What is VidyoOne™?

VidyoOne™ is a packaged solution by Vidyo Inc, which bundles their VidyoRouter appliance, lifetime licences & the VidyoPortal, all available at a low entry level price.  Not only do you have the ability to multi-party video conference, your also enabling staff to collaborate virtually in high definition meeting rooms, directly from your desktop!

Administration Functions: VidyoOne Portal

• Secure login
• Create & manage user accounts
• Create & manage public & private meeting rooms
• Manage permission groups
• View system & client status
• Moderate in-progress meetings
• Exportable call detail records

 User Management Functions: Vidyo Meeting Interface

• Secure login
• Initiate a meeting
• Join a meeting
• Initiate a direct call
• Search intelligent directory
• Browse meetings & users
• Mute or remove participant from own meeting
• Invite participants with guest link (for subscribed & non-subscribed users)
• Manage personal speed dial list
• Manage personal account settings & preferences

Optional Add-on's: 

• VidyoRoom - allows you to install a dedicated VidyoRoom appliance in your boardroom, which can also plug and play with any LCD screen
• VidyoGateway™ (H323 & SIP Connectivity) - allows you to connect video conferencing legacy systems
• Microsoft Office Communicator - integration available

VidyoOne™ Service Packages

Along with your purchase of VidyoOne, we provide high availability hosting.  Your company will receive access to their own dedicated VidyoOne portal, full configuration, on-going "live" support, & updates. The simple user interface will make it easy for employees to login, view who's online, and initiate meetings, directly from your desktop.  Contact us for an estimate on hosting VidyoOne for your company.

 VidyoOne™ 5

• Seats (Users): 25
• Router Ports (Concurrent Conferencing Ports): 5 
• Dedicated VidyoPortal for your business
• High availability hosting & monthly bandwidth
• Live Support, patches, upgrades & maintenance
• Online Training (on-site training & set-up available)

Perpetual one-time license - $7,000*

Monthly hosting costs - contact us for quote

VidyoOne™ 10

• Seats (Users): 50
• Router Ports (Concurrent Conferencing Ports): 10 
• Dedicated VidyoPortal for your business
• High availability hosting & monthly bandwidth
• Live Support, patches, upgrades & maintenance
• Online Training (on-site training & set-up available)

Perpetual one-time license - $14,000*

Monthly hosting costs - contact us for a quote

* Price in USD & subject to change, does not include applicable taxes.  

Note:

Direct point to point video conferencing does not consume the router ports (as mentioned above).  For example with the VidyoOne 5, you could have one multi-point video conference with 5 participants, plus multiple point to point calls happening simultaneously.  Up to the number of seats available.

What makes Vidyo unique?

If Vidyo is new to you, the first area to understand is their patented technology, Scalable Video Coding (SVC).  Vidyo's award winning telepresence systems, have been designed from the ground up to scale accordingly to each unique connection.  This has enabled the product to support users joining from the desktop or laptop PC, and still take part in a high quality telepresence experience.  

Demo of Vidyo hd video conferencing system:

In this recorded demo, Marty Hollander, SVP of Marketing at Vidyo, walks you through the value of Vidyo, & demonstrates how multi party video conferencing works intelligently during your online meetings.

How to learn more?

To learn more about the VidyoOne services, contact us to schedule an online demo.  Join a meeting first hand to see the level of quality possible from your desktop!

If your ready to migrate data from Salesforce to Zoho CRM, the following are some best practices to keep in mind.  If your still considering making the transition, contact us at Batipi, to discuss a migration strategy & learn more about using Zoho CRM in your business.

1. Request data export & schedule a time for migration

Your first step, will be to request your companies data from Salesforce, considering the time it will take to receive your exported Zip file.  On average we have seen this take anywhere from 2 – 5 business days.

When you receive your data export, you should check one of the CSV files included, to see how recent the data is.  In most cases this should be the current or previous day.  Your now ready to migrate your data.  At this point you should have your users switch over to using Zoho CRM. 

Tip: You can prepare user accounts prior to migrating over to Zoho CRM.  This will allow users to go through account validation, and ensure they are ready to access the application.

2. Prepare custom fields in Zoho CRM

While your waiting for your data, you can use this opportunity to establish your custom fields in Zoho.  With the custom fields in place, for each module, you will be able to map the Salesforce data to the appropriate Zoho CRM field.

Review the fields you are actively using in Salesforce, if these fields do not exist in Zoho, then you will need to create new custom fields, under "set-up" in Zoho CRM.  More information here on creating custom fields.

