News | 4Sight Communications

16 Jan

What’s new in Mitel’s Unified Communications portfolio?

New updates now available for every major Mitel Unified Communications platform

Mitel has announced updates to its flagship Unified Communications solutions to provide organisations more advanced voice, collaboration and contact centre capabilities for enhancing productivity and delivering better customer service.

These latest releases reflect Mitel’s commitment to providing tailored communications and collaboration solutions that drive customers’ digital transformation. Designed to increase speed to innovation, Mitel’s product roadmap also delivers high levels of security and enables businesses to leverage emerging technologies like IoT and AI to solve today’s problems and prepare for tomorrow’s challenges.

The newly expanded capabilities include the following:

MiCollab – multiple customer interface enhancements that make it even easier for employees to talk, meet and share information using Mitel’s leading collaboration offering, a single solution that brings communications and collaboration tools together to simplify the way people work.

MiVoice Business – the addition of a next-generation containerization software architecture to drive speed to market for applications and business efficiency software upgrades for one of the industry’s most advanced mid-market communications solutions.

MiContact Center Business and MiContact Center Enterprise – expanded omnichannel capabilities for MiVoice 400, MX-ONE and MiVoice 5000 that enable businesses to leverage web, chat, voice and social media interactions to provide a seamless customer experience.

Mitel SIP-DECT – 4th-generation SIP-DECT technology that brings a new portfolio of base stations and feature enhancements to the full line of Mitel cordless IP and SIP devices, solving companies’ vertical-specific mobile communications requirements.

By 4Sight Communications News, Uncategorized Contact Centre, MiCollab, MiContact Centre, Mitel, Mitel Gold Partner, Mitel MiVoice Business, Mitel Partner, MiVoice Business, MiVoice Business Release 9.0, Unified Communications 0 Comments

04 Jan

10 Characteristics of an Agile Organisation

With an increase in employee requests for remote working and flexible hours, the businesses that will stay ahead of the curve are those that are willing to introduce measures to ensure they are flexible. Using unified communications is essential to the nature of agile business. We uncover the characteristics of a truly agile business, so you can see how yours compares.

Supports flexible working hours

Your business must embrace the 24/7 availability culture or lose out to forward thinking competitors. That’s not to say that you must remain open 24/7 but, particularly when in a customer-focused business, if the customer has a way of communicating with your business in times of need (for example if a fault occurs) then it helps to have measures in place to support them.

Can manage remote working

For maximum agility your employees should have the ability to work from anywhere, at any time. The agile business fully embraces flexible working.

Ability to scale capacity quickly and easily

By investing in cloud-based services, businesses can access a solution that gives them the ability to scale their lines quickly and easily to meet demand.

Can cope with seasonal peaks seamlessly

Rather than paying for unused capacity, the agile business can scale resources, meaning they will only ever have to pay for what they need.

Able to respond to customer needs quickly and appropriately

This means wherever, whenever, however and most importantly, quickly. By using unified communications tools, businesses need never miss another call.

Energises the workforce with new technology

New technologies give your staff access to the tools they need to succeed, meaning that you’ll see a rise in employee productivity and satisfaction levels.

Integration with line of business applications

Truly unified communications support integration with existing line of business applications, such as Microsoft Lync (soon to be Skype for Business). This will help to further enhance productivity and efficiency.

Remains fully compliant

The agile business uses the most up-to-date technology to ensure they remain compliant at all times. For example, this can include the ability to record calls.

A fixed, monthly cost

Cloud-based telephony allows businesses to pay for what they need in one fixed, monthly payment. This will include installation, handsets and maintenance. This means you’ll be able to account and budget for your full communications spend each month.

Embrace consumerisation

Agile businesses support Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Allowing your staff to use their existing handsets will not only save you money it will also ensure your team are contactable at any time.

By 4Sight Communications News Unified Communications 0 Comments

13 Dec

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from the team at 4Sight Communications!

The team at 4Sight would like to wish all our customers, partners and colleagues a fantastic Christmas and Happy New Year. It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with you this year. Thank you for your continued support and partnership. We look forward to working with you in the years to come.

