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SpliceCom's maximiser IP Telephone System provides a 'huge step forward' for Sir William Perkins's School

1st February 2005 - Chorleywood UK: As the staff at Sir William Perkins's School, Chertsey discovered recently, following the installation of a 90-extension SpliceCom maximiser solution by Converged Solutions - part of the Excell Group - it really is the simple things that can make the biggest difference to the efficiency of an organisation. In this particular case it allowed them to solve the longstanding problem of how messages from parents to teachers, who are constantly mobile throughout the campus, could be delivered in a timely and effective manner.

The school has 90 staff, but only 20 have their own desks and not all had their own phone. Until maximiser arrived, Sir William Perkins's School was akin to living in "post-it note city," as one teacher described it. When an external caller, usually a parent, needed to speak to a member of the teaching staff they called the main number and almost always had to leave a message with a receptionist. With teachers being in class or simply elsewhere in the building, it was impossible to track them down and get them to the phone straight away. As a result, a message had to be taken and passed on to the teacher asking them to call back. These messages were generally written on the aforementioned post-it notes and left in various locations such as teachers' desks, in reception, or in a teachers pigeonhole in the staff room - anywhere that the receptionists felt gave them the best chance of seeing the message as soon as possible. Most definitely not an ideal solution - but one with no obvious alternative at the time.

The management of the school's IT and communications infrastructure has been outsourced to a Facilities Management company, SpiderGroup, since 2003. Company employees now spend two or three days a week on site managing and supervising the school's IT systems and infrastructure. SpiderGroup Director Ben Nichols takes up the story. "When we arrived here first it was immediately clear that the school needed a new phone system. The old one was already at capacity and did not have enough lines available for outgoing calls. There was also the possibility of not being able to install phones in the new building extension due to lack of existing wiring. As we investigated further we also discovered that the problem of delivering messages around the school was a real issue for the receptionists and teachers."

Ben Nichols continues. "After reviewing 30 different telephone systems, we eventually short listed four. Of these, the SpliceCom maximiser stood-out as it was the only one that provided an open architecture system that we knew could be developed, adapted and programmed to meet our needs - as opposed to an 'off the shelf' solution that would have been installed, configured and left to operate in the same manner as the day it arrived. I could immediately see all sorts of other functionality that could be programmed into maximiser, but our first goal was to find a way of giving every staff member access to their own voicemail box - and then some way of letting them know that messages were there for them. Quite a tall order, but one I knew we could now solve".

The solution was both elegant and remarkably simple. As part of the overall system a maximiser PCS 400 IP Phone, which features a large colour, LCD, touch screen was installed in the school staff room. SpiderGroup then wrote a bespoke application in PHP, an open-source programming language, to create a graphical user interface, which gave all the information that staff needed about their voicemail boxes. This screen is shown on the staff room PCS 400 at all times, giving a list of all staff by name and indicating how many messages each one has in their mailbox. All the staff member has to do is to touch their name on the screen, key in a personal PIN code and then pick up the receiver to listen to their messages. This also frees up the receptionist's time as when calls come in, all they have to do now is put the caller through to the relevant mailbox.

SpiderGroup are already working on a number of additional bespoke applications, which will make life easer for teachers and will enable better communications with parents.

• A Class Registration System will enable a list of class members to be displayed on the PCS 400 screen. The teacher can then tap the screen to mark a check box when a student is present. The system will then generate an SMS message, which is automatically sent to the parent of any child who should be there, but is not - e.g. they are not already off sick or a parent has not already called in

• CCTV Camera images can be shown on the PCS 400 screen at the touch of a button or 'pushed' through with an audible alarm in the case of a gate or door being opened when it should not be. Teachers working late can also check cameras on the screen of the PCS 400 before opening doors to out-of-hours visitors.

Ben summarises, "There have been very few niggles with the entire implementation. Overall, we now have a telephone system that will grow with us, one that we can infinitely adapt to our needs. The messaging system is professional as well as being easy to use and staff can get an outside line at any time. Finally, and this is a big issue for all schools, when ensuring pupil security, we will soon have the ability to access images from our CCTV cameras around the school, from any location, to see what is going on".

The final word goes to Shelia Hallsworth, the school's Marketing Manager. "With the new system in place we no longer have to worry about messages being 'lost' or taking too long to be responded to. Additionally, as a member of the administrative staff I sometimes work from home and I can now dial in to collect messages whenever I need to, or even have calls diverted directly to my home number if I choose to. There's no doubt that the new maximiser system and the customised voicemail capability it delivers have been a huge step forward for us".

Project Highlights and Benefits
The outstanding feature of this implementation is maximiser 's ability to be developed to meet the exact requirements of the education sector and Sir William Perkins's School specifically. Any business telephone system could have done most of what was required from a telephony perspective but only maximiser was able to solve the exact communications challenges the school was facing.

Commercial Benefits

• Efficient message distribution to all staff, regardless of their location.

• Bespoke functionality to improve other school functions such as registration systems, absence tracking and security monitoring.
  

• IP Telephony solution overcame the shortfall of copper cabling previously installed in the ground and instead operates over the existing fibre Gigabit Ethernet LAN to link five cabinets in different buildings.
  

• Because a wide range of phone types are available, the school was not limited to deploying IP phones but could instead use a mix of soft phones and plain ordinary telephones where appropriate.
  

• Total re-distribution of external line usage to ensure that staff do not have a problem getting an outside line when they need to return a call.

Staff Benefits

• Efficient distribution of messages to staff via individual mailboxes accessed centrally via PCS 400 IP Phone screen in the staff room.
  

• Reduction in the time taken to deliver messages, freeing up time for reception staff.
  

• Those working at home can have incoming calls diverted to their home number or dial in to collect voicemail messages.
  

• Useful information such as school timetables or train times can also be viewed on the PCS 400 screen.
  

• Ability to run a remote-teaching video conferencing system via two 64kbps ISDN circuits on the SpliceCom maximiser, enabling more 'fringe' subjects to be taught within the school.
  

• Faxes can now be sent from any machine in the school - and incoming faxes can be delivered directly to the relevant email Inbox.

Parental Benefits

• Messages which parents leave for teachers will be received as swiftly as possible.
  

• Reception staff time is freed up, allowing them to be more responsive to other calls.
  

• Implementation of the registration system will allow immediate notification of parents should their child not be at school.

Notes for Editors
SpliceCom is a privately funded company, whose management team were behind the two most successful UK voice and data convergence companies of the 1990's - SDX Business Systems and Network Alchemy. SpliceCom's maximiser product family combines voice, video and web enabled IT applications within a single system, providing tangible business benefits for all types of companies, irrespective of their size. These products are only available via selected dealers, value added resellers and systems integrators - they are not sold directly, nor are they available via distribution. Having commenced shipments in early 2003, maximiser was voted the "Most Innovative Product" at one of the UK's premier communications trade events, Comms Channel Expo 2004.