Smarter Working Archives - Poly Blog Command the Conversation Fri, 16 Dec 2022 23:26:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.3 2022 Year In Review: Finding the Hybrid Work Balance with Zoom https://blogs.poly.com/2022-year-review-hybrid-work-balance-zoom/ Tue, 20 Dec 2022 17:00:26 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=25225

This year gave organizations the opportunity to explore and shape what hybrid work feels and looks like. Companies across all industries were tasked with finding the perfect balance, from determining how many days employees should spend in the office to identifying the right mix of collaboration tools to support various work styles. We’ve all learned together that hybrid work at its best is fluid. We are so proud that IT leaders continue to trust us with helping their teams share ideas, collaborate, and stay connected no matter where they choose to use Zoom services.

This year we launched Zoom-certified solutions that give users the flexibility to show-up and get the job done in style. Here’s a look back on our innovations that unlocked seamless collaboration experiences for Zoom users.

Zoom Phone

As Zoom Phone grows beyond 4 million seats worldwide, we remain committed to offering a full range of enterprise-grade voice solutions that meet every budget. Check out these three product lines that we’ve thoughtfully engineered together with Zoom to deliver seamless hot-desking and home office experiences.

Poly Edge E series – Our most versatile phone to date packed with indispensable features, including some you didn’t even know you needed.

Poly Edge B series – Enjoy these ENERGY STAR® rated phones equipped with audio-enhancing technologies at a shockingly affordable price.

CCX Series – Certified Zoom Phone Appliances that power a native Zoom user interface. We were happy to expand our portfolio to include the CCX 400 and CCX 500 models. Hold tight for CCX 505 to join the batch in 2023!

 Zoom Rooms

One of this year’s standout innovations that leveled-up the hybrid work experience is Zoom Workspace Reservation which allows employees to easily book office meeting spaces on-site or remotely using an interactive map. At Zoom’s annual end-user conference, Zoomtopia, we announced TC10, a two-in-one touch panel for room scheduling and meeting control. The TC10 powering Zoom Workspace Reservation makes meetings more productive and allows users to easily schedule spaces and conference rooms, control Zoom calls in the room, and share content with one simple touch.

Alongside TC10, we announced Poly Studio Bundles for Zoom Rooms — our latest Windows-based solution powered by HP’s Mini Conferencing PC. This was our most memorable highlight of the year, as it was the first collaboration of Poly and HP coming together as one. More importantly, Zoom customers now have a complete portfolio of both Android-based and PC-based solutions for small, medium, and large-sized Zoom Rooms.

We Are Stronger Together

As the year comes to an end, it’s incredible to see how our shared passion for human connection can trailblaze a wave of innovation, design, and technology. Our many accomplishments this year serves as a reminder that teamwork makes the dream work. With 2023 right around the corner, I’m so excited to see how our partnership with Zoom will take hybrid work to new dimensions.

Zoomtopia Featured a CEO Fireside Chat

Hear from HP CEO Enrique Lores and Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan as they reflect on the power of human connection, the future of hybrid work, and work/life balance. The Zoomtopia 2022 Closing Keynote and Fireside Chat can be found here.

We look forward to what the Poly | HP and Zoom partnership will bring in the new year!

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Is Your Organizational Culture Limiting Your Hybrid Success? https://blogs.poly.com/organizational-culture-limiting-hybrid-success/ Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:00:31 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=25213

It’s easy to overfocus your return to office and hybrid work planning on space because it’s so visible. But ignoring an invisible factor – organizational culture – can undermine the best plans.

In fact, culture has been called “the top predictor of workplace satisfaction.” And recent research by Gallup found that companies with strong cultures ohttps://hbr.org/2017/01/what-matters-more-to-your-workforce-than-moneyutperform competitors by up to 33%.

Yet even before the pandemic, Gartner reported that while HR leaders felt they knew the culture needed to drive business performance in their organization, only 30% were confident that their desired culture was evident in their actual culture.

What may have been working when almost everyone spent most of their time in the office won’t work in a hybrid world. It’s no surprise then, that Gartner found 68% of executive teams are reevaluating their company’s culture for virtual and hybrid work.

What is organizational culture?

Culture can be described as the set of collective assumptions within an organization that guides attitudes, behaviors, and ways of working. It outlines how your company gets things done.