Please note our Christmas opening hours:

Monday, 24th December 9:00 am - 18:00 pm
Tuesday, 25th December office closed
Wednesday, 26th December office closed
Thursday, 27th December 9:00 am -18:00 pm
Friday, 28th December 9:00 am -18:00 pm
Saturday, 29th December office closed
Sunday, 30th December office closed
Monday, 31st December 9:00 am 18:00 pm
Tuesday, 1st January office closed

**Customers with our 24/7 support contracts requiring assistance during this period, please note that it is business as usual for all SLA measured requests.**

Once again a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The Team at 4Sight Communications

By 4Sight Communications News 0 Comments

06 Dec

Telephone System Configuration Support Before Christmas

Customer Service Announcement:

Customers who need help with their Mitel telephone system configuration or out of office messages to reflect their operational hours over Christmas period, please contact our dedicated service team before Wednesday 19th of December 2018 to request help.

You can submit your request either by emailing our dedicated service team at support@4sightcomms.com or by visiting our customer support portal.

Mitel System Support Services

4Sight provides maintenance and support services for all Mitel products and solutions with 24/7 365 UK coverage. To find out more about our Mitel System Support Services click here.

By 4Sight Communications News Mitel Gold Partner, Mitel Maintenance, Mitel Telephone Systems 0 Comments

05 Dec

Mitel MiCollab Release 8.1

4Sight is pleased to announce the General Availability of the MiCollab Release 8.1. MiCollab Release 8.1 focuses on enhancing the overall user experience of our suite of Next Generation clients and simplifying how employees talk, chat, meet and share information with others throughout their workday.

MiCollab Release 8.1 focuses on enhancing the overall user experience of our suite of Next Generation clients. Listening to user feedback – internal and external – MiCollab Release 8.1 was designed to improve how employees talk, chat, meet and share information with others throughout their workday, make the communications and collaboration experience for customers’ more seamless, and enhance their ability to work effectively from anywhere, at any time.

The core enhancements to MiCollab include:

User Experience Improvements
• Improved presence presentation
• Multi-call handling
• Contact Group handling, UI layout changes, & right click
• Media Device selection
• Ad-hoc Meeting escalation embedded throughout desktop-based clients
• AWV Web improvements, Audio callback, and Roll call

Fixed Mobile Convergence:
• Call Through
• Inbound call optimization for iOS
• Full Take Call feature

Management & Security Improvements:
• General Security updates
• Next Gen PC client Virtual Desktop support
• MiShare Auto update

MiContact Center Business integration (MiCollab 8.1 SP1):
• ACD Softphone (SIP) support with MiContact Center Business Ignite Client

Microsoft Skype for Business integration (MiCollab 8.1 SP1):
• New client integration with full Skype for Business user experience
• Outlook integration
• Skype for Business UCC Bundle

By 4Sight Communications News MiCollab, Mitel, Mitel Telephone Systems 0 Comments

05 Dec

What’s new in MiContact Center Business 9.1

The Release 9.1 Web Ignite client has been enhanced to support the following features and functionality previously only available in Desktop Ignite:

Supervised transfers
Conference
Blind transfer to voicemail
Request help
Agent greetings
Inbox grid detailed view

In addition to the Desktop Ignite feature parity improvements, Release 9.1 also introduces the following exciting new features to Web Ignite:

Tabbed, embedded URL screen pop – pass URL-based Web content directly to agents using Web Ignite or pop out content directly from the agent interface.
Advanced search – by case record, state of the case, media, date/range, subject, from address, queue, employee, time in state, and standardized search operators.
Response templates – add custom variables to reply templates based on workflow collected data and create personalized reply templates from Web Ignite’s Tools tab.
Outbound Calling Line Identification Presentation (CLIP) – leveraging YourSite Explorer’s DNIS configuration, agents now have the option to specify the outbound CLIP they would like to display to the caller when making outbound calls. Optionally, this can be automated by leveraging a new Dialing Caller Number option on the Make Call activity, which will automatically update the outbound number presented to callers when a callback is made

Effective as of the release of MiContact Center Business Release 9.1, all new features and functionality will reside only in the Web Ignite application and the legacy desktop Ignite application will enter a period of sustaining. It is our recommendation that all MiContact Center Business Release 9.0 customers use Web Ignite exclusively to take advantage of all of the new features and functionality of the release. Desktop Ignite will be supported through the course of the Release 9.x lifecycle, and Manufacturer Discontinued in Release 10.0. During this period of sustaining, Desktop Ignite will receive only best effort defect fixes, as required, and not new features and if a feature cannot be fixed in desktop Ignite and only delivered in Web Ignite, customers will be required to migrate agents to the new Web Ignite client.

