What’s new in IP Communications for SMB…

by Joe Plummer, Systems Analyst

Did you know that Polar Systems offers a wide range of telecommunications products and services? A great number of IP-based communications products and service offerings have been introduced in recent months—ones which in the past were either not available or were cost-prohibitive for our Small- to Medium-sized Business (SMB) customers. Also, increased capabilities for existing services adds incentive to updating equipment already in service.
Advanced communications capabilities have arrived at an attractive price point. You know what your customers want and how you want to communicate; Polar Systems can adapt the high-end features of IP-based communications to leverage your existing business processes and expertise. We can also help with a variety of finance and lease options.

Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business

Cisco Systems has recently introduced a line of telephony equipment geared specifically for the business with fewer than 50 employees. The design rationale behind this new product line was to adapt the advanced telephony feature sets found in high-end PBX environments to a hardware set that was cost-effective for small organizations. The result is the UC500 series, starting with models to support 8 and 16 phone offices.

Here are some highlights of this new equipment:

• Anytime, anywhere secure access so that your workforce is entirely mobilized. Stateful-inspection firewall and VPN capabilities are built-in, making the UC500 broadband Internet ready, so your small or branch office can have both 4-digit dialing between multiple offices in addition to being directly connected to the Phone company. Also, your business travelers can use IP Communicator software on remote laptops to be present anywhere in the world.
Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series-8/16 User Configuration
• Eight Built-in ports for Power-over-Ethernet. No special wiring is necessary; your existing cables will probably be sufficient. With the addition of the new Cisco Catalyst Express 520 series switches, bundles are available for 16, 32 and 48 user offices.
• Built-in ports for PSTN connectivity, with expansion capabilities to support POTS or ISDN-BRI lines, FXS (fax) ports, or T1/PRI connection.
• Optional integrated wireless LAN (WLAN) capability on some models. This builds in the option of using totally wireless handsets.
• Wireless handsets, some capable of using either 802.11 or cellphone networks.
Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series-32/48 User Configuration
• Remote monitoring capabilities. Polar Systems will know of problems with your phones, many times before you do. If we lose connectivity to you, and the phones are down, we can dispatch someone to find out why.
• Integration with Microsoft calendar, email, and CRM programs for click-to-dial from many existing programs on the PC.
• A dedicated external Music-On-Hold port. This feature used to be a significant additional expense. You can send whatever marketing message you want to callers who are on hold, or in queue to speak to one of your agents.
• Eight-party impromptu conference calling—from on-net or off-net callers. With the Cisco 7936 Conference phone, conferences have never been so easy or affordable.
• Automatic failover to an analog phone port in case of power failure.

Many of these features had been available in the past, but on much more expensive equipment sets. There are a variety of licensing and hardware bundles available to make the transition to VoIP entirely available within your budget.

One feature set that comes bundled with the UC500 series is its voicemail platform,  Cisco Unity Express—the most recent version of which includes a number of new features that are interesting to new or existing users.

Cisco Unity Express 3.0

This most recent version of CUE is available to new customers on ANY Cisco Call Management platform (including the UC500 system described above), and to customers with service contracts in place for their existing CUE. In addition to the voicemail-as-email integration features that our customers have enjoyed for some time, here are some new additions to the product.

Fax Integration

Fax Integration enables voice mailboxes to receive voicemail and faxes in the same container—using just one or separate DID numbers (extensions), one for voicemail and one for faxes. Faxes received by CUE are coded into PDF format, and can be delivered to an email location on a per-user basis. You don’t need to spend on extra fax machines for sensitive documents.

Live Record

Live Record enables a voice mailbox user to record a conversation by “conferencing in” a special extension. The recorded conversation is then saved in the voice mailbox, and can be forwarded to other mailboxes.

New Interactive Voice Response Features

Perhaps the most exciting news of all is that CUE now supports Interactive Voice Response (IVR) as a major component of the system—in addition to Voice-Mail and Auto-Attendant. (To use IVR, you must purchase an additional software license and install it on your system.) Here’s why this is exciting:

IVR Application Deployment

This feature enables VoiceXML scripts, which represent the static content of the IVR application, and JSP and Java files, which generate the dynamic content of the IVR application.

Database Integration

We can develop telephone applications which interact with your existing databases. Callers can run queries to gather information from a database, or manipulate the data stored in the database. Many popular database formats can be accessed.

The web deployment and database integration mean that we can deliver killer voice applications based on your business practices.

• Do you have a small pharmacy? Want your customers to be able to refill prescriptions over the phone, like the chain pharmacies do?
• Run an office for professionals? How about automated appointment bookings and confirmations?
• Already use credit cards? How about automated ordering?
• Do you provide standard documents to customers on a regular basis? Outbound email and fax notifications are enabled in the IVR. Callers can enter information in the IVR that triggers either an email or a fax out to a specific location.

Applications like these were formerly only available on much more expensive systems. Cisco has created this development environment, and Polar Systems can use it to deliver voice applications tailored to the way you want to do business.

Call Connectors

Ever feel like you’re watching a tennis match when dialing the phone? Your head goes back-and-forth between looking at the phone and looking at a webpage? …or your Outlook Contacts? Wouldn’t it be more effective to be able to simply click on a phone number in a Microsoft application—and have your phone automatically dial that number for you?

Welcome Cisco Call Connector for MS Office. With both a server and a client component (each licensed separately), you’ll have the ability to:

• Connect with colleagues on the first try by knowing beforehand whether they are available and how they prefer to be reached. “Presence” information about your colleagues lets you know where in the office (or world) they are, and how they are currently available.
• Use QuickDialing to start a call, an e-mail, or an instant message from your PC. You can use your PC to place or receive calls on Cisco Unified IP Phones—from inside your favorite applications.

Cisco Unified CallConnector for Microsoft Windows is not just another application for the Windows PC; it is embedded within business applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer. In a nutshell, this CallConnector allows you to know how best to contact anyone in your business—whether or not they’re “in the building” or already on the phone. If the person you need to reach is already on the phone, CallConnector provides an instant messaging client for short communications with fellow employees.

You’ll be able to simply click on any Outlook contact to dial that person; your phone will automatically go off-hook and dial for you. You can highlight any phone number in a Microsoft application—even on a webpage—and simply click to dial. Also, you can answer your ringing phone with your PC’s mouse, knowing in advance who is calling you. CallConnector pops up to the screen when a call comes in, and gives you clickable options to take the call, send to voicemail, or send an instant message.

These are just some of the recent IP Communications offerings developed specifically for the Small- to Medium-sized Business. Please give us a call at Polar Systems, and we’d be happy to tell you more about ways to transform the way you communicate with your colleagues and your customers.

Joe Plummer is a Systems Analyst at Polar Systems. With 11 years of Network Services experience, Joe has worked in the areas of telecommunications, data security, and server-farm load balancing—as well as general routing/switching and server administration. He has consulted to Fortune 100, large enterprise, startups, and professional offices in the defense, entertainment, pharmaceutical, and airline industries. His current technical interests are within the field of communications convergence, specifically, in architecting IP-based IVR applications using VoiceXML, TCL, and JSP applications for the SMB market.