Articles & guides
Practical writing on running AV estates well: remote monitoring, managed AV services, asset registers, maintenance, rostering and help desks, and what it looks like in offices, universities, councils, libraries, schools, hospitals, venues and small business. From the Sydney team behind AVDesk.
Who it's for
Sector guides for corporate offices, universities, councils, libraries, schools, health services, venues, community organisations and small business.
Who needs AV management software? A sector-by-sector guide
Councils, libraries, schools, hospitals, venues, churches, small businesses and corporates: which room can't fail in each, who reports the faults, and what to switch on first.
Read the article CorporateAV management for corporate offices
Meeting rooms, boardrooms, client suites and lobby signage across floors and cities: one inventory, remote monitoring and five-second fault reporting.
Read the article Higher educationAV management for universities and multi-campus estates
Hundreds of teaching spaces across several campuses: wakeup checks before the 8am lecture, QR fault reporting from the lectern, per-campus access and a refresh plan estates can fund.
Read the article Local governmentAV management for local councils
Chambers that livestream, halls that hirers break on Saturday night, and a register the auditors will accept: how councils run scattered AV estates from one screen.
Read the article LibrariesManaging AV in public libraries
Program rooms with a 9am start, signage that fails quietly, loan cupboards and a dozen branches: how library services run AV with staff who aren't technicians.
Read the article EducationAV management for schools, colleges and TAFE
Two hundred classrooms, a theatre, and a bell that doesn't wait. Wakeup checks before period one, teacher fault reporting by QR, Test & Tag and a refresh forecast on one register.
Read the article HealthcareAV management in healthcare
Telehealth rooms that can't fail, security teams that won't open a port, and clinicians with five seconds to report a fault. AV management built to pass a health network review.
Read the article VenuesAV management for hotels, clubs and function venues
A failed function room is a refund. Wakeup checks on the day's rooms, hirer fault reporting, casual-crew rostering around the events calendar and a register that keeps up with the moves.
Read the article CommunityAV management for churches and community organisations
The volunteer who understood the rack has moved on. QR labels, a site wiki, wakeup checks before the service and a register the treasurer and insurer both accept.
Read the article Small businessAV management for small businesses
Six rooms, no AV team, and a boardroom that won't wake with a client in reception. How managed monitoring, QR fault reporting and a simple register fix small-business AV.
Read the articleAV support teams
Assets, tickets, rosters, tasks and maintenance works on one platform, what a day on it looks like, and how managed AV services work.
One platform for AV support teams: assets, tickets, rosters, tasks and maintenance
Assets, tickets, rosters, tasks, maintenance and monitoring, keyed to the same rooms and equipment. Why AV support teams run the whole job on one platform instead of five tools.
Read the article Managed servicesManaged AV services: how AV remote monitoring and management works
What managed AV services include, how AV RMM works, what an SLA should cover and the questions to ask a provider, plus self-managed vs managed.
Read the article AV support teamsWhat an AV support ticketing system should do
AV tickets are about rooms and equipment, not requesters. Three intake channels, SLA clocks that pause, public ticket links, asset history and a wallboard: the AV support desk, properly.
Read the article AV support teamsRostering an AV team without the spreadsheet
Event shifts, 5am wakeup calls, overnight changeovers and casuals across venues. Positions, patterns, open shifts, leave approvals and a printable roster, inside the AV platform.
Read the article AV support teamsTask management for AV teams: from ticket to checklist to done
The ticket says the projector is dim. The tasks are: order the lamp, book the swap, update the register. Site tasks, checklists with people on the items, ticket links and follow-up reminders.
Read the article AV support teamsAV maintenance works: scheduling, assigning and closing jobs
Preventative schedules on the room, ad-hoc jobs with several assignees and photos, a calendar, tickets in the SLA queue, and a close-out that lands on the asset's history.
Read the article AV support teamsA day in the life of an AV support team on AVDesk
Follow a fictional two-person team through one real workflow: wakeup checks, a QR fault, a remote reboot, a maintenance visit with photos, a stocktake, an open shift claimed and the report at the end.
