Dear all,
Cisco Webex Teams, apart from paid client, offers a free client that provide great services to any user.
What free Webex Teams client offers?
a) Team Messaging
You can create unlimited WebexTeams spaces for team collaboration (exchange messages, share files, etc). You can invite anyone by email (customers, partners or anyone you need to work with). If invited person does not have a Webex Teams account then he/she gets a welcome email to get a free Webex Teams accoun and join.
Webex teams offers also many options to integrate with 3rd-party applications:
https://apphub.webex.com/
https://help.webex.com/en-us/n0qp3oeb/Connect-Your-Tools-and-Automate-Tasks
Plus Webex Teams offers feature-rich two-way whiteboarding inside team spaces.
b) Start a team meeting inside Webex Teams space
While you are in a Webex Teams space, you can easily select ''Meet'' and start a team meeting with rest of Webex Teams space members (using camera/microphones from your device - PC/laptop/smartphones/tablets).
Team Meeting capabilities per case are described here --> https://help.webex.com/en-us/uxg1zl/Webex-Teams-Meeting-Capabilities-and-Meeting-Sponsors
If user with free Webex Teams account created the space, then team meetings are supported only in spaces of up to 25 members and these team meetings have limited capabilities as described in above article (meaning audio/video/sharing/etc is there is no support for Audio PSTN, recording and guest access)
if user with free Webex Teams account participates in spaces created by other people then meeting capabilities are dictated by the creator of the space:
--> if creator of space has paid Webex Teams account, then team meetings are supported only in spaces of up to 100 members (limited capabilities again).
--> if creator of space has paid Webex Meetings account, then team meetings are supported only in spaces of up to 200 members (full capabilities in this case).
c) use Webex Teams client to make/receive SIP calls
Each free Webex Teams client has SIP URI and could place/receive SIP calls.
You could use it to dial other SIP systems (endpoints or MCUs) over Internet (including SIP URI of Webex Meetings).
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Difference between free vs paid Webex Teams?
According to below articles:
https://help.webex.com/en-us/n19jg1u/Cisco-Webex-Free-Plan-Features#id_133759
https://help.webex.com/en-us/uxg1zl/Webex-Teams-Meeting-Capabilities-and-Meeting-Sponsors
free Webex Teams offers a lot of advanced features but :
a) does not support space moderation capabilities (lock space,etc) // paid client support this
b) supports team meetings in spaces of up to 25 members only // paid client supports team meetings in spaces of up to 100 members (always talking about spaces that this user created)
Apart from above:
c) free Webex Teams has a 6months retention policy (from Webex Teams privacy datasheet : ''Cisco provides free account users up to 6 months of free storage. User-Generated content will be deleted after 6 months.''). Retention policy of paid Webex Teams is dictated in their webex org by their administrator.
d) paid Webex Teams are part of a webex org so could take advantage of many enterprise-level features like SSO authentication, hybrid calendar, extra security features, retention policy, etc. etc. These enterprise-level features are not applicable for individual free Webex Teams client.
Important note - What about free Webex Teams added in Webex org (via claim process)?
Assume customer has a paid webex org with various paid webex services (calling/meetings/team messaging) assigned to certain users. Rest users could have free Webex Teams account to participate in team messaging service but then these would be unmanaged and will not be able to utilize ent-level features (SSO authentication, retention policy,etc.)
Now, customer could verify email domain and claim these users that created free Webex Teams accounts with corporate email. Claim process is described here: https://help.webex.com/en-us/nceb8tm/Claim-Users-to-Your-Organization-Convert-Users
When you claim a free Webex Teams user then this is user is added under your Webex org and if desired, you could keep him/her without assigning paid Webex teams license. And since this Webex Teams user is now part of a Webex org, they could utilise some of the enterprise level features.
(At the moment I have not crosschecked which enterprise-level features can be applied to these users - my understanding is that SSO authentication and retention policies are there which seem the most important to me. Hybrid calendar requires a paid webex teams license so can not be utilised by these ''managed free webex teams'' users)
Bottomline is that customers with webex org could add users with free Webex Teams in their Control Hub (via claim process) without assigning licenses to them. These users would have free Webex Teams capabilities (no change here) but benefit is that that these users would be now managed by customer's webex org (big security benefit!) and could utilize some enterprise-level functions (very important also).
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Summary
For individuals: free Webex Teams is a great client to help you collaborate with colleagues/partners. Get your free Webex Teams client here!
For enterprise customers with paid webex org : apart from the users you have already in your Webex Control hub that consume paid licenses (calling/meeting or team messaging) , you could add free Webex Teams users in your control hub for extra benefits without consuming any licenses.
For new customers : ask your cisco collab partner for a enterprise trial in order to experience power of Webex Teams together with Webex Control hub (management portal) plus other webex services.
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hope this helps
please rate if you find helpful
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rgds
Alkiviadis
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DISCLAIMER: this post was created in order to provide useful info to Cisco partners and customers in my area (Greece/Cyprus and Malta). For official and updated information, please consult cisco documentation, datasheets and ordering guides.
