Single Sign-on for Programmable Video

Harsh Ruparel. VP & COO for WeConference, has had a busy year — after launching WeConference to provide video conferencing services to the Indian market in January 2020, they had to move fast to meet demand as the world moved online.

By white-labelling iotum’s Callbridge solution for programmable video, however, WeConference could step in and respond effectively when the world needed it, across a diverse combination of sectors and industries. The unique features of programmable video let them create services which worked at the point of need, and enable enterprises across the subcontinent to integrate video conferencing into their existing CRM and UC toolset at speed.

While data consumption costs are very good value in India, group video conferencing was nascent in many sectors at the beginning of the year, including education — where unique factors affected uptake. “Offering programmable video gave us the edge over the competition from established players”, Ruparel explained, referring to features like single sign on, which generates a unique URL to track participation per student per session.

Bringing order to the classroom…

Because apparently students sometimes mess around, cheat, or even send a proxy to class in their place — not least because the kids are frequently a lot more comfortable with the conferencing tools than are their poor teachers. “Sometimes they’d open the drawing board and start playing around and typing while the teacher was trying to teach them, or even send a substitute on their behalf. So this was a function iotum built for us to offer to schools, to provide every student with a unique URL tied to their name, and new ways for the teacher to control and moderate the whole platform, and control what each user can do.”

Of course it’s not just education which benefits from this kind of user-based authentication, and in the insurance sector single sign-on has been a competitive attribute for WeConference to offer their customers.

… and a new dimension to insurance sales

“A large insurer needs a video conference solution which integrates directly into their CRM,” Ruparel continued, reflecting on the mobile-first approach common across India, which makes accessing all functionality via a single native app particularly important. “It just looks like a new tab, inviting them to join or host a meeting, blended into their own app. So the salesman does not have to switch between apps, and the user just sees the call as coming from within that particular company.

“Iotum’s ability to white-label their functionality at this level has enabled us to build this, completely seamlessly, no one knows what service is being used on the backend”

From events to user feedback

This combined functionality is also vital in transferring large events to the online space, such as a major university fair — enabling prospective students to book appointments with institutions via a ‘join meeting’ API built for the purpose. “The student doesn’t have to go anywhere, he just gets a link, and is connected straight through to his conversation on the website of the institution” — creating one of those situations where a virtual event is actually more straightforward to navigate smoothly and securely than a face-to-face one. “They don’t even have to download an app, it’s all browser based using WebRTC”, Ruparel concluded.

This close two-way communication between WeConference and iotum has enabled rapid response to the fast-changing needs of video conferencing users throughout the turbulence of 2020, and provided the developers with feedback from the frontline throughout — positioning the partnership strongly for continued success in 2021 and beyond, whatever that may bring.