Read the articleMonitoring & control
Remote AV monitoring: how to monitor AV devices remotely
Yes, AV devices can be monitored remotely. The three ways to connect, what to check on each device, alerting, security and a four-week rollout.
Read the article MonitoringWhat is AV monitoring? A practical guide
What AV monitoring actually is, how on-site discovery and alerting work, and why teams use it to catch faults before the meeting starts.
Read the article MonitoringRemote monitoring for projectors and displays
Power, input, lamp and filter hours, fan and temperature errors over PJLink and SNMP, and how to turn them into alerts, work orders and a replacement plan.
Read the article MonitoringHow to monitor Q-SYS, Crestron and third-party AV devices from one platform
The architecture for multi-vendor monitoring: native protocols on the LAN, vendor clouds federated via SSO, and generic protocols for the long tail.
Read the articleAsset management & lifecycle
Asset register software in Australia: a buyer's guide
Fixed-asset, maintenance and technology registers compared, what AV and IT equipment needs from a register, and the questions to ask before you buy.
Read the article Asset managementHow to build an AV asset register that stays accurate
What to record, how to structure sites and rooms, QR labelling, stocktakes, and the habits that keep a register honest for years.
Read the article Asset managementQR code asset labels: the sticker that runs the estate
Scan-to-record for technicians, scan-to-report for users, stocktakes that take hours not days: how QR labelling changes AV operations.
Read the article PlanningAV refresh planning and lifecycle forecasting
Track warranty, end-of-sale and end-of-support dates, use depreciation properly, and turn refresh into a forecast leadership will fund.
Read the article Asset managementAV asset lifecycle management, explained
The five lifecycle stages every AV asset travels, the data each stage needs, and how software turns the tracking into a refresh forecast.
Read the articleOperations & multi-site
AV system health check: a room-by-room checklist
What monitoring checks every morning, what a technician must test by hand, how often for each type of room, and how to record results so failures become tickets.
Read the article OperationsAV maintenance: a preventative program that actually sticks
What to check, sensible schedules, wakeup checks, and how monitoring plus a support desk keeps a maintenance program honest.
Read the article OperationsHow to reduce downtime in AV systems and meeting rooms
Find faults before users do, fix remotely instead of rolling a truck, make fault reporting effortless, and rebuild the rooms that keep offending.
Read the article EnterpriseManaging AV across multiple corporate sites
The multi-site playbook: per-site monitoring under one platform, remote-first support, per-site permissions, standardisation and estate-wide reporting.
Read the articleBuyer's guides & comparisons
What is AV management software? Definition, features and who uses it
The core modules, how AV management software differs from ITSM, vendor clouds and room control, who uses it, and the signs you've outgrown spreadsheets.
Read the article ComparisonSpreadsheets vs AV management software: an honest comparison
Where the spreadsheet model breaks (no change history, no live status, instant drift) and what a dedicated platform does differently.
Read the article Buyer's guideHow to choose AV management software: 12 questions to ask
Twelve questions that separate the platforms: device coverage, security model, asset depth, support workflow, pricing and data residency.
Read the article Buyer's guideSecurity questions to ask before choosing AV software
Twenty questions an IT security reviewer will ask about AV monitoring and lifecycle platforms: network exposure, on-site hardware, access, audit and data residency.
Read the article ProductWhy AV teams choose AVDesk
Eight reasons AV managers, universities and venues run their estates on AVDesk, from Ody's on-site reach to per-room pricing.
Read the article Buyer's guideBest AV monitoring software for enterprise AV systems
The six criteria that separate enterprise AV monitoring platforms (coverage, protocols, security, control, workflow and reporting) and how to score them.
Read the article ComparisonAVDesk vs vendor-specific cloud monitoring
An honest comparison: what Q-SYS Reflect, XiO Cloud and UC admin tools do well, where they're structurally blind, and why federation beats replacement.
Read the article
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