Imagine this scene: a new hire has started at your company, and they wonder what all the buttons on their desk phone do. Or perhaps you’re a SUTUS reseller, and you’re getting calls from end-users about their new Polycom phone features. Maybe you’re an administrator, and you’re flooded with questions about how to transition to the new system…

SUTUS to the rescue! There’s a new series of quick reference guides to the most popular Polycom phones on their website. Covering from basic operation to the complex, these guides will help you get the most out of your investment. This will cut down on training time and calls to support personnel, as a copy can be printed for each phone at your company. They include diagrams and instructions for many different features, including the popular Call Parking.

• Polycom Soundpoint IP 335
• Polycom Soundpoint IP 450
• Polycom Soundpoint IP 550
• Polycom Soundpoint IP 650

SUTUS has also written a quick reference guide to the operation of the Voice Messaging System (VMS) of the Business Central. It includes a flowchart, list of all commands, and instructions on configuration. Administrators and users can print a copy and keep it by their phone. They’ll be accessing their messages in no time!

• Voice Messaging System Quick Reference

Also, if you are looking at adding a new phone for your office, SUTUS lists all of the different Polycom models along with their features on their Polycom Phones webpage. Remember, Business Central automatically detects, configures and powers all Polycom Phones plugged into your network.

Yours referentially,

Dave.

I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with beta testing recently, and I’m pretty excited about some new product that will really make customer management easier. Interested? Read on…

First things first. This application lives in your Windows toolbar and works with both your Outlook and your Polycom phone. There are also plans to have it integrate with some common database systems (CRMs), so you can log call numbers and times, customer support information, and case notes from your workers.

It makes all your dialing as simple as typing part of a person’s name. It’s actually just like having all of your contacts on speed dial! When you receive a call, your computer uses the CallerID number to find and display the Outlook contact information, so you will know exactly who it is. It can also flash up a window with the contact’s details when you receive a call, which will let your customer support workers greet each caller in a well-prepared fashion. It’s also only one click to call people back!

Also, it can interact, work, and integrate with Google Maps. If you enter contact info that is not in Outlook, you can perform a search without opening your browser. Once you choose the correct hit, you can call them with only one click. When you’re done, you can create a new Outlook contact, including a clickable link to Google Maps, which will autofill to save time and effort.

The plan is to make this available upon request within the next month. Just email the Sutus sales team and they’ll contact you when it goes live!

-Dave.

Something new this week! Sutus has released their newest software update (version 1.7.1 available upon request starting today), and I heard about a few new features that seem promising. I’ll be sending out some articles on these over the next while, but today I’m going to introduce Distinctive Ringtones.

I can hear the groans already. “But we can already choose the ringtones on our phones! Why is this news?” Actually, this is much better than just selecting a distinctive ring for your own phone. It’s more like audible CallerID – any call for a specific workspace will ring with the same ringtone, regardless of which physical phone it is.

It’s simple to use. Let’s go into Business Central Manager and get to work. Once you’ve entered your password, click on the “Manage Workspaces,” then highlight the name of the workspace to modify, click on “Edit Properties,” then “Phone Service,” and lastly “Incoming Call Flow.” You can select the ringtone under the “Ring Type” dropdown menu. The default is to use the ring type selected on the phone, but this can override that selection. Also, I can change my own settings as well as the settings for groups that I’m in.

This works in tandem with the Call Flow feature to ‘announce’ the destination of a call, whether it is for a specific person or a specific department. Sometimes a caller wants to speak to Jill, and sometimes they want to speak to someone in Support. We can ring the same physical phone with a different tone for each of these situations.

Imagine a room used for planning and design. There might be 5 or 6 phones in the room, and lets say that they are in the call flows for personal workspaces as well as shared ones. When a phone rings, everyone needs to check to see if it is their phone, and they also need to see if it is a call that concerns them. Running back and forth to check the call display can really disrupt the creativity of this team! However, if there is a different ring for each of the people or teams present, those not concerned with the call can just ignore it.

As you can see, this makes it pretty easy to find out who the call is for when you are close to, but not looking at, the phone. I should warn you, though, that this only works with Polycom phones, not the Handy-Tone or softphones.

This is available as a limited release, so if you’re interested, just drop a line to the Sutus Support team at support@www.sutus.com

-Dave.

Today I want to talk about one of the receptionist/executive assistant features of the Business Central: Workspace Monitoring.

Since my receptionist, James, wanted a big phone with lots of buttons, I got him the colour Polycom IP 670. It has a big screen, 6 line buttons and has support for up to 42 more buttons with expansion modules. At first I was concerned about having to configure the beast, but then I remembered that the Sutus does device detection and configuration automatically, so I gave it a shot.

Adding the phone was easy:

• Just plug the phone in, and it will boot up. The BC200 provides both power and networking through the Ethernet cable.
• Open Business Central Manager and go to the ‘Manage Phones’ tool. Your phones will appear listed by the current phone labels.
• Double-click the phone, and you’ll get to the ‘Configure Phone’ tab. From here I can assign the phone to James.
• Click on the ‘Phone Buttons’ tab and you can set up the number of call appearances, add speed dials, and assign keys to monitor other people to see if they are on the phone. This is where we’ll be doing our work today.

The Business Central 200 knows what each Polycom phone looks like, and features you can change are highlighted when you mouse over them. Click on ‘Configure Phone Buttons…’ and you’ll see the choices that are available for each line button. James needs to call the marketing staff many times a day, so a speed dial button will make his life easier. He also needs to know when staff are available to take calls. Enter Speed Dial and Workspace Monitoring.

This service offers one-touch calling to a local extension, and it also lets us know if any other phone in the workspace is in use. Because most of our calls are for the three people in marketing, it’s really helpful to be able to see who in that department is available to take calls. Just looking at the screen of the Model 670 shows the status of all their phones. If someone is in a meeting or away from their desk, then can hit the ‘do not disturb’ button. This makes them show to James as busy, so he knows that they’re not available at the moment.

With the Model 670, this is really simple. There are 6 assignable buttons, which allows for a lot of flexibility. I set it up like this:

The top two buttons are the two call appearances, the next three are for our marketing team – Vivian, Michiko, and Ryan – and the last button connects to Call Park and Unpark. Now James can see who is on the phone or available to take calls, and it also allows him to see if parked calls for other team members are being picked up in a timely manner.

Should we need more control in the future, the Model 670 also has the ability to work with up to 3 expansion modules. They are called sidecars, and each sidecar adds 14 configurable buttons with a display showing their function and status. Each button can be assigned independently of the others, just like those on the phone. 

That’s it – it actually took longer to type this out than it took to configure the BC200!

Sutus, Polycom and Megapath are hosting a partner-only seminar for those resellers interested in learning about each individual solution and how they seamlessly work together: Sutus Business Central for small business, Polycom handsets with HD and Megapath Duet SIP services.

Visit the Seminar invitation or register  for the  Sutus, Polycom, Megapath seminar now space is limited.