Helpdesk Videos
This article discusses the collection of Helpdesk-related videos on the Microsoft Stream platform.
Microsoft Stream
Part of the District's Microsoft 365 landscape is the video streaming feature, Microsoft Stream. In many ways it is very much like YouTube, but it gives us several advantages that we really like having available. These include:
- It integrates with our authentication landscape, giving us many options to distribute and secure content
- It integrates with other components of the Microsoft 365 landscape, most notably SharePoint and OneDrive
- It has some very useful video navigational tools, such as chapters and a searchable, interactive transcript feature (very cool!)
- Its hub sites feature allows us to intelligently aggregate and flexibly manage videos across the District
Information Services Videos
As part of the Stream landscape, we have created a repository called Information Services Videos, which includes our collection of user-facing Helpdesk video clips. These include carefully-constructed educational/self-learning videos, webinar-type sessions, and informal clips captured for their utility, such as troubleshooting or walkthrough sessions captured on a Microsoft Teams or Zoom meeting. This repository (it's a SharePoint site) rolls up as a Channel under the federated KPBSD Video Hub, and it has a familiar set of tools like sharing, following, and a simple search for finding videos directly.
Helpdesk videos
The full set of Helpdesk-related videos is presented as a sub-collection at the Information Services Videos site; you can click the See all link on that collection and see all the Helpdesk videos in one place.
Selecting a video from the list launches the player, which has several features worth noting. Immediately below the video player window is the clip's Title and Description; you should be aware that the Description may have rich content, including clickable links, down under the Show more expander.
The player window also has a sidebar that lets you turn on available features like a searchable, interactive Transcript, or (for some of our longer videos) quickly navigable Chapter sections.
And the player itself has a few navigational features like player size/format, playback speed, jump forward/backward ten seconds at a time, and a timeline that displays any chapter markers for clicking.
Links and embeds of Helpdesk videos
You can always go find videos directly on SharePoint, as above, and either browse or search to find the one(s) you want. Alternatively, you may see a link in an email, or in a knowledge base article; you may also see a video embedded in an article. The embedded player is much like the standalone player on Stream, but its transcript and chapter controls appear dynamically, along with transport controls and timeline, rather than being in a separate pane off to the side in the full player. Really, the big thing to remember is that you can always out-click from the embedded player to bring up a full player window in Stream (in a new browser tab) if you like. The "view on Stream" icon is at far lower right of the video.
Sharing and video access
Video access and sharing are governed by SharePoint. You do need to be logged in to SharePoint so that the system can figure out which videos you can see.
We always try to make sure that we expose videos to the widest appropriate audience, especially Helpdesk resources. If for some reason you find yourself not seeing or "not authorized" on a video in error, please contact the Helpdesk and we'll get it sorted out.