5 Key Considerations for a Successful Microsoft Teams Rooms Implementation

The adoption of Microsoft Teams has grown since its inception, with the collaboration suite exceeding 280 million daily users in just six years since its launch. While the pandemic played a big role accelerating that growth, its market share is holding strong as organizations have come to rely on the platform’s ability to keep remote and hybrid teams connected.

One of the service’s most compelling features is Teams Rooms. A successful Microsoft Teams Room implementation provides physical meeting spaces with audio and video to connect onsite employees with their remote colleagues. These rooms improve collaboration across any distances and can be set up for anything from small, intimate stand-ups to large, all-hands meetings. 

A Teams Room deployment is highly customizable and can be configured to meet your company’s specific needs. Because of this, implementing Team Rooms requires some forethought and planning. 

Here are five key considerations you’ll need to make to get started:

1. State of Existing Infrastructure

Before you begin a Microsoft Teams Rooms implementation, start with a full assessment of your current network infrastructure and capabilities. You’ll need a fast and reliable network that has the bandwidth to support the video and audio streams used to enable real-time communication with offsite attendees. Remote employees will also need the right hardware at home to support Microsoft Teams. If your existing set up isn’t up to par, you’ll need to invest in upgrading that before you proceed.

2. Microsoft Teams Room Design and Equipment Selection

Consider your current space to identify the best locations for setting up Microsoft Teams Rooms. Take into account room size, furniture placement, noise-proofing and lighting. Plan out each room and its particular use case. This will help you choose the right equipment such as cameras, audio components , and interactive displays.

Below are some of the common Teams Room set ups:

Small Meeting Room

• Ideal for one or two people to have meetings with clients or remotely-based employees.
• Display: High-definition
• Camera: HD camera with wide-angle lens 
• Audio: Speakerphone or small conference microphone
• Control system: A tablet or other CPU for controlling meetings, or connections for employees to use their personal devices.

Medium-sized Meeting Room

• Designed for two to six employees to meet and collaborate virtually with clients and colleagues.
• Display: Large HD Display or  Interactive whiteboards are a nice addition here as well.
• Camera: PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) camera for flexible framing and zooming
• Audio: Ceiling or table microphones for improved audio pickup
• Speaker system: External speakers or soundbar for improved audio quality
• Control system: Tablet or touch panel with room scheduling integration

Large Conference Room/Boardroom:

• Suited for larger team meetings and high level internal or external business meetings. 
• Displays: Multiple large displays for better visibility from all angles with options for interactive displays or video walls
• Cameras: Multiple PTZ cameras for capturing different areas of the room
• Audio: Ceiling-mounted microphones or array microphones for optimal audio pickup
• Speaker system: High-quality speakers distributed across the room for immersive audio
• Control system: Advanced touch panel or console for managing meeting participation, presentations and room lighting.

3. Integration with Existing Collaboration Ecosystem

One of the best benefits of Teams Rooms, and a key ingredient in its explosive growth is its integration with existing Microsoft services like Outlook, M365, SharePoint and OneDrive, not to mention many third-party apps. This will allow users to access, share, and edit files during meetings and presentations. These integrations also make meeting scheduling and calendar management much more efficient.  Develop a plan for how you might make use of these features to get even more out of your Teams Rooms usage.

You should also know that Teams integrates with other collaboration platforms and cloud services, ensuring interoperability with communication platforms used by clients and prospects. 

4. User Experience and Training

As intuitive as the Teams Rooms experience is, you should expect that some user training will be required. Be sure all users are familiarized with the equipment and how to use it. Provide documentation on how to troubleshoot errors when they occur. Otherwise, make sure users know how to get in touch with the support team to respond when needed. 

5. Security and Privacy Considerations

As many small to medium sized businesses have moved more of their operations online and in the cloud, cyberattacks and scams have ramped up along with it. That’s why it’s vitally important that security and privacy are considered carefully when setting up Teams Rooms. The good news is that Microsoft Teams features state-of-the-art security compliance protocols such as two-factor authentication and single sign-on across all Microsoft services. You should always take additional steps to further protect your network from infiltration or fraud by using encryption, spam and virus detection, and other best practices. Keep your software and equipment up to date with the latest updates and patches

Ensure a Seamless Microsoft Teams Rooms Implementation with Yorktel

As you can see, setting up Microsoft Teams Rooms can be a complex task that requires planning and expertise. A trusted Microsoft solutions provider like Yorktel can help you hit the ground running with end-to-end implementation, starting with assessing your current infrastructure & design, all the way through installation and ongoing support and managed services. Schedule your consultation now to get started.