Get to Know the No. 1 UC Desktop Application

Today's communications tools have extended beyond the telephone to the desktop, where sophisticated communications applications offer users a powerful way to communicate any way they choose via video, voice (wired or wireless) or instant messaging (IM). By leveraging these desktop applications as part of an end-to-end UC solution, organizations realize better communications, a reduction in travel costs, improved customer service, and better utilization of equipment and infrastructure.

To ensure that these applications are readily adopted and their potential maximized by end users, they must be intuitive to use, easy to operate and require minimal training. From the beginning, this has been a major design objective for ShoreTel, which recently achieved the No.1 market-share position worldwide for small and midsize businesses using its UC desktop application, ShoreWare Call Manager, according to latest data released by the Synergy Research Group.

Transform the Way You Work

ShoreWare Call Manager is an integral component of the ShoreTel UC system, and is transforming the way employees manage their communications. For Ed Lockhart, IT director for Westin Presidio, a venture capital company based in San Francisco with offices across the country, this meant letting users control their call flows and accessibility, without having to constantly file helpdesk tickets.

"One of the nice things is that the user has more control over their phone," Lockhart said. "They get to set how they want their voicemail to answer the phone. They get to set how they want their phone to be routed throughout the system. When my people are working from home, they just forward their phones directly to their house, and then it acts as if they were sitting there at their desk and the end user or the person who's calling, sees the call coming from Western Presidio."

This ease of use and flexibility are just two of the many benefits of the ShoreWare Call Manager application suite, a powerful tool that lets end users manage communications from their computer, and effortlessly move between video, voice (wired or wireless), and instant messaging (IM).

The flexibility and intuitive design of ShoreWare Call Manager is also proving highly popular for large enterprises across all markets. At Hitachi Consulting, where a ShoreTel UC system replaced 12 disparate phone systems, ShoreWare Call Manager gives employees unified messaging and access to a dial-by-name directory that integrates with Microsoft Outlook.

Leverage Presence Information

By using ShoreWare Call Manager on the desktop, staff no longer has to remember or look up extension numbers, or know the office location of the employee they are trying to reach. Presence information available in ShoreWare Call Manager, provides at-a-glance notice of each person's current status, for instance whether they are in the office but on the phone, or currently available to take calls.

A key benefit of ShoreWare Call Manager for Michael Shisko, IT director at Hitachi Consulting, is that the extremely intuitive ShoreWare Call Manager user interface required virtually no training, and employees were soon using features that only a handful of telecom experts had been able to access on the old systems. "We found out how much penetration there had been when we had to disable the ShoreTel client temporarily and people had to go back to the old way of using their phones," Shisko said.

A key feature of the ShoreWare Call Manager application suite is its ease of installation, ease of use and ease of control. The suite comprises:

  • ShoreWare Personal Call Manager, standard with every ShoreTel license,
  • ShoreWare Professional Call Manager, including additional IM presence, presence privacy management, IM, and call handling rules, as well as video features,
  • ShoreWare Operator Call Manager designed to help operators, receptionists and executive administrators provide professional and personalized service in a high call volume environment,
  • ShoreWare Mobile Call Manager, an absolute must for accessibility on the go.

When the City of Lakewood in Colorado replaced their 22-year-old phone system with a feature-rich ShoreTel UC system, CIO Boris Naschansky wanted to ensure that the city improved its responsiveness to constituents with no call unanswered. Approximately 1,200 full-time and part-time employees located at over two dozen offices across the city now are using ShoreTel to efficiently communicate with citizens. ShoreWare Call Manager has proved a popular tool.

"There are days when I spend all my time on calls, yet never touch the phone," Naschansky said. "Everyone loves the ability to easily handle and process calls and combine personal contacts for one-click dialing."

Put Communications to Work

A successful desktop UC application helps turn communication challenges into competitive advantages. When people know the most effective way to contact colleagues, customers and business partners they can quickly obtain information and get the work done, rather than wasting time tracking down the right person or getting lost in a game of phone tag.

For more information on how ShoreTel's No. 1 UC desktop application can help your organization optimize business value from an IP-based phone system, contact a ShoreTel partner today.