VOSS’ capabilities around service management were recognized at Total Telecom’s World Vendor Awards 2011. The judges, who were some of the industry’s most well-known thought leaders, selected VOSS as the Best Support System. This was based on our service management and event notification sub-system implementation in a large European service provider.
What do we mean by UC&C services?
UC&C incorporates the range of new applications such as:
- unified messaging - voicemail, e-mail, IM, single mailbox, notifications
- mobility - extension mobility, single number reach, fixed mobile convergence, clients on smart phones
- presence - desk top presence, mobile device presence, click to call/conference
- collaboration - audio, web, video
- video - telepresence, desk top HD video
- social media - forums, blogs, wikis
From a service management perspective, it’s not only about the applications themselves. It’s also about the following service features:
- The various classes of service for each application – you may have different levels of features for executives or highly mobile employees, as compared to say general staff.
- The telephony features – number of lines, what hunt groups and pick-up groups might be required, auto attendant capabilities, whether the phone can support extension mobility, and so on.
- The outbound call restrictions – can users dial internationally or only nationally? What type of number can the call forward be set to?
- The different phone types – choices about the physical phone buttons and also what soft keys will be available to each user.
In short, there are a lot of decisions to be made when delivering a service to a user.
Generally, organizations don’t want to give everyone in the company exactly the same applications, features and settings – they want to create a spectrum of offerings, from basic through to advanced. What this means is that you need to create packages of services that allow combinations all of the applications and features mentioned. And these packages need to be managed, hence the need for service management, or as we like to say, “advanced UC&C service management”.