In the traditional office, a lot of behaviors that people thought defined culture were tied to the physical space and the activities that happened there. But culture isn’t a game room where different teams participate in ping-pong tournaments. It’s not free lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays, “no-meeting” Wednesdays, or quarterly Friday beer bashes in the parking lot.

Culture is the values and assumptions that these activities – and the company’s workflow, collaboration style, and how colleagues are expected to treat each other – should align to. And over the past year, the business world has seen the very public struggle as different organizations have reflected assumptions from “people can only be effective if they’re in the office” to “our people are so productive from wherever they are that we’re closing the office.”

Most organizations have settled on a hybrid working model that falls between these extremes, making it essential to reshape their culture for their new reality.

The power of connection

The secret power of a strong culture is that it makes employees feel connected to the company and to each other. That’s good for brand, good for the bottom line, and good for employee productivity, happiness, and retention.

But a December 2021 poll by Gartner found that only 1 in 4 hybrid/remote knowledge workers felt connected to their organization’s culture.

Clearly, it’s time to create cultures better suited to our current working world. And it’s time to acknowledge leadership’s role in creating and sustaining a successful culture.

A once-in-a lifetime opportunity

Achieving this kind of change requires a shared vision and direction that moves beyond tactics to take a clear stand on what the hybrid culture is, so that people know what they can rely on. If reinventing an organization’s culture is a significant challenge, it’s also a unique opportunity to redefine the business.

Bill Schaninger, a Senior Partner at McKinsey recently pointed out that “it’s rare in a leader’s lifetime to have such a clean drop for reshaping how you run the place.”

To help you make the most of this unprecedented moment,

Read The Journey to Hybrid Working: Hybrid Heaven or Hell? for key considerations in creating a culture that supports hybrid success.

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Hybrid Work Success Depends on Your Return to Office Strategy https://blogs.poly.com/hybrid-work-success-depends-on-your-return-to-office-strategy/ Tue, 16 Aug 2022 12:00:04 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24897

Many discussions about the future of the workplace focus on the element of remote workers, but the return to office is an essential building block for hybrid work. It’s also going more slowly than anticipated.

A spring 2022 survey of 160 major employers, conducted by The Partnership for New York City, found that more than 75% of firms are set to implement a hybrid model, but the larger the company, the slower the pace of return to office.

Why are things going so slowly? Because workers are unwilling to return.

A recent European survey found that on average 64% of workers are reluctant to return to the workplace, from a low of 56% in the Netherlands to a high of 83% in Ireland.

In the pre-pandemic world, things like game rooms, free snacks, and cool office design were used to create excitement among employees for being in the office. Today, these incentives have been replaced by HR policies, placemaking, and organizational design underpinned with a technical infrastructure that enables hybrid work.

THREE CONSIDERATIONS FOR CREATING A BETTER WORK ENVIRONMENT

The three most important elements to focus on in the return to office are people, spaces, and technology.

Meet employees’ changed expectations and attitudes. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Someone early in their career may want to be in more often for the camaraderie, while established workers with families may prefer to be in on as few days as possible. With the autonomy many employees developed through remote working, managers who feel employees need to be in the office to be micromanaged are a detriment. Take roles and function into consideration and make more granular decisions about what makes sense.

Recognize the role of place in building workplace culture. 66% of businesses are considering remodeling their company spaces for hybrid work. While many organizations clearly understand that the traditional approach to office space won’t work, it’s also important to take a new approach to the function of office space. As you redesign your space, consider how your new environment communicates your values and culture.

Animate your return to office with technology. Technology sets in motion the interactions that solve issues, generate new ideas, express culture, and bring colleagues together. From workplace apps that bring people together in the right place at the right time to immersive video conferencing experiences, technology repositions your office as an intelligent hub for remote and face-to-face collaboration.

TURN YOUR RETURN TO OFFICE INTO A RESET FOR THE LONG TERM

With hybrid work becoming our new reality, many organizations are struggling to tackle their return to office at a functional level, while missing the underlying culture, structure, and values necessary to support all employees.

To help you navigate a strong return to office that sets your company up to succeed as workplaces continue to evolve, Poly has partnered with the experts at WORKTECH Academy.  Our latest white paper combines key insights, with input from technical and design leaders, and real-world examples to help your return to office strategy create a strong foundation for hybrid working.

Read The Journey to Hybrid Working: A Reset For Return To Office?  to learn more research-based considerations about people, spaces, and technology in your return to office planning.