3. Follow specific order for importing CSV files

When you click on “migrate data from other crm”, under set-up in Zoho CRM you need to select the module that your importing.   It is required to follow the order presented in the list, starting from “users”, “campaigns”, “leads”, “accounts”, ect.

Note:  If you have already created user accounts, you still need to start with importing the "user.csv" file.  This process assigns specific user id's and ensures the data will be mapped properly

4. Use a custom date display in CSV file

Zoho CRM needs to read all dates as yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss, for the field to be mapped properly.  For example prior to importing leads, update all columns to display the above mentioned format.  You can update the custom format through "format cells" in Excel,  select “custom” from the category list.  

From here, copy and paste the Zoho CRM desired format, in the “type” field.  For the rest of the columns in your CSV file, you should now be able to select the custom date format from the list.

Tip:  After updating the custom dates, click save, and leave the document open.  Now toggle back to Zoho, and import the file.  If you close the file, the custom date format may be lost. 

5. Using the Rollback option

After you have mapped all fields from your Salesforce CSV file, to Zoho CRM fields, you want to check that your data has migrated correctly.  Navigate to one of the new leads and look at the “created by” & “modified by” fields.  These should be specific dates, not today’s date (unless the record was created on same day as data migration).  Also, you should notice that the “lead owner” field is mapped appropriately to the correct user. 

If these fields do not map correctly, then you can use the “rollback” option, which is found under “set-up”, “data administration tools”, “import history”.  Click on the import file name, and click "rollback".

Note: The rollback option will delete data only associated to the recent migration attempt.  Your users can still be creating new records in Zoho CRM, without any disruption.

Let us know in the comments, if you have other best practices or tips to consider, migrating from Salesforce to Zoho CRM.  If you have any questions about this process, contact us here. 

Eintelli, is one of the few vendors offering an online tool for proposal creation, at least from my research anyway.  I found a lot of outdated software vendors that offered proposal software, however, I'm sure you can relate, purchasing software has lost it's appeal! 

The idea of eintelli, is that you can create your proposal online, then send a link to your recipient to review, or you can export as a PDF.  The PDF comes formatted (as a proposal should look), and the table of contents is automatically created.  

Features for creating your proposal online

Create Proposal 

Create media rich branded proposals, that can be stored online and accessed from anywhere

Publish your proposal

Allow your recipients to view your proposal online, plus add a level of security by opting for password protection

Proposal Intelligence

Built in business intelligence; tells you who has viewed & for how long

Proposal Templates

Create & save proposal templates that are specific to a product or industry your pursuing

Real Time Collaboration

You can invite other users to collaborate on proposals.  The experience is in real time, so you can see your colleagues typing! 

There is a host of other features, that support optimized printing of your proposal, request approval, feedback & more.  

Overall, this is a very impressive online tool for creating proposals.  At the moment, it is in Beta & offered for free, so you can't go wrong!  

Full screen mode including my webcam video here:  Google Apps Overview Presentation

Google Apps Overview

Google Apps empowers your business with Google Applications for your company domain. It features web applications with similar functionality to traditional office suites, including: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, & the latest addition Google Video. Learn more about Google Apps for your domain.

Software as a Service:

As Google Apps is hosted in the cloud, and delivered as a service, you eliminate the upfront & on-going costs to support email in house.  Also, as Google Apps customers, you automatically receive the latest updates, with no interruption to your staff's workflow.

Batipi Professional Services

At Batipi, we are helping clients make the transition to Google Apps.  Our professionals service consultants work with your IT team to ensure a smooth migration & transition to Google Apps.  We have customized support plans, specifically for administrators, or we can extend the support directly to your end users.  Here's how we are helping clients today: 

• coordination of google apps pilot program
• google apps account set-up & activation
• data migration from exchange & other programs
• configure add-on's (postini, outlook sync, connector for blackberry enterprise server)
• administrator & user training
• administrator & end user support
• quarterly consulting on new features

 Call us today, to learn more about using Google Apps, at your company.

• Ease of use (how easy is it to get attendees into your meetings)
• Flexibility & engaging experience (can you configure & personalize the service, & what tools are offered to ensure user engagement during your meeting)
• Features for delivering training online (what additional functionality is offered to support eLearning)

Also, there are additional areas why Adobe Connect out performs GoToMeeting, I've highlighted these features towards the end.

