Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Block quote
Ordered list
Unordered list
Bold text
Emphasis
Superscript
Subscript
A meeting room installation runs in four phases: survey and design, installation and programming, commissioning and testing, and finally handover and training. Each phase ends with a tangible deliverable that you, as the client, receive and sign off, and these sign-off points largely decide the quality of the project. GHT-SYS is a Hungary-based audiovisual (AV) systems integrator. As a single responsible party, we deliver meeting rooms from survey to handover; this guide follows the process from the client’s side.
You do not need to become an AV engineer to stay in control. It is enough to know, phase by phase, what to ask for and what not to sign until you have it. The measurements, the programming and the documentation can be left to the integrator; the sign-offs cannot. What to decide before the build, and in which order, is covered in How to build the perfect meeting room in 2026.
In short: All four phases of a meeting room installation end with a deliverable you receive. Design delivers the signal flow diagram and rack layout, installation the deviation log and the network settings agreed with IT. Commissioning delivers a report with measured values, handover the as-built documentation plus user training. Anything the contract does not list as its own line item is hard to enforce at the end. Timing is the hardest thing to put right afterwards: if AV design starts after the walls are closed up, the cabling is already a compromise.
A meeting room installation has four phases, and in each one the client signs something off: the designs, the network settings, the acceptance test result and the documentation. These four points are where you hold the integrator to account; an equipment list and a total price cannot do that.
The phases build on one another: whatever is missed in one surfaces in the next, where it costs more to put right. A cable route left undecided at the design stage turns into opened-up walls during installation, and a skipped measurement turns into a ticket after handover.
Industry standards sit behind what each phase contains, although none of them prescribes the sequence. AVIXA, the audiovisual industry’s international trade association, has separate standards on checking system performance, documentation, rack design and cable labelling (AVIXA standards catalogue).
Programming is a separate engineering workstream that runs across the first two phases. Typically, the control logic is fixed at the design stage, the control software is written alongside the installation, and it goes live on site.
The survey and design phase of a meeting room installation delivers the room design, the signal flow diagram, the rack layout, the cable routing and the final equipment specification. An equipment list does not show whether the system will work; the signal flow lets you check it.
The survey starts with requirements. Who uses the room, for what, with how many people, on which platform, and what does IT expect? If IT, facilities management and the users do not answer this around the same table, the design is drawn up without one of them. At GHT-SYS the specification is vendor-independent: it lists what the survey shows the room needs.
A rack cannot be squeezed into a cupboard after the fact. AVIXA’s F502.02:2020 (R2023) standard defines the minimum requirements for rack planning and design, including the inputs and outputs of the process. Its performance criteria validate how the rack integrates, internally and externally, with the facility’s requirements. The rack’s cooling, location and access therefore have to be decided alongside the building design.
For the same reason, it matters when AV design joins the project. Anyone who has moved house knows you check whether the sofa fits through the door before moving day, not on the stairs. In an office refit, that moment comes before the walls and ceilings are closed up. After that, the display goes wherever there is still room, and the camera angle has to follow.
The survey is where you decide which rooms need professional AV design at all. According to Zoom’s design guide, simple “appliance” rooms can generally be built by an internal AV or IT team. Professional AV designs need experts who know both the Zoom Rooms platform and commercial AV design and installation (Zoom Rooms Design Guide).
As a rule of thumb: if a room requires ceiling microphones with a separate digital signal processor (DSP), or programmed control, it calls for a professional AV design.
What you sign off: the designs and the schedule. A quote is not enough: if it has an equipment list and a total price but no signal flow diagram or control logic, the project has been priced, not yet designed.
In the installation and programming phase of a meeting room project, technicians install the system to the approved design, engineers get the control system running, and IT prepares the network. The client receives two things: a written log of on-site deviations and the network settings approved jointly with IT.
The deviation log sounds dull, yet it is the basis of the as-built documentation. Whatever exists only in a technician’s head will be missing at the end.
The same goes for cable labelling: the AVIXA F501.01:2015 standard sets labelling requirements to aid operation, support, maintenance and troubleshooting. An unlabelled cable is a moving box with nothing written on it. Nobody minds while packing, but when you later need one thing, you open every box.
Microsoft’s Teams Rooms preparation guidance requires or recommends the following (Microsoft Learn, Prepare your environment for Teams Rooms, last updated 29 June 2026):
IT can check these values, and should agree them before installation. Beyond Microsoft’s list, agree with IT which VLAN the AV devices sit on and who handles firmware updates after handover.
What you sign off: the network parameters, jointly with IT and before installation, and then the deviation log at the end of the phase.
Commissioning and testing is the phase of a meeting room installation in which the finished system is measured, adjusted and tested against documented criteria before the client accepts it. Its output is a report with measured values and a punch list (snagging list) of items to fix, with deadlines; the client’s own user acceptance test (UAT) builds on it.
ANSI/AVIXA D402.02:2013 (R2024), formerly INFOCOMM 10:2013, sets out a framework: which elements of the system to check, when in the project, against which criteria and metrics, and how to report the results (AVIXA standards catalogue).
