Return to the office with safer & smarter Teams rooms

It has been a very different year with most noticeably a shift in the way we work, in the way we communicate with our colleagues and now how our offices will look moving forwards. Many people now work from home either on a permanent or part time bases, even Microsoft recently announced that their employees will be allowed to work from home permanently. However, not every job can be done at home, so some people will still need to work in the physical office and will still need to communicate with remote staff, customers and suppliers using video meeting platforms. This new hybrid way of working has meant our meeting rooms need to evolve to accommodate this increase in digital communication.

Microsoft Teams: Simplified Meeting Room Collaboration 

With the impacts of COVID-19, Microsoft Teams is now a common place in most organisations. Employees are feeling more included when everyone joins meetings remotely and your employees are looking to continue this experience. As we prepare to return to work, Microsoft Teams needs to be combined with safe meeting room technology.

"What we are witnessing is a fundamental change in the way that people think about work, and it's been incredible to see how quickly customers are changing their work habits, and how they have been able to use Microsoft teams to do that,” Peter Garner, Commercial Sales Lead ANZ, OEM, Microsoft.

Microsoft Teams has transformed the way we communicate in meeting rooms and when you combine the Microsoft Teams platform, with Microsoft certified devices, including Microsoft Teams Rooms products, you have an efficient meeting environment for employees to just walk in and start collaborating without the complexity of previous meeting room set ups.

Modern Meeting Space Solution Provider | Crestron 

Crestron has been designing meeting room equipment for decades and have established themselves as a one of the market leaders in the meeting room equipment segment. This has enabled Crestron to design innovative products that are timely and assist in creating a safer environment whilst working in the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.

In a pre-pandemic meeting room, you would walk in and either touch the remote control or meeting room control tablet to get the equipment running and meeting started, but this is a physical touch point. In the new meeting room design using Crestron equipment, a proximity sensor can be installed to monitor activity in the room and automate equipment, without the need for physical touch points. Limitations on the number of people within a meeting room at once is now also a topic of conversation. With the Crestron system, the camera can count how many people are in a room and alert the attendees if the number exceeds a predetermined safe number.

Crestron have developed a meeting room control app for your smartphone, that allows you to take control of the Crestron Flex meeting room equipment and run your Microsoft Teams meeting without the need for touching the tabletop control panel. Finally, there is also Crestron AirMedia 2, which is a wireless presentation system allowing you to present to the from your laptop to the room display, without needing to touch and plug in the HDMI cable. All of these Crestron innovations make for a safer and smarter meeting environment.

"Crestron is the only organisation that has this wholistic view of a room," Niko Walraven, Director GTM Unified Communications at Crestron.

Pulling together the right meeting room solution for your end user

At Dicker Data our team work closely with our Australian IT and AV reseller partners to really understand their end users’ unique requirements in order to design and deliver a meeting room solution built on the best collaboration technologies. We will talk to you in depth about how your end users actually utilise Microsoft Teams. “How do you actually use the platform in a particular meeting space?" By asking questions we are able to then narrow it down to which is the correct Crestron Flex product, for instance, for that environment.

We also have our new pre-staging service where will make sure that all the Crestron equipment that you purchase has the latest software and firmware update prior to delivery, saving you time and money onsite at the point of installation.

Specialist AV Distribution for Smart Spaces and Digital Signage Solutions