From Enghouse Systems, Vidyo is a web conferencing platform that features video calling and instant chat capabilities. The platform integrates with most environments, networks, and devices.
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Mural
Score 7.6 out of 10
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MURAL (formerly Mural.ly) from Tactivos (DBA MURAL) in San Francisco is described by the vendor as a digital workspace and visual collaboration tool, designed for creative teams to make the process of design more efficient for distributed teams, working remotely.
I've had HR professionals ask about using it for interviews. Gone are the days where we have to spend hundreds of dollars to fly candidates in or limit ourselves to phone interviews. Vidyo with it's high reliability has saved the organization thousands in travel costs with candidate recruitment. Business meetings that can often be troubling to get leaders and executive all in one room, Vidyo has functioned extraordinarily well in bringing in people from home, on the road, or the airport. Mobile capabilities are easy and fast. Quick daily calls and chats in the office are probably best suited for the free options out there as Vidyo is not a free service like others. Better yet general phone calls will suffice.
I've recommended MURAL to a lot of people in a lot of fields. This is a great tool for any group of people that might stand around a white board if they were in person. Even if they are in person, I still recommend it pretty often because, unlike a white board, MURAL is virtual, so it can go offline with you. I've recommended it to other Software Teams, individual software developers, engineering teams, Sales Managers, Office Staff, Manufacturing teams, and more.
I didn't have to sign up, I just need to log into the "room" I was supposed to, so unlike Skype or other instruments, I didn't need to spend time and create my own account.
To be honest, the largest online class I've attended had 10 people in it (besides the teacher), but it was a good quality connection.
I enjoyed the ability to ask questions or clarifications in the chat (without having to turn on my microphone, so that the teacher could answer the question when he/she finished the thought).
enables easy for all collaboration especially in the hybrid environment
makes brainstorming better as users can create digital sticky notes, draw diagrams, and add images to visually represent concepts and ideas
it helps to visualize data effectively - users can create charts, graphs, and diagrams to present data-driven insights to team members and stakeholders
Overall, MURAL is really easy to use, but there are a couple downsides. It's really easy to make areas of the board consistent because double clicking adds stickies that match those around the current one. It's really easy to connect the elements. And it's really easy to organize elements. Inconsistent controls, Panning, Line Connections, and latency are the only issues I had. My biggest issue is that the MURAL mouse buttons are very different from most similar software. This always causes me problems switching to a graphics software or 3D modelling software. Because MURAL uses the same button to pan and move elements, it's really easy to move things when panning around. The lines can also be a (sometimes huge) problem because thew will occasionally disappear or connect to things incorrectly. I think this is tied to latency issues which, in addition to causing phantom lines, can sometimes cause confusion to your team.
We have an internal tech team dedicated to setup and troubleshooting of Vidyo. This makes it very easy, because we have access to our own employees for help. Rarely have I or anyone I work with had to escalate something to Vidyo themselves, and we're lucky to have the internal administrators that run the show. Almost like Vidyo is ours and ours alone.
Vidyo gives all of the competitors a run for their money. Since it works seamlessly, is easy to use, and has a clean UI. Screenshare could benefit from some work, like the ability to share multiple screens from different users at the same time. The search function could be improved, but overall, it's a great software.
Mural was easier to use and share compared with Whiteboard. Whiteboard's functionality is limited. It is also integrated into Teams in an odd way that makes it difficult for team members to refer to old whiteboards. Mural as a stand alone web app is better.
It did help us reach the objective of education - after a while, everyone had a chance to connect and the quality of video/audio once you're in is great. It's just getting there that isn't up to par (but hopefully would be changed in next versions).
