Item: Webex App
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Webex primarily as a way to contact people within Cisco, as they prefer to point people to Webex than email, and use it in that way internally as well. Other companies that we Federate with predominantly use other persistent chat applications that are more prevalent in Enterprises. That is not to say that Webex is not a good application - it is, and the integration it has with room systems and the meetings option is great.

Pros and Cons

The persistent chat is really good and a great record of everything you discuss.
The end to end security within the whole Webex stack is a massive plus as well and you know your data is secured from the moment you start typing a message.
The ability to kick off a workflow from an action in Webex is also useful.
The way that you can easily move from your mobile device to a room based system whilst on a call is really slick.

Organising and keeping track of a mountain of messages is sometimes difficult.
Data location is also a problem sometimes as in where it is actually stored once uploaded.

Return on Investment

The integration to the Webex Meetings side of things is great from a Productivity side of things, so you don't have to drop in and out of multiple applications. But there is no real tangible ROI associated to that - it is more around creating a positive user experience.
The flexibility to use Webex so it can allow you to have a shared collaboration space across any device any where is a massive positive, especially in the current climate where Remote Working and Collaborating is so critical.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Teams

Webex Teams (formerly Cisco Spark) stole a march on Microsoft when it first came out due to the fact that Microsoft were in the process of launching MS Teams and trying to port functionality from Skype For Business in to Teams. A lot of the features that were present in Webex Teams were new and innovative at that time, now though Microsoft Teams has caught up and is comparable and in some Enterprise use cases better suited than Webex Teams. It really depends how embedded you are as an organisations with Cisco or Microsoft. If you have an E5 CAL from Microsoft and are already an O365 user then MS Teams may be the intuitive move for you

Support Rating

Lots and lots of online information for you to utilise from small bite-size user guide videos, to more detailed documentation explaining how Secure Webex is. This is typical from Cisco though, and you expect them to provide you with the support tools you need to make the tool easy to use and manage. I also like the fact that frequently they provide various user communities and update webinars to give you updates on what is coming feature-wise, and how things can be delivered as part of the entire Webex family.

Key Insights

Do you think Webex App delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Webex App's feature set?

Yes

Did Webex App live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Webex App go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Webex App again?

Yes

Usability

As with lots of technology being used in a work context now, there are parallels with applications that are used in our personal lives outside of work. Webex is no different in some respects - its UI is easy to navigate on a mobile device (as it is on a PC as well), and the chat/messaging element is really easy to navigate and use. The integration with the Calling and Meetings side of things is presented to you in an intuitive way as well, and once set up by the System Admins works great. The aim of One Button To Push to join a meeting is still present and allows you to easily join or initiate a meeting from within the client.
The ability for a Teams space to be created that has multiple federated people/organisations as part of it is really fantastic and it just works.
As I mentioned previously in this review, keeping your Teams spaces/messaging folder organised can quickly become a problem if you don't keep on top of things.

Likelihood to Recommend

As an attendee at Cisco Live events, the Teams application was fantastic for the breakout sessions so that people who were in the session could join the Teams space for that session, get the presentation from it, ask questions in real time and better still carry on the conversation after the event had finished. So I would say that one-to-many discussions and document sharing is great.

One-to-one chats are OK, but the volume of these can become overwhelming and as a tool that is intended to help remove e-mail traffic, your Webex interface can end up looking like a messy e-mail inbox very soon.

A Review on Webex

Overall Satisfaction with Webex (formerly Webex Teams)