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Grant Thornton Deploys Poly Solutions to Upgrade Rooms For Microsoft Teams https://blogs.poly.com/grant-thornton-deploys-poly-solutions-to-upgrade-rooms-for-microsoft-teams/ Thu, 11 Aug 2022 15:00:32 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24868

Grant Thornton is a large accounting firm with over a hundred meeting rooms across Australia. Like many firms, they used the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic to upgrade and modernize their rooms.  They knew they needed to undertake a digital transformation journey to modernize, simplify and standardize their user experiences across many locations, while at the same time upgrading from Skype for Business to a native Microsoft Teams Solution.

They wanted their employees to collaborate as equals – whether they were working from home, on the go or in the office.  Their search was for a solution that would simply and easily replace their existing room systems without having to reinvent the wheel.

After researching the space in detail, Grant Thornton selected a suite of Poly systems to meet their needs.  The Poly Studio X30s they selected were more cost effective than the MTR options they reviewed, and they were so simple to install that they could manage the deployment internally – which also resulted in significant cost savings for the project.

Supplementing those, Poly Studio X50s and G7500s handled the larger and more complex rooms in the project.  Because all of these systems had the same user interface and firmware, Grant Thornton could standardize their user experience across all locations.  And, because they were all Android based appliances, they were able to easily slide into rooms to replace previously existing devices with only minor tweaks needed to existing automation and control systems.

“The complexity of our larger rooms with significant automation” provided an additional challenge, according to Carlo De-Fazio, Technology Officer at Grant Thornton.  “These rooms can sit between 20 and 250 people in any given video conference, and each individual room refit would have required significant investment to make it Microsoft Teams compatible.”

He explained that their research and comparisons quickly showed the Poly solutions to be the best option on the market.  “Not only was the cost of the [Poly] units less expensive than the Windows-based devices, but the installation was far simpler. Cabling locations, including various parts to the unit, were fewer, and the overall footprint was lighter,” said Carlo. “This meant we could do the installation ourselves, which not only saved money on the devices but the installation cost as well,” he added.

Over a series of months Grant Thornton started retrofitting the rooms themselves (with light touch support from their local vendors NQAV and Generation-e.)  “It became obvious how easy the device setup was, and the user experience was solid. Each month new features were added to the devices, and they quickly surpassed the Windows devices for feature parity” Carlo explained.  “The new rooms performed brilliantly. They look so professional, and our people have picked up the new interface very swiftly,” he highlighted.

“We saved millions of dollars and still had a premium finish” he explained.  However, he pointed out that in reality, “the saving was not as significant [to us] compared to how nice the new equipment is. The rooms look brilliant, and the devices were easy to setup. Overall, we could not be happier with our approach and outcome.”

Click above to hear Carlo explain in his own words.

When Grant Thornton looked for a solution that would allow their over fourteen-thousand employees to make hybrid working a seamless experience – no matter where they were working from – Poly systems were clearly the right answer.  To find out more about how Poly solutions can be the right answer for your organizations, and to learn about Poly’s unique, next-generation innovations like Poly Director AI and NoiseBlock AI, reach out to your local Poly representative.

SECURE A ONE-TIME DISCOUNT ON YOUR FIRST POLY MICROSOFT TEAMS ROOM

Poly is delighted to offer a unique, one-time discount on your first Microsoft Teams Room. This offer applies to both the Poly Studio Focus and Small/Medium Room Kits for Microsoft Teams Rooms.

For more information about Poly’s solutions for Microsoft Teams, contact a Poly representative or head to Poly.com!

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3 Ways Virtual Briefings Improve Your Productivity https://blogs.poly.com/3-ways-virtual-briefings-improve-your-productivity/ Tue, 09 Aug 2022 15:00:17 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24833

For companies and institutions around the world, the pressure is on to create a plan to bring in new technology to support the return-to-office and enable productivity for hybrid teams. Hybrid is a complex new model which constitutes a fundamental challenge in how we will work moving forward. According to Microsoft’s latest Work Trends Index from March 2022, 38 percent of the workforce are now hybrid workers (an increase of seven points since 2021) and more than half of all workers (53 percent) are likely to consider transitioning to hybrid work this year.

Along with this evolution of the workforce, we’ve seen a rapid change in the technology designed to solve the problems introduced with the shift to hybrid. New solutions are rapidly coming to market, including webcams and speakerphones designed for home offices, headsets for mobile workers and video conferencing solutions that enable organizations to retrofit office space for a new era of collaboration.

