I will be offering two workshops on how to use the Polycom videoconferencing system in DFL145.  If you or your group are interested in using Polycom for meetings, or if you’d simply like a refresher, please sign up on the Google Doc here.  The Doc can be edited by anyone at Middlebury with the link.

We will be going over videoconferencing basics, which number to call for meetings, how to send content to the remote participants and more.

The workshops will be on Friday, August 21st at 1:30p and Thursday, August 27th at 11a.  The workshop should only take about 30 minutes maximum.

If you’re not able to attend either of the sessions but interested in learning how to use the system, please e-mail Mack Pauly (mpauly@middlebury.edu).

Updates

• Drupal location 7.x-3.7
• Drupal mimemail 7.x-1.0-beta4
• WordPress 4.2.4
• WordPress Multisite Theme Statistics 2.8.3
• WordPress qTranslate X 3.4.3
• WordPress Social Graph Protocol 2.0.6
• WordPress Subscribe2 10.20.7
• WordPress WPtouch 3.8.3

Tweaks and Fixes

• The WordPress “Agency” theme had an error that prevented it from working when activated on a site which we have resolved.
• Fixed an error that occurred when Jetpack and the WordPress Video plugin tried to embed a SlideShare presentation.
• Captions in the pop-out window for images on the Middlebury Drupal site will now be left-aligned and there will be only one close window button.

Summary

• When you send the calendar invite for a meeting, include the Polycom number that participants should dial.
• Each room that has a Polycom unit also has a Virtual Meeting Room assigned to it. If you are having a meeting in a room equipped with a Polycom unit, use the Virtual Meeting Room number assigned to it (you can look it up at go/videoip). For example, if you are meeting in Davis Library 145, the local and remote participants can dial 710145 using Polycom.
• If you are holding a meeting that does not take place in a room equipped with videoconferencing, use your own Virtual Meeting Room number (you can request a Virtual Meeting Room just for you by creating a Web Help Desk ticket).
• If you are meeting one on one with someone using Polycom, you can look up the person’s number in the Polycom Contacts and click to call the person from there.
• If you are not the owner of a VMR and / or not in the room a particular VMR is reserved for, please don’t use it.
• Have a backup plan!  Sometimes things don’t work as expected.  We’re happy to work with you to resolve the problem, but if you have something like Skype ready, you’ll still be able to have your meeting.
• You can send content (a PowerPoint, website, etc.) using either the Polycom software or a Polycom unit.  If you’re meeting in a room with a Polycom unit, you should send content to that unit instead of also calling in from your laptop.  For directions on how to send content from the software and to a unit, please see #6 on our FAQ.

Calling Directly: Polycom Alias or IP Address

Other Polycom users can be called directly or call you using either their Polycom alias or IP address.  Using the analogy of a telephone, the alias and the IP are both like a phone number.  Other users can dial that number and you must manually answer to connect the call.  When dialing directly, you are only able to connect to one other party.

• Each Polycom unit has a unique number which is called an alias.  That number can be found on the home screen of any Polycom unit.
  • For software users, the alias is a four digit number.
  • For Polycom units, the alias is a six digit number, generally in the format of 802XXX with the Xs being the room number.  E.g., DFL 145 is 802145.
• The IP address is also on the home screen Polycom units and looks like this: 140.233.18.XXX.  There’s no need to give out the IP address rather than the alias — the alias is a shortened version.

Both of these numbers can be found on the home screen of any Polycom unit or in a laminated sleeve in the room where the unit is located.  They can also be found at go/videoip

Virtual Meeting Rooms (VMRs)

Instead of calling another site directly, you could use a virtual meeting room.  Back to the phone analogy, a VMR is like a phone conference room.  Each participant in the call dials the same number.

There are benefits to using a VMR instead of calling directly:

• Both groups do not need to be ready at the same time.  One group can call in at the beginning of the meeting and the other can call in 5 minutes later if they’re running late.  In this scenario, if calling directly, you’d have to continually call the far side until they answer the call.
• More than one other party can join the call.  We can allow up to 40 users on our “bridge” at any time.  That could mean one meeting with 40 users or 8 meetings with 5 users each.