One late Friday night, LA Networks received a call from the LA County IT team asking if they had the kind of expertise that they needed to use Webex as a collaboration tool integrated into their public television station.
How did the task begin?
The project began very quickly as businesses everywhere were scrambling to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic. One of our engineers, Ben, was asked to come on-site the following Monday. The task was simple – the county needed support for Webex. Going in, Ben had no idea what their setup was like or what issues they were having. As an engineer, these are things that you typically know before going on-site to prepare and develop a plan to solve problems. Upon arrival, Ben learned that their Webex solution was fully implemented, but they were unsure of all of its functionalities.
While working amidst a pandemic, LA County had many meetings and needed to use Webex to collaborate and address information to the public. To prepare the users for their upcoming meetings, Ben provided adoption services by doing admin training, end-user training, and guiding them on setting up their profiles and enabling advanced features in Webex. He also helped them schedule ad-hoc and recurrent meetings.
At first, there were challenges; some users were not used to this new platform. Ben knew that at the beginning, there would always be resistance. However, as the users saw how easy it was to use the platform, they were relieved, and the process ran very smoothly.
Why was Webex the right solution for LA County?
During this time, the county had many meetings between public and county officials and doctors; some events had thousands of participants. These events were broadcast on television channels and the LA County website. The flexibility of Webex and users’ ability to collaborate at any time, from anywhere, helped supervisors and health officials by enabling them to be readily available.
Webex has matured into a robust collaboration platform. Social distancing provides a perfect use-case for a platform like Webex; because of its maturity and its many enterprise features from a security, scaling and platform perspective, it’s been a great solution set for the county board of supervisors.
As a Cisco Gold Partner for Cisco Systems, LA Networks has many engineers like Ben, who has an extensive skill set and understanding of IT technology. Because of LA Networks’ nimbleness and agility, they can move fast on any project – this came in handy with LA County. With LA Networks’ help, LA County was able to remain productive amidst the pandemic.
What is the overall feedback from LA County?
They love it – LA County has made many comments on how easy the Webex platform is to use. Once the meetings were up and running, they received many compliments from meeting guests on Webex’s usability.
How can Webex continue to solve problems due to COVID-19?
Collaboration has been a vital tool throughout the pandemic. With many people working from home, users need a platform like Webex that offers many feature-rich capabilities. As users continue to work remotely, Webex addresses issues by providing a flexible and easy-to-use solution – all while keeping data and users secure.
For more information on Webex, contact LA Networks.