With all this new tech coming to market, it’s imperative to stay up to date on the latest solutions. One of the best ways to accomplish this is through the simplicity and speed of a virtual briefing at one of our Poly Experience Centers. Here are three ways that virtual briefings can improve your productivity and help ease the transition to hybrid work:

  1. Quick virtual demonstrations let you see new features and products. Short on time, but don’t want to miss out on the latest and greatest technology updates? With the click of a button, you can be connected to experts who give several technology demonstrations through an innovative virtual studio. In just 20 minutes, you’ll gain a good understanding of the benefits of the latest collaborative solutions.
  2. Ready for a more in-depth tour, but unable to travel to a Poly Experience Center? Get a customized virtual briefing! In 1-2 hours, you can receive a customized, in-depth virtual briefing that is tailored specifically for your collaboration needs. Poly’s sales leadership and technical experts will be on hand to answer your questions and explain the business benefits. These in-depth tours are especially great for multinational corporations or those with complex network and infrastructure requirements. Special NDA roadmap sessions with virtual demonstrations are also available.
  3. Host a virtual briefing event to educate your peers, partners and customers on the best solutions for hybrid work and return-to-office. If you have stakeholders in different locations, you can help them gain a faster, better understanding of collaborative technology solutions through a virtual briefing event. These don’t demand a big budget or long planning cycles—in 1-2 weeks, we can help you set up a nationwide virtual briefing event. The sessions can be coordinated and co-hosted with specific ecosystem and alliance partners, such as Microsoft, Zoom or Tencent Meeting, to best suit your environment and collaboration needs.

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to talk to Poly experts and see more hybrid work solutions during these live, highly productive virtual sessions. A virtual briefing is an excellent step toward finding the ideal solution for your organization’s needs and workstyles. To schedule a personalized demonstration, contact your Poly Account Manager or Partner.

For more information, visit the Poly Experience Program page on our website.

Chan Chen is Poly’s Experience & Demonstration Lead for the Asia Pacific region.

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Desk Phones for the Home Office – An IT Nightmare? https://blogs.poly.com/desk-phones-for-the-home-office-an-it-nightmare/ Mon, 08 Aug 2022 15:00:04 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24814

Remote working is what most people are now used to. That may be 100 percent remote or a few days per week as offices are re-opening. But what about the communications tools that remote workers were ‘used to’ even before Covid days? Those they feel make them as productive as possible, like the familiar desk phone. Poly’s latest persona research shows that 25 percent of enterprise employees still expect desk phones for home use. This can be a deployment, configuration, and maintenance nightmare for IT – just adding to the hybrid working chaos. Fear no more…

Poly is pleased to help tame the IT chaos with the CCX 505, the latest addition to our CCX Business Media Phone line with easy built-in Wi-Fi connectivity that is simple to connect and simple to use – perfect for the home office.

Remote Working is Tough:

A major challenge for remote working is feeling confident when in meetings and taking calls. The ideal work environment definitely doesn’t include the loud background noise or lack of connectivity that often come with a home office. These are the common pain points that Poly is dedicated to solving for remote workers, and that’s where the CCX 505 Business Media Phone comes in.

With award-winning audio technology such as Poly HD Voice and Poly Acoustic Clarity, users hear every nuance, voice inflection and social audio que, so they can communicate with confidence. Of course, those on the other end of the call or meeting need to hear clearly also. Fortunately, Poly’s Acoustic Fence and NoiseBlock AI eliminate distracting background noise, so one never has to worry about an untimely doorbell or pet.

The CCX 505 at Home

The CCX 505 would typically be considered an in-office communication tool. However, with the easy built-in Wi-Fi connectivity and advanced technology, it is a go-to selection for home desk phones. (Just be sure to pick up an accessory power supply, since the CCX 505 comes with a Power Over Ethernet cable by default.)

The CCX 505 features a five-inch color touchscreen—just one tap and you have access to all your contacts, meetings and settings. All CCX phones run on the Poly UC Software, powered by Android 9, providing an ever-evolving platform with features that can be updated via the cloud. Android 9 is already set to update in advance of our Microsoft Teams certification renewal, which is detailed in this Poly article.

The CCX 505 easily pairs with Poly headsets for hands free flexibility. The choice in USB ports, with a USB A and USB C both available on one desk phone, allows users to plug in their preferred headset or tether your phone to the laptop, using it as a speakerphone with a handset.

