Video Conferencing has become a very popular method of

communication between our international branches—it’s affordable, encrypted and

easy to use.  As our network of

conferencing devices has expanded it has become a real challenge to efficiently

manage seemingly ever increasing number of internal phonebooks.  I recently made a discovery relating to the

Sony PCS range of conferencing units (the devices used in our

organisation)—Private phonebooks can be stored on a Sony memory stick; once the

stick is inserted the private phonebook is automatically activated and

overrides any phonebook entries already present in the device.  Upon closer investigation I found that the

private phonebook is stored on the memory stick in a CVS formatted file, this

file can be manually updated and the changes take effect as soon as the memory

stick holding the file is inserted in to a unit.

Making this discovery has allowed us to transform the way

that we manage the Video phonebooks.  We

can now keep one central database and send a memory stick containing the phone

book to each person with a conferencing unit. 

When an addition is made to the central database we can send a new

memory stick to each user and they will return the old one.

I just thought I would share this info as anyone else who
uses these units will know what a headache they can cause!