Scheduling A Videoconference

 

Disclosure - Currently the OSDH Video Studio is short staffed. To ensure that your videoconference experience is a quality experience, please follow the step-by-step procedures below. Of special importance, please note that it is the responsibility of the event coordinator to monitor the chain of events that need to occur, including assuring the final list of participating sites is provided to the video studio no later than noon on the day before the conference (or noon on Friday if it is a Monday videoconference). A successful videoconference doesn't just happen by magic - it takes work and due diligence.

 

1. Contact the OSDH video studio in order to schedule the date and time of the conference. Contact may be initiated via telephone but an email formally requesting to schedule the conference must follow. This email should include:

• Date
• Start Time
• Length of conference
• Name of the event coordinator - This person is the point of contact for the videoconference. In order to eliminate any confusion or miscommunication, we will only work with the identified event coordinator, who will be responsible for scheduling and organizing the conference.
• Title of the conference - This should be the title that everyone will know it by. Example: there may be two nursing videoconferences in one day; if we receive an inquiry, we need to be able to identify which conference is in question.

 

2. Have your participants schedule the videoconference equipment and room with the person/people responsible for the videoconference equipment at their county health department.

Here's an example, fill-in-the-blanks email you can copy and paste to send to your participants:

In order to participate in this videoconference you must schedule the use of the Polycom videoconference equipment at the site you wish to use. You must then reply to the Event Coordinator that you have done so. The Event Coordinator for this videoconference is XXXX. You must reply to XXXX no later than COB XXXX or you will not be included in this videoconference.  If you cannot attend, please let XXXX know that as well.

Staff who may want to attend include XXXX.

If you do not know who your site facilitator is, I have attached a link to a list of site facilitators for each county office:

http://www.ok.gov/health/Organization/Office_of_Communications/Video_Communications/Videoconference_Locations/index.html

 

3. When the participants schedule the videoconference equipment and room, they need to email the event coordinator and let them know that they wish to participate in the conference. The event coordinator compiles a list of participating sites.

• 35 sites are the most we can accommodate for one conference. This may necessitate you having more than one session.

 

4. Confirming your videoconference. Your videoconference MUST be confirmed via email the day before the videoconference. If it is not confirmed with me then you DO NOT have a videoconference. 

Email your list of participating sites (numbered and in alphabetical order) to Jay Burgess. Our deadline is NO LATER THAN NOON on the day before the conference, or Friday by noon if your videoconference occurs on Monday. This is the most misunderstood procedure in the videoconference scheduling process. In order for us to assure all sites receive the best service possible, we need to adhere to this deadline. No exceptions! If we don't receive you list by noon the day before you videoconference, we will assume that it has been cancelled.

It seems that the videoconference studio was not clear in the explanation of our deadline. If your conference is important to you, then you will get your list in on time. The videoconference studio is very busy with many conferences per day. It is unreasonable to expect the videoconference studio to chase each and every event coordinator down each day in an attempt to find out what counties need to be connected for the videoconference. I believe that we can all perform in a business-like manner and take care of responsibilities in a timely manner. 

If need be, set up reminders for yourself in Outlook for your videoconference tasks and duties. Remember, your videoconference is only as important to the studio as it is to you. If your conference isn't important enough to you to perform due diligence, then it won't be important to the studio.

• Sending the sites numbered and in alphabetical order helps to further ensure that all the sites get loaded and no one is inadvertently left off the call-out list.
• Only include the county sites that you wish to connect in your list. We don't need any other information. Adding superfluous information only leads to confusion. All we need is the information required to connect the conference. Which is to say, we only need the sites that are to be connected. Some counties and/or buildings have more than one videoconference system. In those instances, you will need to find out which videoconference unit to connect.
• Don't send participants piecemeal - send them in a list all at once on the day of the deadline.
• Set your deadline a couple of days before the studio's deadline - you will have stragglers and this should help take care of that to some extent.
• Please refrain from sending your list early. When lists are sent early there is almost always someone who wants to be added to the conference after the list has been finalized. Once we receive the list we consider it final and will not make additions.
• The only time sending your list early is acceptable is if you are going to be gone on the day of the deadline. However, you can send your list early but delay its delivery until the morning of the deadline. In your email click on the tab that says Options and then click Delay Delivery at the top. This will open a window where you can set the delivery time for your email.
• Please send ALL pertinent information each and every time. We understand that this may be your only videoconference each month or quarter etc. But for the studio, it is only one conference among many in a day. Even though you may have a recurring conference and you say the site or list of sites never changes (In our experience it almost always changes), don't expect the studio to remember which site or sites you connect to each time. If you send the studio an email saying that Tulsa is your only participating site, type a few more letters and explain which endpoint at Tulsa you need connected (There are five of them; one at Central and four at James O. Goodwin). Even if it's the same one every time. This helps to eliminate the chance of getting the wrong site connected due to assumption on our part or foggy memory on our part. It only takes a little extra typing to get it taken care of in one email as opposed to going back and forth with us for 5 emails (it's happened).

 

Here is an example of what a list should look like when it's emailed to us:

1. Beaver
2. Comanche
3. Garfield
4. Logan
5. Muskogee
6. Payne
7. Pontotoc
8. Tulsa JOG-3
9. Woodward

 

It can be included in the body of the email, in a Word document or in Excel. It would also be appreciated if everyone would use a uniform subject line when sending their list of sites for a videoconference. Here is what we would like for the subject line in your email to say: Site list for connection to XXXXX videoconference. Where "XXXXX" is the title of your videoconference.

 

This has been a brief step-by-step explanation of how to schedule a videoconference. But scheduling is only part of the process. Once your conference is scheduled, there are other procedures you need to follow in order for your participants to have a good videoconference experience. Please use the navigation menu to the left and go to the next page to learn how to have the best videoconference experience possible for you and your participants.

 

 

Revised on 3-14-13