Guide for Teach First IT: how to use the Poly Studio for Conferencing
This guide helps you set up a meeting with the Poly Studio technology. It’s based on ‘Microsoft Teams’ as our organisation’s communication tool of choice. The camera and sound system built into the Poly Studio acts as a person, bringing sound and vision from the meeting room space into your online meeting so all your attendees in remote or external can see attendees in the room and what they are saying etc.
However, if you do not need this capability, you can still book the room and use your own laptop to facilitate your own meeting.
Last update: 27/06/2024
**Please note**: Only the meeting rooms listed below, have this kit installed as of June 2024.
• London 01
• London 02
• London 03
• London 04
• London 05
• London 07
• London 08
• London 09
• London 10
• London Event (Room 09 & 10 as one)
• Birmingham 02-G20
These rooms are equipped with a ‘Poly tablet’ installed on the desk, which controls the meeting capabilities to dial-in participants internally and externally and, to join the conference call scheduled in your MS Teams/Outlook.
The Poly tablet works with the camera, speaker and microphone mounted on top of the TV screen. Tab the screen tablet with your finger and the TV Samsung screen should wake up automatically. If not, you will need to turn on the TV with the remote control supplied. (Fig. 1) and change the source channel (HDMI 1, HDMI 2 or HDMI 3)
The room number in the top left and your booked meetings on the right-hand side.
Fig. 1
If the correct HDMI source is selected (HDMI 1, HDMI 2 & HDMI 3) you will see the screen displayed in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2
Please note: This is a conferencing system designed for ‘face-to-face’ collaboration between teams, department, or groups. It is not a system designed to imitate Teams software application. If you need to screenshare your Teams application that is not working for you, you’ll need to experiment with a HDMI cable setup in most meeting rooms. The HDMI cable connects directly to the TV when you connect it to your laptop. You will need to change the Source channel with the TV remote control.
Step-by-step guide
You can make Teams meeting bookings either in ‘Outlook Desktop app’ or the
Outlook Web App (OWA). You will need to add the name of the meeting room to your meeting,
e.g., London 07.
Content
(A) Outlook Desktop
Version
(B) Outlook Web App
(OWA) Version
(C) Inviting More
Participants
(D) Managing External
Participants without Teams
(E) Managing
Participants Access
(F) Using the Poly Tablet to Join a Teams Meeting
(G) Content Sharing (with sound)
(H) Ending the call on
the Poly Tablet.
(A) Outlook Desktop version
Create a Teams Meeting
In Outlook, go to ‘calendar’ and select ‘New Teams Meeting’. (Fig. 2)
Fig. 2
Add Meeting Room
To add the room and required participants, click on ‘Required’, then in the pop-up box,
make sure you change the ‘Global Address list’ from ‘Offline Global Address list’ to
‘Global Address List’ (Fig. 3)
In the Search box, Type the room you wish to book you know is available i.e., London 02 and hit ‘enter’. Then
add any additional participants to the meeting, select date, time of the meeting.
Fig. 3
The room will be shown with a ‘green tick’. Check all meeting details are
correct and hit ‘Send’ (Fig.4)
Fig. 4
* If you do not know of any room availability you can use the Room Finder.
Select Room Finder. It will show you room availability based on the time meeting date:
Just select the room that says Available and it will drop this to your meeting invite.
Note: Please be aware when your recipients have accepted your invite, any future changes to the room you wish to change will require you to re-send the invite and the recipient must accept the new invite. Also, if you forget to add the any meeting rooms but all your recipients have already joined your meeting, you will need to do the followings:
* you must add the new meeting rooms and re-send the meeting invite. All attendees must accept the new changes.
* all the attendees must leave the current Teams session and join the new meeting invite.
(B) Outlook Web App (OWA) Version
Create a new event
Go to ‘Calendar’ > Double click in the Time period you wish to book or ‘right click’
anywhere on that day and select ‘New Event’
Select your date and time. In the ‘Search for a room or location’ field, type the room
number you wish to book i.e., London 03. You will then see a list of available rooms.
(Fig. 5). Select the room you wish to book. This will add it to the meeting participants.
Fig. 5
Note: The Room will automatically show availability based on the Date and time you have entered.
If there is no availability, then it will not display. It will also display the capacity for this meeting
room. (Number of people it can hold physically for in-person participants)
Once you have found the room, select it and it will be added to the Required participants
of the meeting.
Once the meeting room has accepted the booking, you will receive a notification
(C) Inviting More Participants
To invite further participants and complete the meeting details, you can use ‘Scheduling
Assistant’.
