Inflow implements a ShoreTel Unified Communications system for the Portland Winterhawks

In the month of December, Inflow recently completed installing a ShoreTel business VOIP phone system for the Portland Winterhawks.  The Winterhawks had an antiquated Lucent system.  On big ticket sales days, they experienced a large amount of inbound calls with fans trying to secure tickets.  The old phone system had no way to queue calls or intelligently route calls to the right employees.  Callers would hear ringing for extended periods of time or simply get dropped. The outcome was unhappy fans and lost tickets sales!

Along with the new ShoreTel business phone system, Inflow implemented Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) functionality that allowed callers to be placed in queue and hear team announcements while waiting to be answered.  While in queue, they have the option to be routed to another department, leave a message, or continue to wait.  Their estimated hold times are announced so they know approximately how much time they will have to wait.  Winterhawks employees can see how many callers are in queue and their hold times.  This allows them to staff additional personnel in real time to handle large call volumes.  The Winterhawks now enjoy happier fans and increased ticket sales!

Inflow Integrates ShoreTel Unified Communications system to an Avaya PBX System (Part 2)

The Solution:

Inflow Communications integrated to Windermere’s core Avaya PBX using (2) private PRI connections.  This facilitated station-to-station dialing and caller ID between the legacy Avaya system and the ShoreTel VOIP phone system.  It also allowed Windermere to route external inbound and outbound calls terminating into the ShoreTel system over to the Avaya system digital phones.

Unlike most integration projects done by other ShoreTel partners, the integration didn’t stop there.  Windermere needed the ability to leverage the older Avaya sets, but wanted BOTH systems to operate on a single ShoreTel voicemail system.  The older voicemail system didn’t have the features needed and inter-PBX voicemail creation and forwarding between Avaya digital and ShoreTel IP sets was required.  The only way to accomplish this was to fold both the Avaya and ShoreTel PBX systems under one single-image ShoreTel voicemail system.

Inflow used a third-party device that connected to CO (FXO) ports on the ShoreTel system and station (FXS) ports on the Avaya system.  This provided the “talk-paths” between the two systems.  Additionally, a digital station ports off the Avaya system was connected to the device, which was configured to provide “Busy Lamp” indication information for the station ports (and hence the talk-paths into the ShoreTel system).  This data is converted back to SMDI data and sent to the ShoreTel system via a serial cable.  This data provides voicemail control information between the systems, including Voicemail Waiting Indicators, mailbox information, etc.

The solution allows Windermere to literally migrate between the two systems on a set-by-set basis.  Windermere is in the process of slowly displacing the Avaya systems with a single-system ShoreTel platform over the next year.

Leave it to Inflow Communications to be creative, provide a solid migration plan, and meet the very unique needs of our ShoreTel customers.

Inflow Integrates ShoreTel’s Unified Communications system to an Avaya PBX (Part 1)

Inflow Communications is the first ShoreTel partner to integrate a ShoreTel Unified Communications system to an Avaya PBX for PBX and voicemail functionality.  Cronin & Caplan, one of the Northwest’s largest Windermere franchises, with over 8 locations and 400 plus agents, looked to Inflow Communications for a unique VOIP / Unified Communications solution.

Windermere had Avaya Definity business phone systems, connected over a private point-to-point network and a centralized Active Voice voicemail system.  Windermere’s original challenges:

An aging Avaya PBX platform that was too costly to support and upgrade

Windermere required advanced Unified Communications tools for their agents such as voicemail-to-email, find-me / follow-me, mobile phone integration, etc.

The ability to migrate away from their Avaya Definity systems in a manner that made logistical and economic sense.

The ability to leverage ShoreTel’s rich Unified Communication features with existing digital phone sets

Stay tuned in two days for the solution!