The CCX Family

The CCX 505 is the most recent model to join the Wi-Fi club, but the CCX family has a product for any workstyle or persona. The CCX 600 and CCX 700, for example, feature larger screens to better meet the needs of management teams or a Connected Executive. The CCX 700 in particular offers an integrated camera, which aligns best with those who require video through Zoom and other service providers. Although our CCX 505 works great with your team’s Remote Collaborator, if you don’t need a touchscreen interface, the Poly VVX 250, VVX 350 and VVX 450 are also great options that can be Wi-Fi enabled by adding a Poly USB Wi-Fi adapter.

How to Purchase the CCX 505 IP Phone

The CCX 505 is available in August so give your service provider a call and encourage them to make the switch! Or take some time and visit our Poly Desk Phones page to learn more about the CCX line.

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Taking the Leap: A Poly Intern Experience https://blogs.poly.com/taking-the-leap-a-poly-intern-experience/ Fri, 05 Aug 2022 15:00:45 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24794

The opportunity to experience professional work in the tech industry and the different career paths within it helps upcoming talent enter the workforce informed and inspired. Internships are one of the most comprehensive ways to gain this experience, and this year, Poly welcomed 54 interns from across the United States. Christine Zhou, who worked as a marketing intern on Poly’s Zoom Alliance team, participated remotely, and she shares how the internship at Poly has impacted her and her peers.

A Poly Intern Experience: Christine Zhou

From the very first day of my internship, I was excited to learn how to be a better communicator, pick up leadership skills and work with Zoom, a household name. Now, as I approach my last day, I realize I have gained all of those and so much more. My biggest takeaways from this incredible 10-week internship experience are connection, development and celebration.

Creating Memorable Connections

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Poly interns had the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with executives and the CEO himself. These leaders shared insights into their role and career journeys across our conference and personal rooms. With Poly technology, no comments were left unheard, so our chats felt very interactive—even to a remote intern, like me.

As part of my marketing role, I collaborated daily with creative and technical teams on a global scale. I networked with Zoom colleagues and even coordinated Poly’s presence at this year’s Zoom Education Summit. Each intern’s networking journey is different, but everyone I connected with was open and welcoming, no matter how packed their calendars were!

A Business Analyst intern in the Global Customer Solutions Teams, Behnoosh Sethna, explains, “The Friday Intern Brown Bag Lunch was a wonderful way to network with other interns and peers in an informal setting, in which we tend to share more about ourselves. Having it on a Friday helped us wind down after the week and share our learnings with one another.”

Professional Development

Throughout my internship experience, I explored Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and networked with Poly employees who gave me great advice for navigating the tech industry. One of my learning highlights was the Rapid Intern Development & Education (RIDE) series. My favorite session was the Past Intern Panel in which current Poly employees shared how the internship program helped them flourish and shape their careers. Other session topics included Poly product training, Microsoft Teams tips and tricks and career management.

Bobbie Burton, a Learning & Organizational Development intern agreed, “The RIDE sessions have been super helpful in getting to know Poly, the people at Poly and how to be successful as young, emerging professionals. I especially enjoyed the session on how to strategically manage and navigate a professional career, which was led by Deborah Rousseau, the US Intern Program Manager, and LaTorsha Hill, Senior Director Talent Management and Talent Acquisition. In addition, I have truly valued the opportunities to ask questions about employees’ professional journeys and to learn about the various functions within the organization.”

Celebrating Interns!

At Poly, having fun is part of work. Interns participated in virtual scavenger hunts, volunteer day and a desk decorating challenge. The “Westminterns” in Colorado claimed the desk decorating title by transforming their cubicles and conference room into a Hawaiian paradise.

At the end of the internship, we will all share presentations covering our contributions and takeaways to highlight our diverse goals, achievements and the lessons we’ve learned. It’s awesome that so many Poly employees from across various teams plan to show up to support and celebrate our work.

Onward and Upward

Something I learned from Gloria Loredo, Poly’s Chief Transformation Officer, is that life isn’t linear or predictable. It’s so true. Every day at Poly contained a new surprise and experience—it made summer fly by. No matter where our group of interns end up in our careers, we’re leaving with lasting bonds, wisdom from employees and newfound skills to help us face the future of work in the tech industry and beyond.

