Webex Personal Meeting Room with Webex Video Devices

How many times have you heard an Exec say, "I want it to be easy to join my Webex meeting"? Let me guess, a lot. While we would like to think that those in the Exec suite are just like any other set of users this would only be kidding ourselves. They do get special treatment with access to devices and setup's that other users in the organization do not get access to. It's not uncommon for an Exec to have a personal Webex Board or Room 70 device in their office. Customizing to one person seems counter-intuitive to your typical IT departments motto of everyone gets the same build but doing these types of customizations on a Cisco endpoints is easy. Certainly an Exec will find them beneficial and in turn grateful for your expert help.

Key Webex Settings

There are some key settings to take advantage of that while you may not want as the default for all your users it may help those who sit on the top floor. Firstly removing the need to enter a pin when joining from a Cisco Cloud registered video device and also remove the annoying are you the host popup. This setting is part of the Alternate host. In modern view under Webex Meeting - Preferences - My Personal Room - Alternate host: select the following options:

Alternate host settings

This setting will remove both the need to enter a pin and also the "are you the Host" popup when entering a meeting from a video device. It does also mean that people will immediately enter your PMR versus being put into the lobby until you enter. From my interactions with most people though this is a acceptable compromise. The bonus to adjusting the Alternate host setting is now the Webex AI Assistant will launch you directly into your PMR when you are proximity paired and use the phrase, "Okay Webex start my PMR"or "Okay Webex start my personal room".

Since this setting eases some of the restrictions around alternate hosts adding in the Notification - "Notify me by email when someone enters my Personal Room lobby while I am away" and turning on lobby autolock are important. This will let you know if there are people trying to take advantage of this less restrictive setting.

This URL will also help with admin site settings:

https://help.webex.com/en-us/nfgr7ux/Allow-Users-to-Host-Cisco-Webex-Meetings-from-a-Video-Device-Without-a-PIN-in-Cisco-Webex-Site-Administration

Video Device PMR Shortcut

For those of us who maintain a video infrastructure the word customization brings up memories of horror and pain dealing with Crestrons and other 3rd party devices to create a custom environment. While these 3rd party controllers still have their place in our environments a lot of the things we needed them for are now native in Cisco video endpoints. The PMR shortcut is really as simple as we can get from a customization point of view but still it's a very handy setup to know. Let's start with the Touch 10 and through to the Macro.

Touch 10 Chris's Room

This has quite a few buttons but the one we are focused on is "Chris's Room". This is a shortcut to my Webex PMR. The screenshot below might be a little hard to see but I have created a new Panel called Chris's Room and given it a panel ID of "chris-pmr".

Panel Creation

Once this is pushed to your touch 10 and you see it appear on the screen it's time for the Macro.

Through the Macro editor create a new Macro and adjust the code below for your desired PMR string.

--Script--

--Script--

Once you save your new Macro you are done. Your ready to test your new PMR shortcut and delight your Exec with your technical know how.  Word of caution if you are building the shortcut for a Webex Board ensure that your Board has a Touch 10 paired with it. Custom UI elements will not appear on the Board display like the default panels.

If you need some help using Macro's and setting up custom UIs on a Touch 10 for the first time this video while based on Web Apps on a Webex Board should still help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5a2DNovvSI

Good luck!

VoIPNorm