Comparison of Adobe Connect Pro & GoToMeeting Corporate 

Legend

yes - included with product

n/a - not available

weak - weak in comparison

Note

We deliver Adobe Connect Pro as a service, so our opinion is obviously favored to Connect Pro side.  The comparison highlights some key areas why Adobe Connect is a premier service vs GoToMeeting & overall a better web conferencing technology.  Contact us for a personalized demo of Adobe Connect Pro suite. 

Ease of Use

When it comes to how quickly your users adapt and learn a new technology is determined highly by how easy the program is to use.  More importantly with web conferencing technology, it's important to have a simple streamlined process for your attendees to join your meetings.

Superior Flexibility & Engaging Experience

The ability to fully customize the interface, whether that is changing layouts, or adding corporate branding contributes to a greater personal experience with the software.  With greater personalization, users are apt to use the technology more. 

Advanced Training and eLearning Functionality

When it comes to training online, it is important to replicate learning environments that would typically take place in person.  Group participation and the ability to create break out groups from within your web conference, encourages such an experience.  

Additional Adobe Connect Pro Benefits

Meeting Add-on's

As Adobe Connect Pro is extensible with a flash api, there is a growing add-on community that offers simple plugins to enhance your meetings.  The add-on's are simple to install, and provide additional value to your meetings, beyond features that are included already.  Currently, there is

Recorded Meeting Playback

With Adobe Connect, the meeting playback is extremely simple.  You are presented with a URL that is ready for distribution.  After clicking on the URL, a user watches the recorded flash presentation right within their web browser.  There is no requirement to have windows media player installed & open, which is the alternative experience with GoToMeeting.

Multi-media & Content

The ability to upload & stream recorded video to your audience is possible with Connect Pro.  There are a variety of file types that can be included into your meeting: Flash Video (SWF, FLV),  Audio (WAV, MP3), Graphics (JPG, GIF, BMP, WFM, TIFF, EPG, PNG), PowerPoint, HTML, Printable Doc's (PDF, Word, Excel).  

As video and other content is uploaded to your content library, it displays to your audience without any delay.  With Gotomeeting, there is no option to upload content, and all programs or files would need to be open on your desktop, and shared through screen sharing.  The problem is screen sharing increase the bandwidth consumption, which could result in dimished quality to what is being shared

There is a recorded webinar by Adobe, which talks about these comparisons in more detail.  You can access the webinar here, however, you will need to login with Adobe credentials first.

We encourage your comments/experience on using these two web conferencing products...

Google Wave Explained

Google Wave from Wikipedia standpoint is a personal communication and collaboration tool.  It is designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking.  Google explains a wave as being both conversation & a document, where you can discuss & collaborate together using richly formated text, photos, videos, maps & much more.  The much more part is where developers come in (similar to the iphone apps).  Google Wave is open source, so expect a ton of applications that you will be able to "one-click" add to your wave, in the near future. 

There is no limit to the imagination, as to how you can use Google Wave.  It is a communication tool.  So the next time you send your colleagues an email, you might think, hmmm...maybe we can do this better in a Wave.  There is also a very nice playback feature, which shows you exactly who said what & when. Do you ever get lost in a thread of emails, or even miss a reply?  I think this is part of the frustration, why Google Wave was developed.

Google Wave Solutions

Some suggested examples from Google, when to use a Google Wave:

Organizing Events

Keep a single copy of ideas, suggested itinerary, menu and RSVPs, rather than using many different tools. Use gadgets to add weather, maps and more to the event. 

Meeting Notes

Prepare a meeting agenda together, share the burden of taking notes and record decisions so you all leave on the same page (we call it being on the same wave). Team members can follow the minutes in real time, or review the history using Playback. The conversation can continue in the wave long after the meeting is over. 

Group Reports & Writing Projects

Collaboratively work in real time to draft content, discuss and solicit feedback all in one place rather than sending email attachments and creating multiple copies that get out of sync. 

Brainstorming

Bring lots of people into a wave to brainstorm - live concurrent editing makes the quantity of ideas grow quickly! It is easy to add rich content like videos, images, URLs or even links to other waves. Discussion ensues. Etiquettes form. Then work together to distill down to the good ideas. 

Photo Sharing

Drag and drop photos from your desktop into a wave. Share with others. Use the slideshow viewer. Everyone on the wave can add their photos, too. It is easy to make a group photo album in Google Wave. 

Google Wave Demo

This is a great demo of Google Wave.  Learn more about some of the suggested solutions, and what you can do with Google Wave.  

I'm still trying to confirm or verify if Google Wave will be included as another app for Google Apps customers.  If so, this would a compelling reason to evaluate Google Apps for your business.  Contact us at Batipi, to learn more about using Google Apps within your business.