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The Latest in Hybrid Meetings from Dialpad and Poly https://blogs.poly.com/the-latest-in-hybrid-meetings-from-dialpad-and-poly/ Wed, 20 Jul 2022 15:00:11 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24722

Last December, we introduced a native Dialpad Meetings app experience for our Poly Studio X series—the latest step in the growing partnership between Dialpad and Poly. Together, we’ve continued to develop and enhance our offerings, and we’re excited about what’s coming next.

Let’s take a look at how far Dialpad and Poly have come with Dialpad Meetings for Rooms and what’s in store for the days ahead.

The Road so far for Hybrid Meetings

We’ve made solid progress since Dialpad Meetings for Rooms launched. Not only has there been plenty of demand and early adoption—especially with existing Dialpad Meetings customers—but customers have also chosen to upgrade their old devices. Their new Poly devices help them easily and fully leverage the solution for their web conferencing needs.

As Dialpad customers transition their workforces back to the office (or adopt a hybrid work environment), they’ve begun deploying room hardware. In fact, the rise of hybrid work has made room hardware more important than ever, as it helps connect in-office and remote employees in a way that makes it feel like everyone’s in the same room.

And it’s no wonder why customers are choosing Dialpad Meetings for Rooms! After all, it can be set up and launched in minutes, and joining meetings just takes a click. Dialpad Meetings is designed for efficient hybrid collaboration, so you can start or join meetings instantly from any device.

From there, you can enjoy Poly’s immersive audio and video capabilities, making it feel as if all participants are in the same room. It comes complete with next-gen beamforming microphones and Poly’s NoiseBlockAI to help you clearly hear everyone in the room without distractions.

All the while, Dialpad AI provides real-time transcriptions, so every note you need is available in an instant. You can even use the Miro integration to set up a digital whiteboard for everyone to collaborate on, regardless of your location.

What’s next?

We have plans for future capabilities that will help make meetings better, easier and more equitable for both participants in the room and those joining remotely. These include:

  • New mobile controller options, so it’s even easier to join meetings from personal devices.
  • Additional controls for the TC8, designed to make the in-room experience smoother and more efficient.
  • New AI upgrades to streamline workflows.
  • New devices to expand the hardware portfolio, including the upcoming Poly Trio C60.

Whether you’re communicating between office locations or joining from the comfort of your home, Dialpad and Poly will be there to create the greatest meeting experience possible. To learn more about Dialpad Meetings for Rooms, visit Dialpad.com

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Poly Device Mode Delivers Flexibility in Meeting Rooms https://blogs.poly.com/poly-device-mode-delivers-flexibility-in-meeting-rooms/ Mon, 18 Jul 2022 15:00:48 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24670

Poly has been innovating in the video conferencing space for years with a long track record of being first to market with new features that deliver an immersive, engaging meeting experience. Over the past few years, we’ve introduced several innovative features to our video portfolio as part of our DirectorAI smart camera technology including group framing, speaker framing, presenter tracking and our recently announced people framing mode.

While these features help to deliver on our vision of Meeting Equality by ensuring remote participants have an engaging experience, it’s also critical that those who do come into the office have a seamless experience in the conference room. Today we’re excited to announce the availability of Device Mode on Studio X70, now available on the entire Poly Studio X suite, to provide our customers with the flexibility to use their PC or Mac to control the meeting experience.

Device Mode delivers on another crucial aspect of meeting equality by providing end users who do come back into the office with the flexibility and intuitive, familiar features and apps they’re used to on their personal laptops.

Connecting to the Room System with Device Mode

Poly Device Mode enables you to use the room system’s camera, speaker, microphone, and connected monitors from your computer via easy connection through the participant’s PC or Mac over a simple USB connection.

Once you connect the room system to your computer with a USB cable, you can benefit from the video system’s camera and audio features when using any video app from your computer. For example, instead of using your computer’s camera for Microsoft Teams calls, connect the Studio X30 and use its 4K camera. You also gain a Poly echo-canceling microphone and speaker technology during calls.

Poly Studio X video bars have built-in apps that provide native support to the top cloud video services. Now, Device Mode allows users to extend support to other cloud video services running on their laptops, providing a more interoperable experience.

For example, let’s say your organization uses Zoom for most of your calls but sometimes needs to connect to other platforms. Device Mode allows you to experience a rich, native full-featured Zoom Rooms experience for most calls, then quickly switch to nearly ANY other cloud video service for the occasional “other” or guest scheduled meeting.

On top of that, Device Mode is easily enabled on Studio X30, Studio X50 and Studio X70 (With an update to 3.12 release), and G7500, and can be selected on a TC8 touch controller from a right-side swipe.

