TOA Canada has developed IP-A1 integration with the Microsoft Teams video conferencing software.
Employees who work with Microsoft Teams will be able to perform a broadcast by making a call from Teams to the IP-A1 equipment from a PC, tablet, or smartphone. With Teams’ Dial Pad function, you can use DTMF (over RTP) to specify a multicast number and broadcast destination area.
The other valuable feature, says TOA Canada Director Rico Lucia, is the ability to initiate a call from the IP-A1 to Teams using a microphone panel and execute a half-duplex conversation, as long as there is a speaker nearby to hear the person at the other end of the call.
This Teams integration is achieved by using the optional middleware called CyberGate for Intercom, provided by CyberTwice. The subscription-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is hosted in Azure and enables enterprises that have adopted Teams to connect IP devices with two-way audio and live video to Microsoft Teams without needing any extra hardware or software. The addition of the broadcasting feature via Teams to the IP-A1 lineup enhances the series potential, producing a dynamic paging system with the click of a mouse.
“The convenience to broadcast a message throughout the facility from the comfort of your computer desk, I think that’s pretty cool,” says Lucia.