Select ‘Add Attendees’ and click OK when completed.
To invite further participants and complete the meeting details, you can use ‘Scheduling
Assistant’.
Select ‘Add Attendees’ and click OK when completed.
The option to add the meeting room is also presented here. Select ‘Add Rooms’ assuming you know the free slot available to you. Select the room, click ‘Rooms’ to add and click OK when completed or use the Room Finder.
Go back to the ‘Meeting’ tab to complete and review your meeting contents.
After you have sent the meeting invite, you will receive confirmation by e-mail from the booking system.
(D) Managing External Participants without Teams
For external participants who do not have Teams, they will need to dial in using your Teams meeting details. See (Audio only) section.
Once they’ve dialled in using the audio conference number, they will need to enter the phone conference ID and will be awaiting in the Lobby for you to let them into your call.
(E) Managing Participants Access
When you are in the office, particularly in London, the demand for the meeting rooms can get very competitive. Please ensure you book your meetings in advance to avoid disappointment. You may wish to use the room booking panels to make an instant room booking. You can extend the meeting if the slots are available by using the room booking panel.
When you are presence in the meeting room and if you have clicked the ‘Join’ button on the Poly tablet as the organiser, you will be able see ‘user waiting in the Lobby’.
You can admit, decline, or view details of the participant.
If you have joined the meeting on ‘Teams app’ but have not clicked on the Join button on the Poly tablet, you will see this on your ‘Teams Meeting desktop app’.
Once you joined the meeting and you have the office TV screen turned on (Select “Source” on the TV remote control to find the correct channel), you should see yourself or profile on the TV and anyone else who has joined your call.
If you do not see yourself in the meeting room on TV, try (F) below first, otherwise try this - you will need to add the meeting room to your calendar and update it by re-sending your meeting invite to all your recipients which they must accept and re-join the meeting. For example, if you’re in London 07, add London 07 as a room to your meeting in Outlook. Ask all your attendee to leave the meeting who have already joined, they must accept your new calendar invite and re-join the meeting.
(F) Using the Poly Tablet to Join a Teams Meeting
The Poly Tablet has the capability to join a private Teams meeting using the ID. For example, if you have not added London 03 to an existing meeting but you wish to use this meeting room (and it is available) so yourself and colleagues in London 03 can participate:
To do this, touch the 3 dots (More) on the Poly Tablet.
touch the Join with a meeting ID.
Enter the meeting ID and passcode of the existing meeting you want to participate.
The camera on the PolyStudio (mounted on the TV screen) will deliver sound and vision of everyone in the room to the meeting.
(G) Content Sharing Screen (with sound)
Note: If you only need to present your laptop screen without Teams, you can use the HDMI cable and using the TV remote control to select the correct HDMI 1, 2 or 3 channel.
Sharing Content from your laptop to the screen.
If you are camera shy without the video on, you can either screen share or content share only with restricted presenter mode. However, the presenter mode adds flair to your presentation.
To connect without video, click the Share option in your desktop Teams (Up Arrow).
select either:
Tick this to include computer sound such as playing movie, YouTube etc.
• Then select Entire Screen or
• Content only (only specific content or application will be shown on the screen, anything else will not be shared)
If you are not camera shy, you will have more presenter mode options. To achieve this, turn on the camera, select the Up Arrow icon as shown above and you will be able to choose from four different presenter modes.
Explore each section to suit your taste.
Content only
Standout
Side-by-Side
Reporter
Once you’ve chosen, select either the Screen or Content share to begin your presentation.
(H) Ending the call on the Poly Tablet.
• Please ensure you disconnect the call from the Poly tablet once you have finished.
• However, if you find yourself in a situation where you are the only person in the meeting room and you also
need to leave early before the meeting has completed, please consider letting someone know in the office to disconnect the call on the Poly tablet before you leave. Otherwise, the connection will remain until someone physically touches the ‘End call’ on the Poly tablet.
Please Note: The new Poly Studio conferencing system is not designed to imitate the capability and functionality of Teams software. It merely projects content sharing. However, you can share the entire screen of your laptop by using the HDMI cable found in most meeting rooms. Simply connect the HDMI cable to your laptop and with the TV remote control, select Source to change to the correct channel until you see your laptop screen.
Need further help?
If you have any queries or require IT Support, please contact us on 0203 862 8484, raise a ticket via the support portal or email at support@teachfirst.org.uk where we will be happy to assist you.