Case Study:
Messaging Case Study: Oxford University
Messaging & Call Handling
Oxford University is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. This prestigious institution needed a powerful messaging/ call handling platform with scripting functionality for the development of additionalcomplementary applications (supporting SIP and TDM)
Information
Oxford University is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and the second-oldest surviving university in the world. Oxford regularly contends with Cambridge for first place in the league tables, and consistently ranks among the top five universities in the world, according to global rankings.
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“C3 was an obvious choice of partner for us. Their core technology is featurerich and robust, and their modular approach means we can scale up services more efficiently to meet our future demands, whilst delivering significant cost savings. The team at C3 are very responsive and worked closely with us throughout the integration process to ensure a completely smooth transition.”
Alan Hillyer, Head of Telecoms at Oxford University
The Wish List
- Modular and scalable messaging solution
- Application-centric integration (pay for what you use)and easily upgradeable platform to meet changing requirements
- Will integrate seamlessly with existing telephony infrastructure
- Supports SIP and TDM simultaneously to support IP migration
- Attractive licensing model to support realistic upgrade capability
- Flexibility in development and deployment
- Provider with a proven track record deploying similar solutions in the higher education sector
The Solution
The Oxford University campus spreads across the whole city and there are 23 separate telephone systems connected via a DPNSS network with some IP (Internet Protocol) trunking.
The university required a Messaging and Call Handling solution that was switch-agnostic and would support TDM and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) simultaneously, to ensure a completely smooth transition as the university moves to a wholly IP infrastructure.
“Crucially, we needed to integrate the new system with the minimum of disruption to our service delivery levels,” said Alan Hillyer, Head of Telecoms at Oxford University.
“We also wanted a sophisticated and feature-rich system that would meet current needs, but which was also robust and scalable to expand with future demands.”
After considering solutions from a number of suppliers, the university chose C3’s Apcentia unified communications platform. The solution offered Oxford a future-proof investment that would support SIP and TDM simultaneously, whilst its application-centric integration would enable the university to deploy more focused solutions as required, based on the specific needs of its user base.
Using a CISCO Call Manager as a node to integrate with the 25,000 extensions, C3 was able to connect using SIP and provide the university with a considerably extended portfolio of applications
DownloadFollowing the initial deployment of C3’s Apcentia Messaging application and its Windows-based graphical scripting tool, Narrator, Oxford has now recently added C3’s audio conferencing solution.
The conferencing application enables users to host secure conferences (where collaborators often share confidential bleedingedge research) and store the call recordings safely within the university. With access to the C3 Conferencing API, university departments can also host Oxford University own-branded conferences with external stakeholders.
The Telecoms team has also invested in C3’s Fusion software – an intuitive IVR Toolkit that enables users to build and deploy new IVR services within minutes, and make changes to existing services quickly and easily.
“C3 was an obvious choice of partner for us. Their core technology is feature-rich and robust, and their modular approach means we can scale-up services more efficiently to meet our future demands, whilst delivering significant cost savings,” explains Alan.
“The team at C3 are very responsive and worked closely with us throughout the integration process to ensure a completely smooth transition.”
Benefits
- C3 solutions are all core telephony agnostic and support TDM and SIP simultaneously
- We take an application-centric approach for maximum cost and efficiency savings for our customers
- Our solutions are all built on one core open standards platform which means that new applications can easily be added for minimal additional investment
- Our platform has been proven at both Cambridge and Oxford, plus several other institutions including London Met, Sheffield Hallam, University of Central Lancashire and many more
