4. Benefits of Web, Audio, and Video Conferencing
When an organization deploys a Unified
Communications solution that supplies all conferencing workloads as
part of the solution, the most recognized benefit is a single vendor
for your conferencing solutions. This often leads to a consistent user
experience, and reduced costs to operate.
Providing users with a unified
conferencing solution that is easy to use and that provides benefits to
their productivity means that they are more likely to use it. Because
end users are actually using this solution more
often, the ROI is realized faster, and the organization benefits from
increased productivity. In the ROI section we will explore these
benefits in greater detail.
5. Enterprise Telephony
Enterprise telephony has evolved greatly over
time. Most commonly this functionality is referenced using the term
Private Branch Exchange (PBX). The term PBX was first used when
switchboard operators were manually operating company switchboards, but
it now is used to describe complex telephony switching systems of all
types.
Enterprise telephony not only is the
capability to make and receive audio calls between users, but also
relates to complex features that many organizations demand of a PBX
system. These can include the following:
• Auto Attendants
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
• Call Accounting
• Call Forwarding
• Call Park
• Call Pickup
• Call Transfer
• Call Waiting
• Music on Hold
• Voice Mail
• Emergency Call Handling (911 and E911)
The features listed are commonly
used to determine whether a modern telephony system is capable of
performing PBX features. Many new systems are not marketed as PBXs.
They are called PBX replacements with UC functionality instead (think
Microsoft Lync [Enterprise Voice] or Cisco Call Manager [IPT]).
6. Understanding the Benefits of Enterprise Telephony as part of a UC Solution
Many UC solutions are designed to replace
PBXs. Because of this, the benefits of introducing enterprise telephony
as part of a UC solution is just that, to remove your PBXs. Many
organizations have a PBX deployment with the following characteristics:
• There are many vendors across many locations.
• If the same vendor, there are many software versions.
• Each system has a separate maintenance contract.
• Each system has a local PSTN Ingress/Egress.
• Systems typically require specialized engineers to perform basic tasks.
When you introduce a UC solution
like Microsoft Lync, you introduce the opportunity to remove such
complexities. This results in hard cost savings in the organization. We
will discuss how organizations can realize these benefits in the ROI
section.
7. Unified Messaging
Unified Messaging (UM) is a term used to
describe the integration of different messaging systems. This can
include email, fax, SMS, and voice mail. This integration typically
means that you can access all of these messages from the same interface
and on different devices. The most common use of Unified Messaging is
to combine voice mail and fax into an organization’s email system.
Many organizations choose to use Microsoft
Exchange Server as their UM solution. UM functionality was introduced
in Exchange 2007 SP1. With Exchange UM you can connect your PBX and fax
systems to Exchange Server and have voice mail, SMS, and fax delivered
to the user’s inbox. Many other solutions typically deliver voice mail
and fax messages to a user’s exchange email inbox as an email
attachment, or through the use of an add-in. Modern UM systems offer
functionality such as this:
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)—The capability for the caller to interact with the UM system through voice commands.
• Find Me, Follow Me—The capability to ring other telephone numbers before leaving a voice mail.
• Voice Mail Transcription—The capability for the UM system to transcribe voice messages and present the text transcription in an email to the end user.
• Secure Voice Messaging—The ability for the UM system to encrypt voice messages and restrict the users who are able to listen to them.
• Auto Attendants—Often
leveraging IVR, UM systems are able to act as a receptionist, receiving
calls coming into the organization and directing callers to end users.