Upgrade to Poly Video OS Version 3.12

In order to utilize these features and more, we recommend upgrading to the Poly Video OS version 3.12, which is now available and can be updated using Poly Lens or the system’s web interface. Read our Poly Video OS 3.12 release notes to learn more about what’s included in our recent software release.

For more information reach out to the Poly team today or visit Poly.com!

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Operational Excellence through Remote Monitoring https://blogs.poly.com/operational-excellence-through-remote-monitoring/ Thu, 14 Jul 2022 15:00:43 +0000 https://blogs.poly.com/?p=24634

As employees return to the office, often adopting a hybrid working model, there is increasing pressure on IT to move beyond a break-fix model to keep teams at peak performance. Employees are relying on IT to help them be at their best, deliver results, stay in the flow and communicate effectively. Employees want to enjoy the experience of being back in the office with their co-workers, have the time to catch up and chat, and not worry about the technology in the meeting room they have booked.

Poly Remote Monitoring is designed for customers that want to provide proactive support to end-users. Even if you have the skillset to fix issues sometimes monitoring the status of meeting room devices can seem like a full-time challenge. Poly Remote Monitoring provides multi-vendor support and can monitor devices from leading vendors, including those that are native Zoom or Microsoft Teams. It’s a scalable, cloud-based, multi-tenant solution, based on ITIL framework and backed by global Poly services capabilities.

The service sets you up with data gathering tools that expertly monitor your collaboration and infrastructure environments and provides remote proactive and predictive monitoring to reduce outages so that you can concentrate on correcting and adjusting devices before problems occur. Poly will notify you of any potential problems and offer simple automated alerting and integration into your existing ticketing systems so you have time to resolve the issue before it causes any disruption to employees’ meetings.

There are three parts to our room-based Remote Monitoring platform which you can see in our 15-minute demonstration:

  1. Dashboard that monitors current events and provides real-time information on the health of your organization’s collaboration devices – all devices, infrastructure, video, and audio endpoints. The dashboard includes a section that displays the top ten issues for you to be aware of, e.g. network latency or a problematic device that needs looking at.
  2. Notifications that you can set up. You can configure alerts via email or via an optional ServiceNow integration – which sends you a notification if an issue is detected in real-time such as problems with memory, CPU utilization, packet loss or if the device is no longer reachable.
  3. Reporting is created on demand and downloadable in Excel format and you can look at things such as availability, packet loss, unique events, a summary of your device estate, and utilization.

The Benefits of Remote Monitoring

  • Significant cost reductions together with increased operational efficiency ‒ saves you the expense and complexity of building and managing an in-house built monitoring solution. Leverages Poly’s extensive experience in managing real-time communications systems and a rule set developed over a decade to eliminate false positives and just alert those issues which require attention.
  • Ensures efficient network infrastructure control and management – monitor devices, networks and endpoints quickly and painlessly – you only need to get involved if there is a potential problem.
  • Clear insights – dashboards providing advanced and intuitive reporting capabilities.
  • 24×7 continuous monitoring in real-time – multiple locations provide you the flexibility to scale globally are all monitored using the same best practices and using the Poly remote team means that your own staff doesn’t have to be onsite 24×7.
  • Reductions in time to resolve an incident ‒ your systems are remotely monitored and you are alerted of any potential problems with enhanced issue identification and information which you can then monitor more closely and take preventative/corrective action before it becomes a major issue.
  • Improvements in customer satisfaction and adoption ‒ by being proactive you can save downtime and reduce end-user dissatisfaction; end users will be more likely to book office-based collaboration solutions if they have a seamless experience.
  • Security – by using a locally hosted collector which sends traffic one way (outbound) only, the solution is inherently secure and is typically quickly approved by your IT Security team.
  • Increased productivity ‒ The IT team can resolve issues more quickly and end users don’t have to report the issue and wait for it to be fixed, costing hours in productivity as the IT team is already on it and can reassign alternative meeting rooms/systems if required.

With 24/7 Poly Remote Monitoring, you are set up with the data gathering tools that expertly monitor your collaboration and infrastructure environments, enabling you to quickly get to the root of the problem and effectively resolve it.

Learn More

To see if Poly Remote Monitoring is the right managed service for you download our infographic, watch a one-minute introduction video, read our brochure, and learn more about the complete range of Poly Managed Services.

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