The plugin works similar to Google Docs, and allows you to collaborate on documents with your colleagues. Updates and edits made by your colleagues can be seen  in real time.  Also, a version of your file is stored on the Docverse cloud server, so you can access your files when your on the run.  

Here is an example of how Docverse integrates with your PowerPoint...

As you can see, you can easily add additional editors, leave comments, receive updates when your shared document is updated, and keep multiple versions of your Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file in sync with Docverse online.

For single user access, Docverse provides you with a free account, which could be ideal to keep your office files synced with an online version.  If you want to start collaborating with colleagues, then you will probably need their team edition, which is $49/month.  This lets you collaborate on 500 documents, with up to 10 users.  They also offer a 60 day free trial.   

ScribbleLive has full integration with Twitter, so you can have all of your comments posted to Twitter, but you can also pull in comments that might be relating to your event.  The Admin interface provides you all of the tools to make this happen.  Here is a short example, I started a live blog, added a few comments, & uploaded a couple pictures (from ScribbleLive & from email).  Also, I tested their auto-post feature from twitter, essentially, this lets you search for a keyword, in this case it was "collaboration", and have the comments automatically included in your feed.  This is the concluded summary of the live blog...

• 9:52 AM: batipi watching the live event
• 9:54 AM: davidcorcoran watching the live event too
• 9:54 AM: hanneklintoe @Claus @marks Collaboration, tick. Confusion and queueing, no thanks. The World 2 - Google Wave 1
• 9:55 AM: archivesinfo An old article, but still timely "The Collaboration Imperative" bit.ly #librarians #archivists #curators
• 9:55 AM: BambooNation #SharePoint Server 2010 Beta Review; Standardizing Online #Collaboration Tools; Bye Bye #Browser? tinyurl.com #Microsoft
• 9:56 AM: adahdavis Arguing About the Collaboration Toolkit: Cisco's Enterprise Collaboration Platform bit.ly
• 9:58 AM: frankietrouble is prepping for the collaboration with Jane Doe DJ at Barsoma Wednesday night for Head Vs. Heart. fb.me
• 9:59 AM: Lotus_DE MacOS X als Plattform für Enterprise Collaboration: IBM Vortrag auf der i-meeting '09 von Torsten Hoffmann bit.ly @hofster
• 9:59 AM: myvocal Collaboration Done Right bit.ly
• 9:59 AM: David Corcoran
• 10:01 AM: PLM_IC Cisco Adds Social Software, Hosted E-mail to Collaboration Lineup bit.ly
• 10:01 AM: enterprisetwo Cisco Breaks Down Barriers to Business-to-Business Collaboration; New telepresence, unified communications, enterprise s url4.eu
• 10:02 AM: divaschematic Oh gads, I hope there's a full Gaga and PSB collaboration soon.
• 10:02 AM: frankietrouble is prepping for the Jane Doe DJ | Frankie Trouble! collaboration at Barsoma Wednesday night for Head Vs. Heart . fb.me
• 10:05 AM: batipi
• 10:07 AM: DESULU Voc@loidM@ster祭り3　作品しちょー
  「12 colors」ProjectDIVAx765pro Collaboration CM
  www.nicovideo.jp
• 10:08 AM: Cisco_Mobile REMINDER: #Cisco to #Webcast #Collaboration Summit Today tinyurl.com
• 10:08 AM: NeuroNow $6-Million NIH Grant To Study Rare Brain Disease: Brown University, in collaboration with two other institution.. bit.ly
• 10:08 AM: bdescary Google Apps, la collaboration à la portée des TPE et PME | rezopointzero.com bit.ly

In this case, I just grabbed the embedded code from ScribbleLive for the above concluded event.  You can also include embed code for live events, to include on your webpage as well.

Live Blogging Features

Usability 

No registration required for your users to join a live blog, they simple sign in with their existing social network id (facebook, twitter, ect)

Updates in real time

Updates appear in real time on your screen, no requirements to refresh your screen

Cross Platform

Works on all browsers, MAC, PC & Linux

Desktop Notifier

Latest feature, offering you a desktop application to monitor your live event directly from your desktop

Supports HTML tags

You can copy and paste an html embed code from any website into your live blog, for example from Youtube, you can drop a video to be watched directly into your stream

Translation

Offers on the fly translation in English, French, Italian, Spanish & many others.  A user automatically receives the comment translated into their preferred language

Upload Multimedia

Add images, video, record a comment via your webcam & automatically post into the live blog

Post via Email

Allow your users to send comments, pictures & video to the live blog

Add Live Blogging to your website

Copy the event embed and you can have the ScribbleLive experience on your web site in seconds. You have control of the background colour, the text font, size and colour for your content, comments, and meta data, link and divider line colour and style, avatars on or off and the size of your embed.

