TPO Magazine 2013 - Implementing B2B Videoconferencing: Consider the Ballerina

7/28/2019 TPO Magazine 2013 - Implementing B2B Videoconferencing: Consider the Ballerina

1/7Summer 2013 1

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IMPLEMENTING VIDEO THAT WORKS

Want to improve your B2B videoconferencing?

Consider theBaleiaBYREBEKAH ALLENDEVAUX


3/7Summer 2013 25

The ballerina the danseuse, the prima ballerina. o theaudience, she is grace itsel, owing with seeminglyefortless poise and practiced renement. But behindeach minute o owing charm and striking beauty are

hours o choreography, tedious planning, sweltering recitals, and

plain hard work.

Developing a B2B service is a bit like that.

eaching ballet is now 12+ years behind me, but as I helpbusinesses design overall video programmes or best practises,the goal is the same: to create a superlative service that delightsthe eye through careul disciplines and process controls.

When you select a tried technology, you bring a sound solutionto your enterprise users, right? Wrong. You can purchase agood technology and totally ail with your ofering i you do notimplement best practice controls. More about this shortly.

But rst, consider this list o areas that comprise many enterprisevideo oferings today:

network and security architecture; UC inrastructure and endpoints; mobility and groupware integration; control and monitoring systems; conerence management & remediation processes; device on-boarding practices; schedulingandadhoc,etc...

For each area, there are best industry practices, and thesepractices are called Playbooks. For example, theres a schedulingplaybook, a meeting management & remediation playbook, acontrol and monitoring playbook, etc. Te collection o theseplaybooks together comprise the over-arching video serviceprogramme.

It is the video services programme (sometimes called the vnocservices programme) that looks so innocent. But beware the

video services programme quickly becomes the deciding actoras to whether or not your service will be a smashing hit, or anchec a ailure.

Why? Your network can be clean, the inrastructure conguredcorrectly, the groupware integrated properly; but without a videoservices programme, your service delivery will be unpredictable.It will disappoint users. Guaranteed. oward this end, lets discussthe video services programme a little deeper, and then we canexamine the playbook specically or B2B and B2C activities.

The Video Services Programme

What does a video services programme do? It predenes therules o engagement in any given circumstance, bringingpredictability, continuity, and repeatability to your ofering.

Without it, the only consistency will be inconsistency your customers will receive superb service on one day anddisappointing service on another. Ive seen this happen again andagain with both service providers and enterprises alike.

So what items are predened? It depends on the area (networkplaybook, scheduling playbook, B2B playbook, etc.). But hereare a ew topics dealt with rom a list o many hundred spanningmultiple playbooks.

call ows and prioritizations or answering the phone at theservice desk;

remediation ows between service desk levels and theinormation to record in help desks;

predened actions what to do when certain things occur; predened thresholds o acceptable and unacceptable quality; customized notication lists or escalations; backup plans or outages;

contact inormation or third parties and ticketing; conrmation or ticket ormats or message bodies; and VIP meeting raming when it involves telepresence

vs. other congurations.

Tese are just a ew examples. Essentially, the video serviceprogramme determines what should occur given anycircumstance, and it should attempt to automate as much aspossible depending on the technology being used.

Once each playbook is shaped, each becomes part o the overallvideo service programme; also the playbook make an excellent

curricula or training new hires.

Focusing on B2B and B2C

Below is an excerpt o helpul tips rom a B2B and B2C playbookFeel ree to use these tips to improve your service ofering.

1Build a Staging Room or VIP Meetings. For high prolemeetings, one o the biggest disruptors o a proessionalmeeting is the annoyance that participants create

themselves. Tis can reect badly on the managed servicesorganization, even though the problem is created by the meetingparticipants. For example, its astounding that some users dial

into meetings as audio participants rom their vehicles withradios playing loudly, sending disruptive noise into everytelepresence and group system alike.

