Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How do I book a videoconference?
A1. Booking a Videoconference is a three step process which is made online at www.ja.net/bookvc. Prior to making the booking you will need to know who is attending and at which venue they will be located.
Q2. How do I book a videoconference if the people I want to conference with are not registered?
A2. As long as you include at least one registered user in your booking you can add as many "guest" venues as you wish. See Adding a Guest for more information.
Q3. How do I find out the name of the videoconferencing studio for the organisation with which I want to arrange a conference?
A3. During the second stage of making your booking you will be asked to add the name of the venues you wish to add. You can find the names of available venues by entering various search parameters. Some organisations have a number of venues so it is usually best to ask the intended participants for their venue names.
Q4. Where do I find out what the venue abbreviations stand for?
A4. During the second stage of making your booking you will be presented with a list of all venues which are registered in the service. Details, including full names, of each venue can be found by highlighting the abbreviation and clicking the button entitled "Show Venue Details", which is located to the left of the list.
Q5. How do I add people to my favourites list?
A5. For details of how to add people to your favourites list please see Favourites List help.
Q6. Can I add people as well as venues to my favourites list?
A6. Yes, the favourites list is basically a list of venues, but you can give it a personal "tag" to identify that studio to you. For example, a studio may have an actual name of ED-JCMB-2009 in the Booking Service, but you may wish to save that in your favourites list as "John". When you select "John" from your favourites list to book, the studio "ED-JCMB-2009" will be booked. "John" will not be booked though! You will need to contact "John" to check his availability.
Q7. What do I do if I only want to book a single venue?
A7. A single venue should be booked for only one reason:
Because it is being used for something other than videoconferencing. To book a venue for this reason use the hyperlink entitled "Book venue only". This can be found at the top of each page.
If a venue is being used to participate in a point to point videoconference it should be booked following the normal booking process, booking the venue along with one other venue (either a registered venue or a guest venue). At the third stage of booking, "Confirm Booking", for a point to point booking you should go to "Advanced Settings - Set Conference Options" and ensure that the tick box entitled "MCU for point-to-point conference" is NOT ticked. This will ensure that no central resources are booked.
Q8. Why do I need to choose a purpose for the conference?
A8. The "purpose" field in the booking is required in order that local venue administrators can ensure that the studio is set up for the required purpose and also to provide statistics to JANET(UK) so that an indication of types of usage can be judged.
Q9. What is the role of the conference coordinator?
A9. The conference coordinator is the person who has organised the event. This is the person to whom the JVCS operations staff would contact if there is an administrative problem with the entire videoconference. The conference organiser does not necessarily have to be technically minded. It is likely that the conference organiser will know who is attending, conference length, timing etc.
Q10. Why would I want to change the interface options?
A10. Each venue has a videoconferencing unit called a CODEC which normally has one or two interfaces. The type and speed of the interface that should normally be used for that venue is the one set as default. This has been set by the venue's administrator. It should not be necessary to change the interface option unless you are technically aware of why a change should be made or you have spoken to the venue's administrator in advance of booking and it has been agreed that a change should be made in this instance.
Q11. Can you clarify how the booking system will handle cases where a studio is registered to use JVCS needs to book a conference using a commercial (i.e. non-JVCS) studio?
A11. The conference booking should be made with the registered venue and the other non-JVCS organisation booked as a guest venue. The guest venue can be called, for example, "commercial bridge".