Web Ignite Enhancements

MiContact Center Business Release 9.1 includes several new features and product enhancements that are available for all supported platform customers:

Supervised and blind transfer user experience improvements

Driven by end customer feedback, we have optimized the UX of the supervised and blind transfer functionality in Web Ignite. Agents can now click the transfer button from the main agent actions toolbar, search or select an endpoint to transfer the call to, and then click a button to either initiate a supervised transfer or complete a blind transfer.

Outbound email handling improvements

Based on feedback from several large customers, with hundreds of queues, we have added the ability to search for a queue to send an email from within the “From” dialog in Web Ignite when agents are either following up on emails or creating new outbound emails.

Audible inbox notifications

Based on end-customer feedback driven by our User Voice tool in Web Ignite (the megaphone button at the top of the user interface), we have introduced a new audible inbox alert for multimedia interactions that ensures that in situations where an agent is not looking at their monitor or has Web Ignite minimized, they will receive an audible alert (chime) to bring their attention to the new item landing in their inbox.

Time Zone Awareness in Workflow Schedules

The Schedule Activity available in YourSite Explorer for workflow configuration has been updated to support workflows across multiple time zones, by converting the local server time to the configured time zone before performing a schedule check. For example, this allows customers to:

Convert 23:00 from local server time (UK) to Australia Eastern Standard Time 09:00
Check 09:00 against schedule conditions programmed within the activity
Route interactions accordingly

MiCollab SIP Softphone Support

MiContact Center Business Release 9.1 introduces support for MiCollab PC SIP softphone, which allows customers to move up to the latest version of MiCollab, as opposed to having to rely on MiCollab Release 7.x and the previously available MiNET softphone.

In the new MiCollab SIP softphone environment, the MiCollab PC client essentially runs as a headless softphone, with all Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) controls being available from directly within the Web Ignite client.

MiCollab SIP softphone support for ACD agents in MiContact Center Business Release 9.1 requires MiCollab 8.1, MiVoice Business 9.0

Security Enhancements

Respecting the privacy of our customers and partners has always been integral to the way Mitel operates. To align with the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law that came into effect on May 25, 2018, we have updated our Privacy Policy to outline exactly how Mitel collects, protects, uses, and stores your personal data.

In accordance with recent security standards and browser protocols, MiContact Center Business now defaults to installing with HTTPS/SSL enabled, though customers can de-select the option to install with HTTPS/SSL.

NOTE:

Mitel does not supply certificates and the onus is on the partner or customer to provide these
We do not default to HTTPS/SSL enabled on upgrade, this is done at the customer’s discretion

Best practices information will be available in a new Securing Connections in MiContact Center Business 9.1 White Paper, expected to deliver closer to the time of General Availability.

Technical Preview Content Available in Release 9.1

This was introduced in MiContact Center Business Release 8.0 to provide customers with early beta versions of upcoming features and functionality – specifically, the Ignite Web client.

NOTE: These features have not gone through standard Mitel quality assurance processes and are not available to be supported through Mitel’s customer support group.

Mitel Distributors, Channel Partners, Hosted Service Providers, and end-customers looking to take advantage of these technical previews should contact MiContact Center Business Product Management at MiCC_ProductManagement@mitel.com.

The following Technical Previews have been made available in Release 9.1:

Shared Profiles in Web Ignite

Now that all new agent-specific features and functionality are available in Web Ignite, the primary focus for product innovation and development in 2019 will be refreshing the supervisor experience in the Web Ignite client. As we have moved the core user experience to the Web, one of the most frequently requested features has been shared profiles, specifically so agents and supervisors do not have to duplicate effort to manually build dashboards in Web Ignite. In Release 9.1, we have added a technical preview of this capability, through a small application designed to allow administrators to specify a source profile and that profile with specified employees (by reporting number).

Configuration APIs

Building on the success of the MiContact Center Business SDK, known as the MiCCSDK, we have begun to build out access to the YourSite Explorer database and device configuration and administration through our SDK. This is accessed via a Web browser, by visiting https://<MiCC-BServerIPAddress>/miccconfig and is available to users with administrative privileges. Once a user logs into the MiCC configuration SDK, they have access to self-hosted REST API documentation.

