Buying a video conferencing platform has always been more complex than it appears. The sales demo looks clean. The pricing page looks simple. And then procurement, security, legal and IT operations each have a list of questions that didn't come up in the demo.
This checklist is for the people who have to live with the decision after the contract is signed.
Section 1: Identity and Access
SSO and directory integration
- Does it support SAML 2.0 or OIDC for SSO?
- Does it integrate with your identity provider (Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, etc.) for automated provisioning and de-provisioning?
- What happens to an account when a user is terminated? Is de-provisioning instant, or is there a lag?
Guest access
- Can external guests join without creating an account?
- Is guest access controlled per-meeting by the host, or globally?
- Are guest identities verified, or anonymous by default?
Section 2: Data Residency and Compliance
Where does data live?
- In which country or region are recordings, transcripts, and meeting metadata stored?
- Is data residency configurable by region (EU, US, APAC)?
- Can you get a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) on request, or is it standard?
Regulatory alignment
- Is the platform documented as GDPR-compliant?
- For healthcare customers: is a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) available for HIPAA?
- What certifications does the platform hold (SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001)?
AI data handling
- If the platform uses AI for transcription or summarization, is meeting content used to train models?
- Is there an opt-out mechanism, and does it apply to all AI processing or only some?
- Which third-party AI providers does the platform send meeting content to?
Section 3: Media Architecture and Security
Media path
- Does audio/video flow through a vendor-operated media relay, or is there a self-hosted option?
- Is end-to-end encryption available, and is it on by default or opt-in per meeting?
- What happens to a meeting if the vendor's media infrastructure has an outage?
Self-hosting and on-prem
- Is self-hosted or on-prem deployment offered?
- What components can be self-hosted (just the media server, or also the application and database)?
- What is the operational overhead of the self-hosted deployment — is it containerized and documented, or requires specialist knowledge?
Platforms like MeetOye are designed with this separation from the start: media runs through a dedicated SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) that can be self-hosted, separate from the application API, so a compromise of one layer doesn't automatically expose the other.
Section 4: Administration and Operations
Admin console capabilities
- Can administrators see meeting attendance, duration and recording status across the organization?
- Are there role-based access controls (RBAC) for host permissions?
- Can admins configure defaults at the organization level (e.g., recording off by default, AI on by default)?
Audit logging
- Are admin actions and meeting events logged in an audit trail?
- Is the audit log exportable, and in what formats?
- How long are logs retained, and is that configurable?
Retention policy
- What is the default retention period for recordings and transcripts?
- Can retention be configured per organization or per meeting type?
- Is deletion verifiable — can you confirm that data has been removed from backup systems?
Section 5: Reliability and Scalability
SLA and uptime
- What uptime SLA does the vendor offer, and what is their documented historical uptime?
- What compensation is offered for SLA breaches?
- Is status and incident reporting publicly available?
Behavior at scale
- What is the documented maximum participants per meeting?
- Is video quality adaptive to network conditions, or does quality drop uniformly?
- Are there documented limits on concurrent meetings across an organization?
Section 6: AI Features — Questions Enterprise IT Often Misses
AI meeting features (transcription, translation, summarization) are now part of most platform evaluations, but the questions IT usually asks are about the surface features. The deeper questions:
- Is AI processing done on the vendor's infrastructure, or outsourced to a third-party API?
- If outsourced, to which providers, and what are their data terms?
- Are AI features on by default for all users, or must an admin explicitly enable them?
- Can AI be disabled per meeting for sensitive discussions?
- Is the generated transcript available only to attendees, or to any org admin?
Quick reference scoring matrix
| Category | Questions to settle before contract |
|---|---|
| Identity | SSO, provisioning, guest control |
| Data residency | Storage location, DPA, GDPR/HIPAA |
| Media security | E2E encryption, self-hosting, SFU architecture |
| Admin control | Org-level defaults, RBAC, audit logging |
| AI data handling | Model training opt-out, third-party AI sub-processors |
| Retention | Default period, configurable, verifiable deletion |
Author bio:
The MeetOye Team covers enterprise technology procurement and IT operations. MeetOye (meetoye.com) is an AI-native video meeting platform with SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA-aligned controls, self-hosting support, and a media architecture that keeps audio/video separate from the application backend.
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