AI-powered active speaker tracking. This is a feature that detects which personal participant is speaking and automatically zooms in on them on the displays of remote participants. This helps reduce side conversations and makes remote participants feel more involved in hybrid meetings.

Often in Microsoft Teams Rooms rooms, the room and their peripherals are designed with hybrid meetings in mind. This means that the screen should be at a normal eye level. This means it feels more natural for personal participants to speak to external participants. Features such as the front row in a Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro license extend this functionality with a new screen layout that promotes inclusivity.

Communicate With Video, Audio, Whiteboards And More

Different meetings require different forms of participation and communication. Fortunately, Microsoft Teams and Teams Rooms have options available for all meetings. Software features such as raising hands and responses help ensure that remote participants can be as engaged as they want or need to be.

Teams also includes a free digital whiteboard feature, allowing remote and personal participants to add notes to a shared whiteboard. Similarly, there are other third-party applications that can be used for collaboration without leaving the Teams application, such as Mural or Miro.

Ready to Get Started?

Meeting rooms can make or break the hybrid meeting experience, for both personal and remote participants. If your meeting rooms do not facilitate productive hybrid meetings, your teams cannot work optimally and it can hurt your bottom line.

Meeting room solutions, such as Microsoft Teams Rooms, include all the features and functionality to ensure hybrid meetings are as engaging as possible.

To learn more about which implementation of meeting rooms is right for your business, contact us today

Source: carecomputers