Now that work from home is becoming a requirement, more and more players are rolling out solutions for both consumers and Business. Airtel has launched a video conferencing service— BlueJeans — Zoom or JioMeet like service specifically for Enterprise. In this post, we are looking at how one can use it, and features it offers for Business. Those who are not aware, BlueJeans is in partnership with U.S. based Verizon.
Airtel BlueJeans video conferencing app features
These section offers complete detail of what you will get when using Airtel Bluejeans Feature.
- How to apply for Airtel Bluejeans Service (Trial)
- Airtel BlueJeans Features and Overview
- How to use Airtel BlueJeans to create meetings
- Tools during BlueJeans Meetings
- BlueJeans Admin Console
- BlueJeans Command Center and Recordings
Make sure to apply for a trial and find out if its worth, especially if you use special hardware for conferencing.
1] How to access the Airtel BlueJeans Service?
To get started, you will need a business email I.D where the OTP is sent. It takes approximately 24 hours to get an active link. Once the trial is over, you can always opt-in for their paid plans. The trial period expands for 90 days, which is long enough for you to test all its features.
2] Airtel BlueJeans Features and Overview
- Security: One of the first concerns about any conversation is security, and the BlueJeans service is taking it seriously. It offers Encrypted meetings; users can only join in a meeting using one-time passcode ( Two-step Authentication) and get Share Screen Controls, which allows admins to choose who can share the screen per individual per meeting levels. That said, the service is hosted in India, which will deliver better speed and experience during video conferencing. It uses the AES-256 GCM encryption. This feature has to be turned on manually, as we will see while scheduling a meeting.
- Dolby Voice + H.D. Video: Both of these make sure you have the best audio-video experience, but a lot will depend on the speed of the internet as well. Interesting to note that if your Business has Cisco, Poly, Lifesize, or any other room system gear if it is based on SIP or H.323 standards, it is interoperable with Airtel BlueJeans.
- Third-Party Integration: Businesses are already using a lot of services, and integration only makes sense. Airtel BlueJeans works seamlessly with Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, Office 365, Google Calendar, Slack, Splunk, Trello, and many more applications.
- Large-scale Event Support: Host and manage live interactive events, town halls, and webcasts for up to 50,000 attendees.
- Smart Meetings: It can capture discussion points, assigning action items, and essential parts of the video.
Apart from these, Airtel is also offering efficient Dial-in Plans, Customized Plans, and Central Manager and Control to help you troubleshoot issues, get real-time alerts, Delegations, and more.
3] How to use Airtel BlueJeans to create meetings
Once you log in with your account, switch to the Meetings section. Here you have three options—
- Schedule meeting,
- Join a meeting, and
- Start my meeting.
Schedule meeting
The configuration offers you to add the meeting title. Description, date, and time, and add a list of participants—advanced options are revealing meeting id and participants passcode. You can add participants from your organization or external id. It is best to make sure that meetings can be joined directly via the browser instead of requiring the Bluejeans app.
Join a Meeting
It is simple, and all you need is the Meeting I.D. and the Passcode. If they are valid, you should be able to join the meeting.
Start My Meeting
It is similar to the Personal Meeting Id feature in Zoom, where you get a permanent meeting URL, ID, and passcode. What is unique is that Moderator Passcode is different from the Participant passcode, making it secure.
If you wish to change it, you can click on Edit my meeting settings link, and the configuration allows you to change the passcode, meeting id, meeting title, enable audio recording, and more. There is one thing which we noticed that moderator need to enable always encrypt meeting.
4] Tools during BlueJeans Meetings
If you have used a meeting tool before, then things will look familiar, but they are built for Enterprise. Before joining, you can choose how you want to join, i.e., include computer audio, join by call, join with room system, Share screen only, and join without audio and video.
The first thing which I liked as I entered the meeting was spot on control to change the view from a single person to a grid layout so everyone can be seen right away. On the top left, you have the option to start and stop recording, followed by the control in the middle for video, mic, desktop sharing, and end call. On the right side, you get access to panels that offer control on People, Chat, Apps, and Settings.
Highlights feature is incredibly useful as it marks an important part of the video which users can instantly reach. IN the recording section, all highlights are listed, and users are allowed to comment, tag, and like it. Moderators can add highlights even after the meeting is over if it has been recorded. It gives enough opportunity to moderators to make sure everyone gets the benefit.
5] BlueJeans Admin Console
As an organizer, you must go through all the settings which are related to the meeting, group, features, and recording activity. The system offers an admin console that is available for the first user as default. Here is a quick overview of the possible configuration
Group Settings:
- Group Name
- Force to always use Personal Meeting ID
- Allow Personal URL
- Set number of days after which recording is deleted and staging access
- Enable Lync/Skype for Business and Cisco Jabber integration
- How users can join meeting (browser or app)
- DSCP settings for Enterprise
- TimeZone for new users
- Session time on browser and app
Meeting Features: Manager desktop control, meeting recording, break out sessions and large meeting
Third-Party Integrations: Enable for Facebook Live, Workplace by Facebook and share highlights on Slack
User Settings: Configure defaults for personal and scheduled meeting settings.
- Personal Settings: Configure highlights, auto-recording, meeting without a moderator, meeting corruption
- Scheduled Meeting: Smart meetings highlights, crop video, disable chat, mute audio and video participants on entry
Manage Users: You can add users from outside your organization and configure permission, meeting features, third-party integrations, endpoint, and user settings.
The last two sections are meeting history and recording activity, which gives you an overview of what’s going on in your organization when it comes to recordings and meetings.
BlueJeans offers an exhaustive collection fo support video, which can help anybody understand how to manage everything.
6] BlueJeans Command Center and Recordings
Its the dashboard for your company, which gives you an overview of everything. Right from Minutes of meetings, active users total participants and recording. Then you have access to data points, endpoint distribution, feedback summary, and devices used to join. There is a fancy ROI calculator as well, which shares travel cost saved, emission saved, and so on—the recording section list down all the recordings with meeting details.
Zoom vs Microsoft Teams vs Google Meet vs Skype: How do they compare?
Airtel Bluejeans meetings Plans and Pricing
Those who would like to try can register for a free trial by following the link. There is not much detail about the pricing, but the fact is known that Airtel is outsourcing it through Verizon. If you visit store.bluejeans.com, it will redirect you to Airrtels Listing of BlueJeans at airtel.in/business/b2b/bluejeans.
It is interesting to note that for a brief moment, the pricing is revealed for Bluejeans By Verizon. It highlights there are three broader segments—BlueJeans meetings, BlueJeans Events, and BlueJeans Gateway for Teams. There are subcategories, and the only detail upfront was for BlueJeans meetings, which include Standard, Pro, and Enterprise.
These are U.S. pricing and hence cannot be translated into Indian Pricing, but it is going to something around it. As of now, the Article hasn’t disclosed the official pricing and is asking to connect to sales for getting a quote.
Overall, The service looks solid for Enterprise in terms of features. How well it will perform under loads is something that has to be tested by a company with employees testing out real meeting scenario.
