Update on uc4UC phone replacement project
August 17, 2015 •
Wendy Rager tries out her new desk phone.
Over the weekend of Aug. 8, UCOP Information Technology Systems (ITS) and California Digital Library (CDL) staff residing at the 20th Street site were upgraded to the new CISCO phone system, featuring new softphones (which enable making telephone calls over the Internet), desk phones and voicemail. Staff members got extensive training on Friday, and the switch-over was accomplished with minimum staff interruption. Staff returned to the office on Monday morning ready to go.
The staff have been pleased with the new system. “The phone is nice, very modern looking, and I also like the voicemail part that we can access through our email,” says Beaumont Yung, manager of business operations at CDL, a sentiment echoed by many users.
The new phone system gets a thumbs-up.
“The physical phone allows many options so you can customize it to your personal liking,” notes Wendy Rager, director of QA and production services in ITS. “There are a variety of background images you can choose from, multiple ring tones and — my personal favorite — font sizes.”
And working remotely is easier with the new phone system. “I really like the voicemail feature, which sends recorded messages as wav files to my email,” Rager adds. “Since I regularly work remotely, I don’t have to remember to check for voicemails, which I frequently forget to do. It works wonderfully, regardless of my computing device. I’ve listened via the Outlook clients on my Wyse terminal and personal PC via VDI, as well as the native email clients on my iPhone (UC-issued) and my personal iPad.”
The next staff location for training and set-up with the new phone system is the Kaiser building. Staff training is Wednesday, Aug. 19 through Friday, Aug. 21, with migration set for Friday, Aug. 21 through Sunday, Aug. 23.