The Release 9.1 Web client does not yet include the following Contact Center Client and supervisor features, which are planned to be supported in a future release of MiContact Center Business:

Real-time alarming
Marquee monitor
IVR port monitor
Schedule Adherence
Silent monitor/whisper/coach controls
Contact Center Softphone

By 4Sight Communications News MiContact Centre, Mitel Telephone Systems 0 Comments

19 Nov

Announcing Price Changes To The 5300 Series IP Phones

Mitel has announced that from December 1st 2018 it will increase its prices for the 5300 Series IP Phones. Through 2018, Mitel has seen a transition in their IP Phone sales to the 6900 Series IP Phones. With that increase, sales of 5300 IP Phone models have declined in all regions. That decline has resulted in higher manufacturing costs due as Mitel lose economies of scale in production.

To offset these commercial challenges, a price increase of roughly 10% (depending on currency) to all 5300 series IP Phones is being introduced. The new prices are effective from December 1st 2018.

Mitel plans to make this price change as smooth as possible to minimize impacting current orders and quotes. All previously quoted pricing will be honoured for the term of the existing quote or at Mitel’s discretion, please discuss with your 4Sight Account Manager.

During the period of this notice, (i.e. through December 31, 2018), Mitel will NOT accept large, phone only stocking orders. All orders of 5300 phones should be made with the appropriate number of IP Phone Licenses and/or UC licenses and/or system components to make up a complete solution or add on solution. Again, please discuss further details with your 4Sight Account Manager for individual circumstances.

Mitel 5300 Series IP Phones

For further information about this price change or to obtain a quote please call us on (0)20 3668 0444. We offer a comprehensive line of Mitel Telephone Systems including IP phones, consoles, conference phones, and peripherals suited for organisations and business of all sizes. To find out more click here.

By 4Sight Communications News Mitel IP Phones, Mitel Maintenance, Mitel Telephone Systems 0 Comments

19 Nov

How to STOP Nuisance Calls with MiVoice Business R9.0

Are you receiving lots of unwanted calls? Stopping nuisance calls is now possible with the latest release of MiVoice Business R9.0. The new Caller ID Based Routing feature available on the software enables customers to better manage their calls through its Whitelist and Blacklist capability for routing specific incoming callers.

Whitelist functionality can route known contacts to specific users, this helps to ensure optimum customer service. Blacklist functionality enables unwanted calls to be routed either to a voicemail or simply disconnected, thus avoiding staff having to waste time dealing with nuisance calls.

This routing:
• Can be based on full or partial CLI match
• Has an unlimited number of table entries
• Is easy to add, change or delete numbers in the table

Find out more about new features available on MiVoice Business R9.0

Currently MiVoice Business can route calls based on the dialed number –i.e. DNIS (Dialed Number Identification Service), or identify a caller based on their CLI (Calling Line Information). However, MiVoice Business R9.0 now has the ability to route calls based on the CLI itself.

Whitelist and Blacklist functionality provide slightly different variations on this type of routing, but will be limited to calls on incoming PSTN trunks.

MiVoice Business currently has many ways to route calls, however most of them are based on the Called Number. Both Whitelist and Blacklist functionality will provide the ability for an MiVoice Business R9.0 to route incoming PSTN calls based on the CLI.

Whitelist provides the ability within MiVoice Business R9.0 to route a call based on a match or partial match to a given CLI. This is like the existing DID Server, however the DID Servicer is based on the Called Number, rather than the CLI.

Find out more

For more information about the new Called ID Based Routing please contact your 4Sight Account Manager, alternatively email us at info@4sightcomms.com.

By 4Sight Communications News Mitel MiVoice Business, MiVoice Business, MiVoice Business Release 9.0 0 Comments

25 Oct

Clocks go back – make sure your clocks update on your phone system

As you know the clocks are due to go back an hour on Sunday 28th October.

Although most modern phone systems will update the time automatically some will not. Click here to access our guidelines to assist with updating your Mitel telephone system.

Due to recent high call volumes it may take longer for an engineer to assist, so please ensure you read the guidelines on our website before requesting support.

Alternatively, if you want a phone system that has the ability to automatically update the time, please call us on +44 (0)20 3668 0444 or email info@4sightcomms.com.

Mitel System Support Services

4Sight provides maintenance and support services for all Mitel products and solutions with 24/7/365 UK coverage. To find out more about our Mitel System Support Services click here.