Information Technology Services

Hybrid Meetings in Video Conferencing Rooms

Facilitating hybrid sessions that combine in-person and remote attendees using Cisco Webex room system technology can take some practice. Be sure to review our guide "Videoconferencing with Webex Room Systems ."

These suggestions and tips below will help you get started.


Pre-Meeting Preparation

When using equipment or locations not regularly used, test in advance.

We also recommend opening content you wish to share either from your connected laptop or room computer several minutes before the start time. Practicing how to share content will help.

If you experience issues, contact the Help Desk

262-472-HELP (4357)
 helpdesk@uww.edu

Manage audio and video during hybrid meetings

We recommend participants leave their video off and mute their mics until they wish to speak. Activating these when they speak will make others feel connected to them.

Consider utilizing meeting orientation slides to help participants with their meeting controls when joining. Feel free to modify these slides to suit your needs. 

Set expectations and manage communication channels

As the facilitator, neither you nor other in-person attendees will be able to see Chat messages from the touch panel or the video screen. It is important to be mindful of this limitation.

  • Consider having a participant either in the room or remotely monitoring the Chat and have a plan for how to address this.
  • Disable the Chat feature for the meetings (single or series) by editing the meeting options. Ask remote participants to use "Raise Hands" or unmute their mic to communicate.
  • You may also use alternative methods for communication like a shared collaborative documents like Goolge Docs or Slides.

Foster an inclusive meeting experience

Consider enabling Webex Assistant on your Webex account to offer voice activated commands during a meeting as well as synchronous closed captions and transcripts. This can assist remote participants who my have a harder time hearing certain individuals in the room. The in-meeting transcript can help them review what was said if needed.

If recording, alert all participants. Hit record before meeting introductions begin.

Greet online participants as you would in-person attendees and be sure to include them when gathering feedback or during a discussion. Remember, remote participants may need a few extra moments to unmute themselves, so while longer pauses may feel awkward at first, they are critical. 

Ask participants to use the “Raise Hand” feature to make it easy to see who would like to speak. There will be a visual indicator both on the Cisco touch panel on the desk/table as well as on the wall screen. 

Encourage the participants to send reactions throughout the session so you can stay connected visually to how they are feeling about the content of the meeting. 

 You may wish to break your sessions into breakout groups for small discussions. Running breakouts from video enabled rooms are a bit more complicated and require more management than in fully remote Webex Meetings. View our instructions on how to run breakouts in a video enabled room.

Sign up for the Successful Hybrid Meetings with Video-Enabled Tech training session.