These four questions (what, when, against which criteria, reported in what form) are also contractual, so they belong in the request for quotation. If the quote does not list commissioning as its own named line item, ask why before you sign. Leave it out, and the role of tester falls to you and your colleagues, with faults surfacing while the room is in use.
From this phase, ask for four things.
Measured values, not ticks in boxes. The report should show what was measured and the result.
A punch list with owners and deadlines. A new system often has open items at this stage; that is fine if they are recorded in writing before handover.
A check of the basic security settings. For Teams Rooms on Windows, Microsoft’s own documentation publishes the local admin account’s default password and asks for it to be changed as soon as possible. It recommends doing this with LAPS (Local Administrator Password Solution) (Microsoft Learn). This belongs in the commissioning report too.
Your own UAT script. The acceptance test should follow your real use cases, not the integrator’s script. Include a meeting started from the calendar, content sharing in both directions and joining from another platform’s invitation. Also test speaking from every seat, with a remote participant at the other end of the line. The remote-participant test is set out step by step in What meeting room system do you need for hybrid work?. IT and at least one regular user should attend the test as well as the integrator.
What you sign off: the UAT result, and that the punch list is closed or every open item has an owner and a deadline. Someone on your side should sign the report too.
A meeting room installation is finished when the client has received the as-built documentation, the users have been trained, and the warranty and support terms are set down in writing. Without these, a working system is a half-finished project, however good it sounds.
ANSI/AVIXA D401.01:2023 (formerly INFOCOMM 2M-2010) helps decide what an AV project must document, who creates it, and how its delivery is tracked.
In practice, the as-built documentation contains:
What if this package is missing and the company that installed the system is no longer available? See what to do when the original AV installer is gone.
Training is easy to cut short, yet if colleagues do not know how to start a call, that also becomes a ticket, even if the system is technically flawless. It need not be long: show how a meeting starts, how to put content on the display, what users can fix themselves, and whom to call if that fails. Ideally it takes place in the meeting room itself, at its own control panel.
Put the warranty and support terms, including the response time, in writing before handover. For the details, see What should a meeting room maintenance SLA include?.
The table below summarises the deliverables and sign-off points of the four phases of a meeting room installation; it doubles as a checklist for quotes and contracts.
| Phase | What you receive | What you sign off |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Survey and design | Requirements summary, room design, signal flow diagram, rack layout, cable routing, equipment specification, schedule | The designs and the schedule; an equipment list and a total price alone are not enough |
| 2. Installation and programming | Installed and connected system, live control system, labelled cabling, deviation log, list of network settings | The network parameters jointly with IT, before installation, and the deviation log |
| 3. Commissioning and testing | Report with measured values, punch list with owners and deadlines, default passwords changed | The UAT result, and that the punch list is closed or every open item has an owner and a deadline |
| 4. Handover and training | As-built documentation, equipment inventory, access credentials, completed training, written warranty and support terms | Acceptance, but only once the documentation has arrived too |
If a quote lacks any of these rows, ask why. The other criteria for comparing quotes are in our article on choosing a meeting room AV integrator.
Sign the handover and acceptance certificate for a meeting room installation only when the measurements, your own acceptance test, documentation, security settings, training and warranty are all settled in writing. An item still open should not stay a verbal promise: record it in the certificate with an owner and a deadline.
If any item does get pushed back at handover, do not let it be the documentation. Nobody misses it on handover day. Its absence shows at the next refit or fault-finding, when the person working on the system is often no longer the one who installed it.
The duration of a meeting room installation depends on the number of rooms, the complexity of the system and the schedule of the building works, so there is no single typical figure. Ask for the real schedule at the end of the survey and design phase, when it is clear which building works it must fit around.
An AV integrator is best brought into an office refit while the walls and ceilings are still open and the building services designs can still change. The cabling, display positions and the rack’s location and cooling can then be designed together. If AV design starts after the interior fit-out, the cabling will be a compromise or cost more.
Commissioning is the integrator’s engineering check: the system is measured and adjusted against documented criteria, and the results go into a report. The user acceptance test (UAT) is the client’s test, in which IT and the users try the room against their own real use cases. The UAT starts once the commissioning report and the punch list are complete.
According to Microsoft’s preparation guidance, IT needs to exempt Teams Rooms devices from proxy authentication, install the internal certificate chain if the proxy uses internally signed certificates, and open the required ports and destinations. The recommended bandwidth is 10 Mbps up and down per room, preferably over a wired connection.
A meeting room’s as-built documentation contains the rack drawing, the IP addresses and firmware versions, a description of the control logic, the labelled cable schedule and the equipment inventory. The ANSI/AVIXA D401.01:2023 standard also gives criteria for who creates the documentation and how its delivery is tracked.
Ádám Horváth is the managing director, founding owner and a systems engineer at GHT-SYS.
About GHT-SYS: GHT-SYS is a Hungary-based audiovisual (AV) systems integrator. The company designs, installs and commissions integrated AV systems in Hungary and across Europe, and provides SLA-based maintenance for corporate clients in Hungary. If you are planning a meeting room installation and want the phases and sign-off points clear before you request quotes, book a consultation.
Related articles:
