Optimising Microsoft Teams Rooms Utilisation with Room Screens

How Wessex Water is Streamlining use of its Video Conferencing Facilities using Microsoft-integrated Room Screens.

Wessex Water takes its responsibility to the environment very seriously, with a stated policy that includes reducing emission levels and implementing new technology to improve working practices.

A prime example of this pledge being put into action is the company’s use of video conferencing facilities (originally based on Microsoft’s Surface Hub, now Teams Rooms).

Key to orchestrating ‘minimal travel’ meetings was that organisers should be able to easily locate and book multiple regional meeting rooms, at the same time as scheduling a Teams video conference.

Using a solution from Microsoft Partner Essential Computing, Wessex Water has been able to provide an enhanced workspace and resource booking system to its workforce.

In advance, staff can easily find rooms that have Teams conferencing facilities and book them along with any other resources such as catering and visitor parking, all in one go.

When in the office, digital room panels enable office users to see exactly what rooms are available and take advantage of any unused meeting spaces.

Reducing the Impact of Meeting Room ‘No Shows’

Another goal of investing in the solution was to reduce unused meeting rooms (for example, owing to ‘no shows’) and encourage people to be more responsible in managing their bookings to avoid empty meeting rooms.

By adding room screens screens outside key Teams rooms and other meeting spaces, staff at Wessex Water can now see ‘at a glance’ whether a room is free or about to become free.

James Eccles, from Wessex Water, commented,

“We had a historic problem of never being able to book a room, but whenever you walked round the building, you’d see empty meeting rooms. We wanted a system that had built in auto-cancellation and also a way to see a real-time display of room status and be able to sign into it on the fly if it was not being used.”

An RFID-card check-in facility means that if an ‘in person’ Teams meeting doesn’t go ahead for some reason (i.e. no-one shows up in person), the room can be automatically released for someone else to use.

Concluded Eccles,

“Since implementing our room booking system and digital display screens there’s definitely better utilisation of rooms. If people don’t need them they are proactively released for someone else to use. And, because you can see room capacity when you’re looking for a free room, people can now select a room that is more appropriate to their needs.

It’s also made the process of booking a Teams meeting and adding the Teams rooms so streamlined and easy. On the day of the meeting you just check into the room, walk in, sign into Teams when you’re ready, share your screen to people already dialled in, start drawing on the screen, send your email to all the participants, finish your session and check-out. It’s almost magical.”