Many business leaders dream of a highly productive workplace that enhances collaboration. In fact, we’re not that far off. ClickShare has collaborated with Microsoft to ensure BYOD user enhancements in Teams are enabled within ClickShare Conference (CX) meeting spaces. The end-user features work in parallel with product enhancements optimizing the daily management for IT administrators through integrated insights.
Today's hybrid workplace demands versatile solutions like Microsoft Places and Teams, which are designed to adapt to the needs of a company and its workforce. True office optimization comes from these solutions, enabling productive collaboration for any user, in any meeting scenario (hybrid, in-person, or ad hoc), in any room size, and with any setup or technologies.
“Microsoft aims to provide users with best Teams experience wherever they are and whatever their technology is. That’s why we embarked on an improved experience for BYOD rooms.” Sandhya Rao, Group product manager, Microsoft Teams Devices at Microsoft Corp.
“BYOD is a very natural way of working. It’s the way you work from home, the way you work on your desk. Now you can also work in that same way, with additional functionalities and enhancements, especially for the end-user, in the meeting room as well.” Gauthier Renard, Group Lead Product Management ClickShare.
The array of shared spaces in today’s diverse work environment - Image by Microsoft
For over a decade, Barco ClickShare has been leading the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) market, with ClickShare Conference allowing users to start video calls from their laptops using their preferred conferencing platforms. BYOD is taking center stage once again in the collaboration market, with many re-evaluating its importance for productivity and flexibility. According to Frost & Sullivan research, 1 in 2 video-equipped meeting rooms are BYOD-enabled.
As Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has always been top of mind for ClickShare, it is no surprise that ClickShare has partnered with Microsoft to integrate ClickShare Conference with the Microsoft Teams devices ecosystem to empower companies that rely on the Microsoft platform to maximize the efficiency of their meeting rooms.
As part of the Microsoft Teams Devices partner ecosystem, ClickShare allows the Teams client to collect rich data on room and device utilization in BYOD rooms through the Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro Management portal, without changing the user experience. With more than 300,000 ClickShare Conference devices in the field, ClickShare is a significant data source for Microsoft Teams Rooms management capabilities in BYOD rooms.
A BYOD room is recognized through shared spaces insights reporting within the Teams Pro Management Portal after multiple users have connected to the same ClickShare Base Unit. This information is populated for IT managers as a potential shared space within the Pro Management Portal, enabling registration and management of the meeting space.
Once provisioned within the Pro Management Portal, users are greeted with an enhanced Teams experience when leveraging ClickShare enabled rooms.
When initiating a Teams meeting, the user's Teams desktop client identifies the connected microphone, speaker, and camera via the ClickShare Base Unit and Button, passing a snapshot of room health to the Teams Pro Management Portal.
For companies standardizing on the Microsoft platform, the integration means IT admins can deploy ClickShare seamlessly into spaces best suited for BYOD without creating friction with their existing Microsoft strategy. It provides flexibility and peace of mind, knowing that they are leveraging enterprise-ready solutions from both Barco and Microsoft to optimize all meeting spaces, regardless of size or setup.
With the integration of ClickShare, IT professionals can expand their data from rooms with fixed setups to a complete overview including BYOD rooms through the Teams Pro Management Portal. These combined analytics provide unique insights into room and device utilization for smart device management, planning, and budgeting. Metrics such as the number of BYOD rooms, utilization percentage, number of peripherals, total calls, call duration, and call performance help in understanding and enhancing meeting room usage.
Finally, BYOD rooms bring additional benefits for the user within Teams. Meeting room users still enjoy the well-known, simple and seamless ClickShare experience in meeting spaces, but now their experience is enhanced with Teams functionality.
The addition of AI-driven features like voice recognition and attribution enables Microsoft 365 Copilot to know who said what during the meeting from a BYOD room for more intelligent meetings. Speaker recognition allows users to maintain their identity in the transcript when joining from a BYOD room, enabling more accurate meeting transcripts and intelligent meeting recaps with Copilot.
"Simple improvements such as the automatic selection of your room audio and camera, disabling voice isolation. We tackle little challenges like these that make collaboration a bit tricky from a BYOD standpoint and make sure the user experience becomes seamless and intuitive." Gauthier Renard, Group Product Manager Barco ClickShare
BYOD Teams rooms powered by ClickShare help companies that have standardized on the full Microsoft suite to optimize and futureproof their meeting spaces.
No matter the setup or size of a space, the users and their preferences are always at the center of the seamless meeting experiences.
