ViewSonic Meeting Room Solution Adds Efficiency and Collaboration at New Company Headquarters

Aug 11, 2023

SOLUTION BRIEF

ViewSonic Meeting Room Solution Adds Efficiency and Collaboration at New Company Headquarters

Founded in 2014, and having reached its current level of nearly 2,000 employees just prior to the start of the pandemic, this logistics management technology company had outgrown its first home. During the work-from-home days, the founders began looking for new headquarters. Historically a culture that relied on creative and strategic team meetings, they had the foresight to plan the collaboration spaces in their new headquarters based on space planning best practices for their type of business.

The suggested ratio was one meeting space for every 10-20 employees. To avoid underutilized space, the recommendation was to avoid mid-sized rooms that were too small or two big for meetings of no more than four people, which account for up to 75% of meetings. The recommended sweet spot was rooms of around 150-200 square feet with seating up to six. Most of their 150 rooms would be this type of space. Finally, they planned to include two large boardrooms that could comfortably seat up to 20. These spaces would be used for more formal meetings like client presentations, executive meetings, training sessions, and employee onboarding.

To accommodate the varied types of meetings that would be held in these rooms, the founders tasked the IT team with sourcing display technology that would enable interactive collaboration, easy content sharing, and efficient hybrid meetings. In addition to seeking reliable display hardware, the IT team was looking for a solution that would facilitate efficient management of the many displays.

Employees found the display features easy to use, and appreciated the many ways they could enhance collaboration and information sharing – such as the ability to annotate on top of any content, record and share sessions, and easily connect users both in the room and joining remotely. As construction of the new building neared completion, the company purchased ViewSonic ViewBoard displays and scheduling panels for their 150 meeting rooms and two boardrooms.

Furthermore, they planned to recommend that the company invest in an improved meeting scheduling system to enable easy and efficient use of the new spaces. As they had grown to over-capacity in their original company headquarters, surprisingly, meeting rooms often sat empty due to scheduling miscommunications and overall frustration, despite high demand.

The IT team met with their reseller representative, who showed them products from several brands. Among them, the ViewSonic® ViewBoard® interactive displays provided an ideal set of features for the price-point, compared to the competitive alternatives. They additionally were pleased with the ability to achieve an integrated single-source solution, using ViewSonic 10.1-inch scheduling panels.

Mounted outside each meeting room, the sleek scheduling panel would provide a touchscreen interface for the room scheduling software, visually signaling whether the room is available with a green or red halo light. Up close, users could interact with the touchscreen to discover details about the meeting in progress, or schedule the room. Other useful features included an echo- cancelling mic and speakers that enable two-way communication between those in the meeting and outside the door – a handy way for a receptionist
to announce a guest’s arrival, or for management to quickly resolve facility inquiries and reduce meeting space downtime. The door lock control would help prevent interruptions and uninvited guests, enabling facilities managers to regulate entry to meeting spaces Employees could easily reserve, release, check in, and check out of meeting spaces with their NFC or HID enabled company-issued badge, QR code, or HID mobile access app.

From an IT perspective, the powerful little displays offered state-of-the-art Power over Ethernet (PoE), which would enable easier one-wire installation, for a notable cost-savings across over 150 rooms. Small but mighty, it was an enterprise-grade secured solution that came with SCEP (Self Certificate Enrollment Protocol), Android Enterprise API, ISO27001, IEEE 802.1x and network encryption protection to ensure compatibility with enterprise-grade security requirements.

They chose the 55-inch ViewSonic ViewBoard IFP5550 interactive display for the company’s huddle rooms. The 86-inch ViewSonic ViewBoard IFP8662 offered an eye-catching, executive-sized platform with state-of-the-art hardware and design for the two boardrooms. Both had vibrant screens with smooth 20-point touch and provided an ideal canvas for collaboration and content sharing for remote and in-person users. Both had integrated microphone arrays with echo cancellation and noise reduction technology for clear speech and sound during video conferences. The included myViewBoard® digital whiteboarding software provided additional powerful user tools along with enterprise-level security and cloud-based portability, while the integrated vCast software would enable meeting attendees to easily share content.

The displays themselves were stunning and packed with features. But the IT also needed to ensure efficient management for the many installations. The subscription upgrade to myViewBoard ManagerTM Advanced delivered exactly what they needed. With it, they gained efficient centralized remote management of all important display functions. The desktop interface provided one-look troubleshooting and the ability to remotely manage apps, and the team could create device profiles for mass deployment and firmware upgrades, among other powerful management functions.

Importantly, the Manager Advanced software would also allow administrators to push multimedia messages to every display – or to select groups of displays. For example, if employee onboarding meetings were happening in the two boardrooms, they could send corporate videos to those select displays. The founders also plan to create quarterly update videos, which the IT team will push out to every display in the company, making for efficient all-company meetings.

A critical aspect of the broadcast feature was the ability to interface with a third-party emergency alert systems to deliver immediate CAP messaging, the XML-based Common Alerting Protocol that provides warmings about weather conditions and other urgent news. When sent as an urgent alert, the content would remain locked on the screens until removed by an admin.

Before making the purchase for their new headquarters, the company tested two ViewBoard displays and the Manger Advanced software, allowing employees to stop by and try them out. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive from both the users and the IT administrators who would be responsible for maintaining the displays. Employees found the display features easy to use, and appreciated the many ways they could enhance collaboration and information sharing – such as the ability to annotate on top of any content, record and share sessions, and easily connect users both in the room and joining remotely. As construction of the new building neared completion, the company purchased ViewSonic ViewBoard displays and scheduling panels for their 150 meeting rooms and two boardrooms.