General Optical Council’s deployment of Microsoft Teams Rooms optimises hybrid working

Symity optimised hybrid work spaces for the General Optical Council in their London office, utilising Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Name / Business: The General Optical Council (GOC)

Locations: London HQ office

Service: Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) video conference deployment, upgrading existing meeting rooms to full hybrid workspaces with the installation of new MTR systems in each space.

• Symity was tasked with Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) video conference deployment into the GOC’s head office in London. This included upgrading existing meeting
  rooms and a training room to full hybrid workspaces with the installation of new MTR systems in each space.
• The GOC’s Hearing room was also part of the remit with the aim being to upgrade the existing AV system and add full Teams video conference capability. The primary requirement being for clear, high-quality audio and video for all participants both in the room and remotely joined.
• Symity worked closely with GOC through consultation, demonstration and final design phases with particular emphasis throughout on reusing existing equipment where possible
  (cost saving), adhering to modern workplace accessibility requirements and leaving the client with a more intuitive and reliable user experience – all within a defined budget.

• Symity installed high-quality Yealink MTR systems paired with professional Sony displays in both the training room and standard meeting rooms providing a familiar and easy-to-use hybrid solution for staff working in the office or collaborating from home.
• In the Hearing Room, the same Yealink MTR base system was installed to offer user consistency across the site, with the addition of a customised AV system.
  • The key element being a Televic wireless, multi delegate, conferencing system offering individual, high-quality audio capture for all participants in the room.
  • Combined with a QSC audio DSP this allowed all delegates to be easily heard, when required, both in the room and by far end participants.
  • Elements of the existing AV system, deemed to be in good working order, were able to be reused providing the client a substantial cost saving on the project.
  • The incumbent control system hardware was also re-used but with the control code and control touch panel GUI redesigned to give a cleaner and simpler user interface for staff.

The result was an overall refresh of the office AV, video enabling several of the GOC meeting rooms and the training room. This allows staff to join Teams calls in groups for a better meeting experience and a more flexible system in the training room for different types of calls (i.e., normal Teams conference calls, presentations, and training sessions).

The Hearing room benefitted from a full AV refresh, bringing this important GOC resource back up to a high-quality, usable space.