New Avaya IP Office Simplifies UC For SMEs

Avaya has launched a new version of Avaya IP Office for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The new version – Avaya IP Office Release 5 – simplifies unified communications and customer service for SMEs, while delivering a range of new capabilities improving the scalability, resiliency and productivity of organisations.

To make communications easy for SMEs, Avaya IP Office is now offered in six role-based solutions – tailored to roles such as ’tele-worker’, ‘mobile worker’, and ‘customer service agent’ – each designed to meet specific worker needs. Using this approach, small enterprises no longer have to pick from a multitude of application options, removing the complexity of choosing the right communications solution.

Avaya has also streamlined IP Office by consolidating multiple hardware options down to a single, higher-capacity hardware platform. It now supports 384 users per system, up from 272, extending the scalability and usefulness of an IP Office system as a business grows. Additionally, conferencing capacity has been doubled from one to two 64-party bridges.

For SMEs with multiple sites, Avaya introduces a more efficient method of business continuity. With Avaya IP Office Release 5, a business site can use servers at alternate sites to keep an IP communications network – including phones and voicemail – operating in the event of an outage. For example, if an outage occurs at a site, the system automatically re-registers to another IP Office site.

Avaya IP Office also delivers new productivity-enhancing applications for unified communications and customer service – now accessible via a Web browser using a ‘thin client’ model. New Web-based applications include one-X Portal for Avaya IP Office, a communications portal designed for PCs providing workers a better way to manage phone communications using real-time call control, presence and call logs.

Additionally, Avaya IP Office Release 5 introduces a new contact centre reporting application, also accessible via the Web. Customer Call Reporter can track customer service progress and agent productivity, while using alarms to help administrators react to issues in real-time. With Customer Call Reporter, agents can see how they are performing against workgroup averages, while supervisors can track factors such as the number of agents logged on, as well as calls arriving, waiting or lost.

Avaya IP Office Release 5 Availability

With the introduction of Avaya IP Office Release 5 software, available now, the Avaya IP Office 500 server becomes the company’s single server offering for the SME market. The Release 5 software can also be used on existing IP 406v2 and IP412 IP Office servers.