It is recommended that the service organization create a meetingroom attended by a concierge to validate the qualities o theconnection. In doing this, participants may be greeted andqualied; the attendant may recommend that the user muteones mobile phone unless speaking into the meeting. Once theuser is reminded o muting etiquette, the attendant should movethe participant into the meeting seamlessly, minimizing anydisruption that may have otherwise occurred.


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5/7Summer 2013 27



2Use Multiplicity in Invites or Connection Details.Diferent endpoints use diferent dialling patterns. Whensending the invite, considering including several dialling

structures per the example below:

Meeting Invite Connection DetailsDepending on your endpoint and confguration, use oneo the dialing patterns to connect to your meeting:

Video Dialing Instructions:[email protected]; [email protected]; or22.22.22.22##85001

Audio-only Dialing Instructions:US +1 212 555 8179 PIN 432343#UK +44 (0)77343 384 243 PIN 432343#

By providing multiple dialling strings, a service organization haslikely avoided a technical support call that would have occurred,saving time and money. But more importantly, the organizationhas avoided rustration to a user, saving reputational currency.

3Include an International Technical Support Number.Oen missed by North American service organizations isan international phone number or users to call.

For example, a user in Korea might see this technical supportnumber listed: 512-555-1212. Little do they know that thisnumber is actually +1-512-555-1212. Te +1 routes the call toNorth America by IU PSN ormat. Otherwise, the numberused in this example could be misunderstood or the countrycode o Peru. Always ormat help desk numbers with aninternational string.

4Give Attention to the Call Speed. One organization maybe accustomed to launching calls at 2 Mbps and anotherat 0.5 Mbps. Agree in advance to the call speed along

with a lower call speed should packet loss occur. est the callspeeds, especially i the connection is carried over the commonInternet. Remember that a successul test at 8:00am may notyield the same results at 4:00pm. Have a backup plan shouldpacket loss degrade the image. Down-speeding is oen the rstchoice, and newer systems may do this automatically, but many

algorithms slowly increase the bit rate until packet loss occursagain, creating oscillations throughout the meeting o goodvideo, lossy video, and back to good video again over and over.So sometimes manually setting the call speed at each end basedon testing is the better approach.

Be prepared to move the call to another room in the samebuilding should a problem occur with equipment or theconnection. And always have a last resort plan (audio-only) toofer the user should an unavoidable problem surace.

5

Establish Primary & Secondary Endpoint Contacts.What happens when theres no response rom the

ar end? It is important to have at least two contactsassociated with each group room system should a problemarise. I theres a database, populate the database with a primarycontact and a secondary contact, including both oce andmobile phone numbers. Always collect email addresses andpresence inormation or real-time communication. Youll beglad you did when an endpoint or a monitor is mistakenly ofand the meeting is in the setup window.

6Create a Call Setup Window Based on EndpointQuantity. Some meetings may not be able to haveany call setup window, and the 2:00pm meeting gets


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launched exactly at 2:00pm. In this dynamic, when a problemoccurs, its oen visible because people are already in themeeting and troubleshooting starts with everyone watching.But when possible (especially or VIP B2B meetings), it isrecommended that a setup window be included to minimisedistraction and ensure a meeting is setup on-time or themeetings start time.

7Remove MCU and Endpoint Timers. Oen an endpointor MCU has a maxCallime setting that limits thelength o a call. I an endpoint reaches this limit, the site

will disconnect itsel usually by logging a normal call clearingprocedure or unspecied Q931, giving the impression thatsomeone intended to disconnect the call. Worse yet is whena bridge has this setting in place at the conerence level or thebridge level, and the entire meeting is unexpectedly torn down.Ensure the endpoints are not set to maxCallime=90 or someother setting that will not survive the meeting length (normallypart o the on-boarding playbook). Similarly ensure the videobridge does not have a conerence room or meeting room thatexpires prior to the length o the conerence.

8Will Mobile Video Users Be Participating? Te base omobile video users is rapidly growing with increasinglyequipped smartphones and tablets. Tese devices appear

convenient and seemingly innocent, but beware! An iPad orAndroid can be powerul i managed well, but humbling i not.

