Upgrading to ShoreTel Connect – January 2017

Upgrading to ShoreTel Connect

Upgrading to ShoreTel Connect – January 2017

Upgrading to ShoreTel Connect – New Features as of January 2017

By Chris Mitchell, Vice President of Solution Architecture

For the past several months, we’ve been making notes about ShoreTel Connect – what’s great about it, what are some of its kinks and how some of the key features work. Recently quite a few new features were added and if you’ve been considering upgrading to ShoreTel Connect, make sure to read through as some of the new features may help you make a final decision. As of January 2017, here’s some information about these latest updates.

Are you Ready for a ShoreTel Connect Upgrade?

Sign up for a ShoreTel Connect Readiness Assessment and have one of our Senior ShoreTel Engineers evaluate your current environment


Hybrid sites are now supported with directory sync.
This allows you to search users onsite or in the cloud. As companies continue to expand with new locations, it sometimes becomes difficult to justify the cost of equipment for a new smaller site. With the release of ShoreTel Connect hybrid sites, clients can mix onsite and cloud phones to minimize costs as they open smaller offices. So small offices can have a few cloud phones that are able to extension dial the main locations without investing in hardware or dial tone at that site. And, if a location grows, you can simply convert that site from cloud to onsite based phones as needed. This allows companies to maintain a unified platform for all employees regardless of which location they are at.

Double Take is now supported, offering a fully redundant ShoreTel server option.
For customers looking for a true hot standby server solution look no further. Double Take has been a certified server solution for over 10 years on the ShoreTel platform and is now ready for use with Connect. You simply setup the software on your main Shoretel server and backup server, and then let Double Take do the rest. If your main server ever goes down, the backup server will kick in and continue to run your ShoreTel system with zero IT interaction required.

Web dialer for Chrome.
How many times have you searched for a phone number or a company online then picked up your phone and called the number on the screen? Well, with the Web dialer for Chrome all you need to do is click on the phone number on the webpage and let your ShoreTel client do the rest. Any phone number on any webpage can be called by simply clicking on it, saving you time whenever you need to look up and call someone.

ShoreTel for Google Suite combines UC and telephony functionality with Google Chrome to deliver a consolidated workspace for users.
This enables you to do a couple of things.

  • Easily search for contacts and place a call from the Chrome web browser. If you’re a Google Apps customer you have been missing all the Outlook integration features…well, not any longer. You can now search your contacts and place calls to them right from your Chrome Browser.
  • Integrated call control through the Chrome web browser. Call control built into Chrome means you can put calls on hold, transfer, conference and hang up calls without touching your phone or leaving your web browser.

Dual stage upgrades.
Down time is the single biggest concern most companies have when it comes to making an upgrade. With Connect, you can install upgrades on your server and switches, then decide when to reboot and apply those upgrades. This approach will minimize down time during upgrades and require smaller maintenance windows.

Stay Current!

Keep up-to-date on all things ShoreTel and follow Inflow as we continue to share the good, the bad, and the ugly about the new Connect upgrade. Click here to get valuable insights or sign up for our regular newsletter. There is no such a thing as politics at Inflow!