Most meeting room faults are found by the people who least want to find them: the executive starting a board call or the team dialling into a client pitch. By the time a ticket is raised, the meeting is already late.
Automated room testing fixes the timing. Your meeting rooms are tested on a schedule, without anyone on site, and you are told which rooms need attention before the working day starts.
What is automated room testing?
Automated room testing is a scheduled, unattended test call placed into a meeting room to confirm the room can join a meeting and receive audio. It is sometimes called a synthetic test call. No one walks the floor with a checklist, and no one waits for a user to complain.
Device monitoring tells you whether each device is online. Automated room testing goes a step further and checks that the room can actually take part in a meeting.
Why manual meeting room testing doesn’t scale
- It is slow. A technician checking rooms one by one can cover only a small part of a large estate each morning.
- It is inconsistent. Different people check different things, and results are rarely recorded the same way.
- It is reactive. Rooms that are not checked are effectively tested by the next person who books them.
- It is expensive. Every on-site check is skilled time that could go to real faults.
How automated room testing works in AVM-360
AVM-360 runs automated room tests through its Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Cisco integrations.
- Health pre-check. Before each test, AVM-360 checks the room’s health status. If the room is unhealthy, the test call isn’t placed. You get an email showing where the failure is.
- Room wake-up. Where a display or codec needs to be powered on first, AVM-360 sends a scheduled wake command to devices that support it.
- Scheduled test meeting. At the scheduled time, a bot starts a meeting and the room joins.
- Far-end audio. Another bot joins as the far end and plays an IVR audio sequence into the room.
- Automatic finish. The test ends without anyone touching the room.
- Results recorded. Call-quality scores for the session are collected from the meeting platform and recorded against the room.
- Time-stamped log. Every test keeps a time-stamped execution log, so you can see when it was scheduled, when it ran and what the result was.
If a room is booked or in use at test time, that run is skipped and the test runs again at the next scheduled time. Your meetings are never interrupted, and customer calls are never recorded.
Room-to-room testing for Cisco
Cisco rooms can call each other directly. AVM-360 uses this to place a room-to-room test call between two Cisco rooms, which exercises the call path between both rooms in both directions in a single test.
Cisco devices also report call statistics while the call is in progress, so results for Cisco rooms are available in real time and you don’t have to wait for the platform to publish scores.
What you get from each test
- A pass or fail picture of your rooms before the first meeting of the day
- An email naming the failure point when a room is unhealthy
- Call-quality scores recorded against each room, so recurring problems stand out over time
- A time-stamped execution log for every test, useful for audits and SLA reporting
- Fewer routine site visits, with technicians sent only where there is a fault
What automated room testing covers, and what it doesn’t
Automated testing is strong at proving a room can join a meeting and receive audio. It’s worth being clear about where it stops.
- Audio direction. With Teams and Zoom, the bot test checks audio from the far end into the room. Audio from the room’s microphones back to the far end isn’t tested by the call, because nobody is in the room to speak. Microphones are covered by AVM-360’s device health monitoring, either through direct telemetry from networked and DSP microphones or through the platform portal and vendor tools for plug-and-play rooms.
- Acoustics. Echo, feedback and how clearly voices are picked up depend on the physical room, so they need a person on site.
- Cameras. The test does not capture or analyse camera images. Cameras are covered by camera health monitoring.
- Timing of scores. Teams and Zoom call-quality scores arrive from the platform about 30 to 45 minutes after the test. Cisco call statistics are available in real time.
- Platform support: AVM-360 currently supports automated testing for Windows-based Microsoft Teams Rooms. This complements its Microsoft Teams Rooms monitoring capabilities, giving IT teams better visibility into room health. Android-based room support is on the roadmap.
Automated room testing and AV monitoring work together
Automated room testing is a premium feature of AVM-360, and it sits on top of the platform’s AV monitoring. AVM-360 is device-agnostic and talks to AV devices using their native protocols, without changing your existing AV programming. Monitoring watches the devices all day, and the scheduled test confirms the room works as a whole.
Frequently asked questions
How often should meeting rooms be tested?
Most teams schedule tests outside business hours, so results are ready before the first meeting.
Will a test interrupt a real meeting?
No. If the room is booked or in use, that run is skipped and the test runs at the next scheduled time.
Which platforms are supported?
Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Cisco meetings. Teams Rooms testing currently runs on Windows-based rooms, with Android-based rooms coming soon.
Is there a record of each test?
Yes. Each test keeps a time-stamped execution log alongside the call-quality results for the room.
Does it replace on-site testing?
It replaces routine daily checks. Acoustic testing and physical inspection still need someone in the room.
Ready before 9am
See it in your own rooms. Ask for a free 2-room Readiness Test at avm-360.com, and we’ll show you what your rooms look like before your users do.
Telemetry and test results are not guaranteed and vary by device, firmware, set-up and access.