Heres why: Packet loss and audio challenges may pervade thesewireless devices more so than other video systems dependingon the users uctuating environment. I numerous users joinmeetings in this manner, are they participants or observers? Iobservers, consider creating a secondary meeting room just or

mobile users, and cascade the mobile meet-me room into theprimary meeting. By doing this, it is easy to block audio rom themobile users rom entering the primary meeting.

As a disclaimer, I am not saying that mobile users should betreated as second class video citizens, but the mobile usermay inherently exit and return to the same meeting ar morerequently than traditional video users depending on wirelesspacket loss. Tis can be extremely distracting. Tese policiesare set to help the meeting maintain order. I a mobile user is aprimary participant, make an exception or that participant tocall into the primary meeting.

9Profle and Certiy B2B Endpoints. Proling is theact o building a database record or a video user oran endpoint, containing all relevant inormation to

successully connect to the user/endpoint.

Certiying is the act o connecting to a user or endpoint andvalidating the qualities o the service both qualitatively andquantitatively. Teres a ew chapters o inormation relevant todoing this correctly, but be certain to do it. I you need help, letme know. Whatever database one use, be certain to have ullaccess to that inormation, and be certain to prole and certiyB2B endpoints, especially those used by a VIP.

10Coordinate Service Desk Coverage. Te natureo B2B conerencing can mean that more thanone service desk may be involved with a single

conerence. Company X may have its service desk in place,providing coverage to their users; likewise Company Y may dothe same. Be certain both service desks are aware o a conerencethat employs resources rom each.

11Deem One Organization as Primary. When B2Bconerences are launched, there may be two vnocmanaged service entities involved; deem one

organization as primary (i possible) with the responsibility tomanage most aspects o the conerence. Usually the entity withthe most endpoints should take that role, or perhaps the entitymanaging the bridge should be that primary organization.

Avoid cascading bridges i possible, especially betweenorganizations, unless it is purposeully done as in the case obuilding a mobile meet-me room. I this cannot be done, ollowsome simple rules that both organizations agree to test and ollowin advance. TPO

SummaryOnce you determine the B2B playbook (the rules o engagement)that your service organization will systematically ollow, ensureeveryone has read the playbook and is trained in these processes.Dening these processes up ront will provide elegance andpredictability to your service, and it will give users condence inyour service ofering.

I hope this section helps you improve the B2B & B2C oferingo your visual collaboration service.

I you havent created an overall video service programmeor your entire UC ofering, that is a must that should get ull

attention. Call or write i you need help with any part o it.I wish you the best with your B2B programme. Like we saybeore the live ballet perormance is underway mrde! TPO

ABOUT THE AUTHORRebekah AllendeVaux is a

consultant with the Human

Productivity Lab specializing in

helping organizations to build

Video Network Operations Centers

(VNOCs), develop their VNOCpersonnel, generate specic

playbook workfow processes,

manage RFP generation and

bid management, and provide

VNOC service curriculum and

training. Ms. AllendeVaux was

ounder and president o Iormata

Communications, a leading VNOC

managed service provider that was

acquired by Silver Lake Sumerus

AVI-SPL in 2012. Ms AllendeVaux

has built scalable VNOC oerings

or both mainline service providers

as well as many Fortune 1000

enterprises, memorializing these

into video service programmes or

process control, automation and

measurement.

Ms AllendeVaux works in London

and can be reached at Rebekah@

HumanProductivityLab.com
http://www.humanproductivitylab.com/en/Rebekah-AllendeVauxhttp://www.humanproductivitylab.com/http://www.humanproductivitylab.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.humanproductivitylab.com/http://www.humanproductivitylab.com/http://www.humanproductivitylab.com/en/Rebekah-AllendeVaux

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TPO Magazine 2013 - Implementing B2B Videoconferencing: Consider the Ballerina