Extron Room Scheduling Panels Make a Timely Entrance at Mid-State Technical College AMETA Center

Wisconsin’s Mid-State Technical College recently opened the Wayne H. Bushman Advanced Manufacturing, Engineering Technology, and Apprenticeship (AMETA™) Center located in the Stevens Point Industrial Park. The AMETA Center is a cutting-edge training destination to cultivate Wisconsin’s next generation workforce. New technologies and processes are already being implemented throughout a wide variety of industries in central Wisconsin. These include precision machining and inspection, robotic machine tending, lights-out manufacturing, automated manufacturing, and process control automation.

The AMETA Center is meeting the rising demand for these exciting new technical skills and propelling the future of industrial careers locally and throughout the state. The AMETA Center houses new and expanded advanced manufacturing and engineering degree programs as well as apprenticeship training. It also provides new and expanded workforce training and industry certifications. In short, it is a hub for innovation, connection, and economic growth in central Wisconsin.

CHALLENGES

Across its four campuses and the AMETA Center, Mid-State Technical College has over 120 classrooms and meeting spaces. Like many educational institutions, they use the 25Live® academic and event scheduling platform to book these spaces. But at the entrances, they still relied on paper scheduling sheets taped to the doors. To take full advantage of 25Live, the logical choice was to go paperless by installing scheduling touchpanels at the doors of all bookable spaces and connecting the scheduling panels to 25Live via the campus network.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Bradley Russell, Mid-State’s Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Security Officer, along with System Administrator Carl Austin, evaluated room scheduling products from several manufacturers. They then led an in-house installation team to bring the project to fruition with Extron TLS wall mount TouchLink® scheduling panels interfaced to 25Live via Extron’s Room Agent™ room booking software.

Careful and Rigorous Vendor Selection Process

The decision to tap Extron for scheduling panels began with Mid-State asking 25Live maker CollegeNET which panels they would recommend. A couple of vendor names were put forward, one of which was Extron. TLS scheduling touchpanels stood out based on functionality, price, and Extron’s user-friendly Room Agent and Toolbelt software tools that allowed Mid-State’s in-house technical team to install, configure, and update the room scheduling system themselves.

Standardizing on TLS Scheduling Panels

The school standardized on the 7" TLS 725M scheduling panel, which offers a scratch and smudge-resistant Gorilla Glass® touchscreen, Power over Ethernet, and bright red and green LEDs that show room occupancy status. The MMK 2 mullion mount kit worked well for mounting the scheduling panels to vertical frames at door openings adjacent to the glass walls that are an architectural feature of most of the school’s classrooms and meeting rooms. The rear surface of the mounts provide a perfect location to apply the college logo for additional branding visible from inside the rooms.

The main factors that led us to select the Extron TLS touchpanel room scheduling solution were compatibility with 25Live, features and functionality that met our needs, and price. Other products that we considered had closed ecosystems that would make us too dependent on support from those vendors and limit our flexibility to tailor things the way we wanted to. Extron’s Room Agent and Toolbelt software tools make it easy to go in on our own and make configuration changes whenever needed.

Hassle-Free Scheduling Panel Integration with 25Live

TLS scheduling panels are configured with Extron Room Agent software, which works with all popular calendar services, including 25Live. During installation and commissioning, Room Agent is used to customize the panels to display the specific meeting information required for a particular application.

Installers simply connect the panels to the computer running the 25Live server via the school’s enterprise network using CATx cable. They then launch Room Agent, fill in the fields that compose the user interface, and the panels are ready for use. Customization options include tailorable colors, background themes, logos, and the ability to turn on or off specific fields.

Once the scheduling panels are set up with Room Agent, they seamlessly tie into the 25Live server without complicated setup or programming. The TLS panels simply become 25Live clients.

Room reservations and venue assignments at Mid-State are handled centrally through 25Live by authorized personnel. This approach guarantees consistent room setup, appropriate AV configurations for in-person or virtual meetings, and delivery of refreshments when requested. Although Extron's TLS touchpanels support ad hoc scheduling from the touchpanel, right at the room entrance, Mid-State opted to disable this feature to maintain centralized scheduling control through 25Live.

Extron worked with Mid-State’s technical team to enhance the version of Room Agent software supplied to the school. The enhancements enable the TLS scheduling panels to format the 25Live data into display fields that show needed information in formats best suited to the school’s unique needs. The Room Agent enhancements that Extron incorporated for Mid-State are now standard features to benefit all 25Live users.

The Extron TLS room scheduling panel solution is pretty simple to install and operate right out-of-the-box, with minimal need to contact Extron support. Simplicity and user friendliness is something I look for and appreciate in all of the technical systems that make our campus run smoothly.

RESULTS

At the time of this writing, 30 TLS scheduling panels are installed across Mid-State’s campuses and the AMETA Center as pilot projects aimed at gathering feedback from all stakeholders. The college's in-house technical team performed the scheduling panel installations. According to the leader of that team, Carl Austin, "The TLS room scheduling panel solution is pretty simple to install and operate right out of the box." Feedback about the helpfulness of the scheduling panels is all positive from students, faculty, and others who use the panels daily to navigate to the right rooms, at the right times.

Adding to these positive reactions is the fact that the college's Executive Leadership Conference Room has been operating with an Extron AV presentation and collaboration system for some time. The college administrators and decision makers who meet in the Executive Leadership Conference Room describe the experience succinctly: "It just works."

Based on these uniformly positive views expressed by administrators, students, instructors, and technical staff, plans are in place to install TLS scheduling panels at 120+ rooms on all campuses.

MID-STATE TECHNICAL COLLEGE AMETA CENTER VIDEO LINKS

Click here to watch the AMETA Center video introduction. To learn more about training programs at the AMETA Center, go to mstc.edu/ameta

Photos and videos courtesy of Mid-State Technical College.

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