Ask us about adding ScribbleLive to your next custom webcast from Batipi.

The study focused on 5 key areas of collaboration in the workplace:

Knowledge Workers Need For Real-Time Collaboration 

Findings show that work with dispersed teams is on the rise, and quite simply "email" does not meet our needs as an effective tool for communication & collaboration.  Here are some interesting percentages from the study: 

• Daily (35%) or weekly (34%) collaboration is common for the majority of respondents.
• 73% of knowledge workers in large enterprises (5,000+ employees) collaborate with people in different time zones and regions at least monthly, and 24% of them do so on a daily basis.
• Telephone is used by 87% and, when possible, face-to-face meetings for 77% are the primary means of collaboration.
• Email and attachments used by 77% comprise the primary mode of collaborating across
  boundaries of time and location.
• Speed & efficiency of collaboration (68%) and reduction of paperwork (68%), are the top benefits sought when looking for improved ways to collaborate with others

The Web 2.0 Gap Between Tool Availability And Adoption

As we have seen better tools for communication & collaboration, the adoption rates for these tools still remain low.  The ultimate tool for collaboration, has yet to emerge.  The survey shows the following percentages for using new technologies: 

• Video Conferencing only used by 11%, IM used by 25%, & team sites used by 17%
• Social Networks used by 7%, Blogs (5%), & Wiki's (4%)
• Confidence in the ability to improve collaboration is much higher, reaching 42% for video conferencing
• Confidence in using newer technologies is highest among younger workers

Challenges In Gathering Information Quickly, Accurately, & Efficiently

In the study they talk about how increasingly distributed collaboration & team work requires knowledge workers to gather information from others.  The challenge is 63% of workers say they collect they same multiple pieces of information, from a number of people about once a month or more. 

• Email (73%) and telephone (59%), are the most common methods for data gathering, but present some clear challenges:
  • Email creates extra work
  • The telephone is time consuming, & does not document results
• Knowledge workers would would like current tools to:
  • Be faster & more efficient (66%)
  • Reduce the need to re-type gathered information (55%)
  • Reduce paper (51%)
  • Be more engaging (47%)

The Increasing Need To Create Compelling Communications

The respondents feedback supports the requirement to have more compelling & effective ways of communicating: 

• 45% of knowledge workers need to create high-impact, engaging communications, once a month or more.  While 76% of these communications involve combining multiple documents of different file types (text, images, photos, graphics, videos, forms, technical docs & more), to tell a story, make an impression, or making a convincing argument
• Most of the communication created are customer focused (47%)

Securing Sensitive Information

With increased collaboration, companies are more often exposing confidential & sensitive information. The survey found that knowledge worker behavior & attitudes are not in tune with enterprise IT concerns: 

• More then half surveyed indicate they create & share sensitive information or documents every two or three weeks
• To secure shared information, knowledge workers use PDF's and passwords - US based workers are far more likely (58%) to use software controls to protect sensitive information, compared to Europeans (38%)

Access the full report on Building The Future Of Collaboration.  

Adobe is putting on a Webinar to discuss this report on the following dates:

Building the Future of Collaboration Webinar

Sessions 1 will be on Thursday, December 3, 2009 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. US Pacific Time

Sessions 2 will be on Thursday, December 10, 2009 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. US Pacific Time

You can sign-up for this upcoming webinar here.

More updates to Adobe Connect Pro 7.5...

Webcast Module

A new webcast module will accommodate up to 80,000 users to join your online events.  Within the webcast interface, you can deliver rich media, slides, video & interactive Q&A.  

Secure Desktop Sharing

Allows administrators to have more control over what can be shared during meetings at your company

Universal Voice

The new universal telecommunication option allows you to integrate any audio conferencing provider into Connect Pro.  Plus you have more flexibility to broadcast your audio from a panel of speakers to an audience listening over computer audio (VoIP).  

Upload PDF

You can now upload and share PDF documents into a shared pod within your Adobe Connect meeting

Connect Pro Mobile

Coming soon, the ability to join a Connect Pro meeting from your iphone or ipod touch.  Users from these devices will be able to see what is being shared, chat conversation, & video from the presenters camera.

View the Adobe Presenter presentation here about the 7.5 update.  Also, you can find the whitepaper here on Adobe's vision for unified communications.