Item: Webex Meetings
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Webex Meetings extensively, especially since the pandemic (we did use it pre-pandemic too). We use it for our regular team meetings, work with students, interviews, and anything else where a virtual option is needed. We also use it for hybrid cases where some people are in the room and others are virtual. I usually use Webex three or four times per day, even now that we're back in the office.

Pros and Cons

Allows you to pin people in one place in the meeting.
Multiple view options for how you want to see the other participants.
Chat feature that can direct message people or send it to the entire group.
The participant list is easily visible and you (host) can rename participants (e.g., when someone calls in from their phone number).
Easy to pass the presenter privileges to someone else.

People who haven't used it have a hard time signing in. I've had upper-level people have difficulty joining our meetings and we've had to move everyone out and over to Zoom at the beginning of a meeting so everyone could participate.
Would love a feature to mute people on entry to a group meeting. Instead, we rely on them to do that when they get in, or we have one person watching the participant list and muting people at the beginning.
It would be nice if you could make the chat area larger so you could see more of it at one time.
Differentiating between Webex Meetings and Events from your home screen is hard, we scheduled the wrong kind in the pre-pandemic days when we were just starting out with the software.
Having both a Q&A and a chat is confusing, we missed questions early on when they were in one and not the other. Again, now we have someone tasked with watching each so we don't miss anything.

Return on Investment

It made moving into the pandemic's virtual world a lot easier.
We are saving travel money, even now, as people can be more selective about which meetings they drive to.
It's helped us develop new collaborations and partnerships among programs and offices.

Alternatives Considered

Zoom, GoTo Meeting and Microsoft Teams

Zoom is the easiest to use, but of course, had security issues early on. GoTo Meeting is not a preferred platform for me, and the meeting I attended that used it has since gotten an account with Zoom instead. Microsoft Teams is integrated into their suite, which is nice but has challenges with video (you can't pick who is where, people are different sizes, etc). I've also had trouble joining Microsoft Teams a few times and now go to all those meetings early to be sure I can get in.

Key Insights

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

Yes

Are you happy with Webex Meetings's feature set?

Yes

Did Webex Meetings live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Webex Meetings go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Webex Meetings again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Slack, Zoom, Canva, Blackboard Learn, Microsoft Teams

Reliability and Availability

People have had trouble logging in a few times, and I (and colleagues) have been completely dropped out of meetings in the past, or logged in and had no sound and had to log out and try again. Luckily, at this point, we know most of the quirks and what to try when something goes wrong to get back on track and keep going with the meeting or whatever we're doing.

Scalability

We use it throughout our university, in all schools/colleges and departments. The biggest issue with scalability is that our partner organizations and universities sometimes have a hard time logging into our university-specific WebEx license. Part of this may be their own familiarity with the software too, but it's happened enough times that I tend to think it's the software, not my colleagues.

Performance

We've asked people to turn off their cameras a few times when others were having trouble, screens were freezing, etc. I'm not sure if this is an issue with their internet connection or Webex though. It also took us a really long time to realize that we could zoom in on the screen when someone is sharing and make it easier to see what they are actually sharing.

Likelihood to Recommend

We use it within our university, and for all of us that already have the software, it's a great solution. We also use the Webex events (but that's a separate feature). I like to be able to make the other person large in an individual meeting (stage feature) or have all the squares and pin people in place during larger group meetings. It's been useful for committee meetings, interviews, regular meetings, quick check-ins, and a variety of other uses.

Pre- or post-pandemic business necessity

Overall Satisfaction with Webex Meetings