In a world where the hybrid workplace is now a part of our working culture, teams are increasingly dispersed and separated by global boundaries. Unified communications is in many ways easier than it's ever been, but it’s crucial to have the right app to bring your people together - and even more important to have the right tools to monitor and troubleshoot.
Collaborative tools like Cisco's Webex Teams are the solution to creating a cohesive, streamlined UCC strategy.
In this blog we'll take a look at some of the key features of Cisco Webex Teams, and why it's used by enterprises globally as their primary UCC tool.
A short history of Webex
Cisco Webex Teams is a state-of-the-art and easy-to-use collaboration solution designed to provide simple solutions for teamwork and stay connected anytime, anywhere. Users can access its myriad features like file sharing, screen sharing, messaging, white boarding, meetings, and more. The application gives users the tools they need to work better and collaborate efficiently.
The Webex suite is a merger of Cisco's Webex web conferencing platform and the Cisco Spark team collaboration app. In April 2018, the services rebranded under Webex to centralize Cisco's collaboration portfolio.
Just like its major competitors Microsoft Teams and Zoom, Webex Teams is a state-of-the-art collaboration solution designed to provide simple solutions for teamwork, wherever your employees might be.
Read our guide to Cisco Webex troubleshooting here
Users can access its myriad features like file sharing, screen sharing, messaging, white boarding, meetings, Webex calling, hardware, and more. The application gives users the tools they need to work better and collaborate efficiently in today's constantly evolving working paradigm.
Cisco's Webex suite was designed to enable continuous teamwork, and better connection between co-workers, teams, clients, and customers, with enterprise-grade security features.
How does Cisco Webex Teams work?
Cisco Webex is geared equally well toward both small group collaboration for SMBs and large group meetings for enterprise-wide deployments.
Users can join video conferences from a desktop or mobile application. You can download Webex and use the web version, although more features are accessible on the other versions. Users and meeting participants can also share files and participate in team messaging features through both Cisco Webex Meetings and Webex Teams apps.
Cisco Webex Teams is a deep integration of a series of communication and collaboration apps that allow calling, instant messaging, file sharing or meetings from the one place - with users sharing the same interface and network. It's marketed as the complete collaboration experience without the need for add-ons or extras.
Image source: Webex Cisco help
Cisco Webex Teams core features
Cisco Webex Teams was designed with the core intention of providing effortless communication continuously from device to device, and from physical to virtual spaces.
Webex Meetings
In the meetings space, Webex Teams provides a ready-to-go platform for HD video and audio conferencing, from any device. You can create, share, collaborate and save documents, making it simple to organize, prepare for, host and then review contents from meetings, whether virtual, physical or a mix of both. You can access content and discussion threads in real time to grab information from different sources during meetings, and it's equally easy to review, follow up and distribute action points afterwards.
Webex Messages
Webex Teams includes an enterprise-class instant messaging (IM) engine which supports unlimited group and private messaging, file sharing and straightforward directory search for finding contacts. With the messages feature, you can chat with colleagues, and share content and ideas by sending a message to someone directly or to a group space.
Webex Calling
Webex Teams was designed to be fully compatible with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM) and Webex Calling. Existing Unified Communications Manager, Business Edition 6000 and 7000, and Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) customers can access all of the benefits and features of these systems while teams can make voice calls from within Webex Teams.
AI features empowering hybrid working
Cisco is making broad, sustained investments in audio intelligence to power the next generation of Webex with a range of features to make hybrid work more inclusive, supportive, and flexible. Given how natural and efficient it is to use voice commands - or natural language - to interface with machines to manage our day-to-day life, the use cases for speech AI have grown significantly.
The Webex voice assistant will allow you to control dial-in, volume control, mute functions and more.
Webex Teams for multiple devices
You can get the Webex Teams download for your computer, mobile device, or web browser for a seamless online user experience. Pair your app to a Webex device, such as the Webex Board, to do things like wirelessly control meetings. You can install it on multiple devices and switch between them hassle-free because the app automatically knows which device you're using. It makes content management easy because everything is stored in the cloud.
Webex Teams Cloud security
Webex Teams solves previous security issues, arising from guest accounts and accidental or deliberate sharing of company information. All Webex Teams users reside in a single, shared cloud instance, and each has a single account. There are no guest accounts. B2B collaboration is built in, so users can work with everyone, both inside and outside of the company, from the same application, without asking their IT guy for help. Companies can ensure that participants in their teams don’t share confidential information outside of the company, and if they do, it can be detected and remediated. Webex is the industry’s first Team Collaboration solution to deliver secure multicompany collaboration.
Is Webex Teams free?
Depending on what size business or budget, or what you'll be primarily using Webex Teams for - there's support for all users.
The free version allows:
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Unlimited team messaging
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Webex Teams video meetings for up to 3 users
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File sharing
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Making or receiving SIP calls
The added benefits of the paid version:
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Hosting larger video meetings for up to 200 participants (depending on subscription)
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Full control over who is invited to the meeting, as well as other moderator functions
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More enterprise level features including access to analytics and metrics
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More security features
Monitoring your Cisco Webex solutions
If you choose Webex Teams as your organization's collaboration endpoint, you'll want to ensure the best user experience possible. Performance issues can affect any collaboration platform, so it's vital that you have the right tools and performance data to monitor and troubleshoot video meeting quality, network performance, devices and services.
Deploying and maintaining a quality video conferencing solution like Webex Teams is only possible by monitoring system health. Gathering and analyzing data gives you insights into performance quality, improves user experience and allows technology managers proactive, reactive and decisive controls.
How IR Collaborate enhances Webex data
As a long-time Cisco partner, IR offers full support for your complete Cisco environment, including Webex, and can ensure optimization of Webex Teams by providing:
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Real time view of in-progress, historical and scheduled meetings
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End-to-end view of meeting transactions from overall statistics to individual user metrics
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Dedicated VIP User displays for both historical and in-progress meetings
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Quality metrics including Experience Quality 360 License metrics
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Multi-mode search capability to allow intuitive access to your information
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Access to in-progress and recently closed alerts in a single view
It’s now common knowledge that Cisco’s Prime Collaboration Assurance Analytics (PCA) tool has now reached its end-of-sale, so to keep your Cisco communications environment up and running, you need a tool that can not only do everything PCA does, but go above and beyond.
IR Collaborate can make your Cisco Prime migration painless and seamless, as well as adding priceless additional value by meeting the needs of your entire organization.
