WebConnex – Unified Communications as a Service

WebConnex On-Line Communications

WebConnex is a highly open and flexible Unified Communications solution that will integrate with all your existing applications. OpenScape UC Application V10 is a Unified Communications solution for companies which need a flexible solution which will integrate with all of their other applications. 

OpenScape UC – or WebConnex as it’s now called – will increase your team’s performance via seamless and efficient collaboration. WebConnex is based on Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) and therefore easily integrates itself with different IT and telephony environments as well as legacy-based Microsoft or HCL (IBM) applications.

For those companies which would like the benefits of transformational process efficiencies offered by Communications Embedded Business Processes (CEBP), WebConnex seamlessly integrates other business applications and social networks to achieve this.

WebConnex – OpenScape UC – provides the following benefits to organisations:

  • Integrated audio, web, and video conferencing which enables them to enhance collaboration and increase team productivity while at the same time minimising costs for 3rd-party conferencing services, the need to travel, and rental costs.
  • OpenScape UC Application provides workers and teams with a convenient method for collaborating ad-hoc and in real-time, which results in faster action and decision-making.
  • Continuous availability and productivity for mobile and remote workers through presence-based real-time communication.
  • Improved and faster processes through communication functions are accessible directly in the applications used by workers.
  • Utilisation and optimisation of existing applications through seamless integration in an open, standards-based UC solution.

Features and capabilities
WebConnex – giving you fast access to key people
Presence technology enables users to view the availability and status of key contacts. It provides users with “presence status” information about a contact’s availability, before they communicate, enabling them to choose the best method and time to communicate effectively on the first attempt.

Users manage their own presence status, and decide for whom they are available, at what times, under which circumstances, and over which media and device of choice. For very large organisations, rich presence is also available between two or more OpenScape UC Application systems or domains, enabling users to view the presence status of all OpenScape users across the network.

With Federated Presence these capabilities are extended beyond your organisation, to the community of people who work outside the walls of your office. In a federated network, OpenScape users can share their user and IM presence availability and exchange instant messages with people outside your organisation who are using any XMPP-capable UC solution.

Instant Messaging (Chat)
Instant Messaging (IM) allows text messages to be sent to other OpenScape UC Application users. Emoticons and hyperlinks are also supported. The IM presence control occurs in the new client and in Atos Unify OpenScape Fusion in the background during login/logout.

Also supported is the storage of chat messages (chat history). With OpenScape UC Application V10, users can attach files to chat messages like pictures, screen shots, text, etc. The storage of chat messages (chat history) is limited by default.

Since OpenScape UC Application uses the standard XMPP protocol for its internal IM implementation, it is also possible to support any non-UC XMPP-based IM solution. However, those implementations must always be done on a project specific base and need additional support from our Professional Services organisation.

Organising and communicating with contacts
OpenScape UC users can create a personal contact list, which provides quick click-to-call, IM, or e-mail access to colleagues. This also applies to people outside your organisation whom you communicate with frequently.

Contacts can also be called directly from search results or from the journal. Once a telephone connection is established, additional features such as alternate, consultation, callback or conference are available.

The new Web-Client gives the following options for administration of contacts:

  • Profile pictures can be integrated for personal contacts as well as for contacts found from directory search.
  • The contact search, journal, and voice mails (device & user presence) feature display of availability.
  • The “Contextual Action Bar” can save contacts at any time of the application, e.g., from searches, favorites/groups, journal, voice mail, conferences, to perform further actions with these contacts (e.g. to add to a contact group).

Being reached from your single published phone number
Regardless of where you are, you can always be reached via your single published phone number. Using One Number Service (ONS), OpenScape UC routes all your calls to your preferred device. You decide which telephone you would like to use for your communications, such as your office phone, mobile phone, home phone, or even a conference room.

Conferencing and teamwork with WebConnex
OpenScape UC’s audio, web, and video conferencing enhance internal as well as external collaboration and increase team productivity, while minimizing 3rd-party conferencing services and travel costs. With just a few clicks, users can initiate planned or spontaneous voice, web, or video conferencing sessions. By using presence information, employees can instantly see whether a colleague is available, allowing spontaneous, easily initiated conferencing sessions. This provides employees with a convenient way to instantly collaborate in real-time, reaching the most available people, to facilitate faster action and decision-making.

Conferencing features include:

  • Integrated voice, web, and multi-party video conferencing.
  • Setup of schedule conferences, with or without a moderator.
  • Transfer of moderation between participants.
  • Multiple moderators are possible.
  • Avatars
  • Ad-hoc conferencing.
  • ‘Meet-Me” conferences with dial-in access for guests using a PIN.
  • “Meet-You” conferences to have participants be called directly.
  • In “Meet-You” conferences, participants are called when the moderator enters, thus avoiding unnecessary waiting.
  • Adding/removing conference participants with a mouse click.
  • Display of speaking participant.
  • Muting of individual participants or all participants in a conference.
  • Locking the conference for security and privacy.
  • Disconnecting individual participants from the conference or ending the conference call entirely.

Due to the introduction of WebRTC technology, guests can now also participate in UC conferences using a supported browser.

  • The e-mail conference invitation now contains a browser link in addition to the telephone dial-up. This allows you to take part in a UC conference with a simple click, directly from the computer, using a supported browser.
  • Audio and video are supported.
  • Dialing in with a phone number and PIN is optional.

The “Team” features allow OpenScape UC Application users to be combined into individual teams.
Every team member can:

  • see the telephone status of other members in the same team.
  • receive notifications of incoming calls for other members of the same team.
  • accept incoming calls for other members of the same team.

Every user may individually define whether calls are displayed to other team members.
Groups features include:

  • Groups can be custom-configured.
  • An overview of presence information is available at all times.
  • “One Click to Communicate”: a conference, instant messaging, etc. can be started with only one click.

Integration of WebConnex
What makes OpenScape UC Application so attractive to many of our customers, is its ability to integrate with any other part of their communications system. That’s because we built OpenScape UC Application using industry standards such as Services Oriented Architecture, which provides easy integration into your favorite groupware solutions such as Microsoft Office 365 or Office 2016.

This enables your teams to seamlessly and spontaneously access key people and information without having to switch applications, or to search endlessly in databases or directories. Perhaps your teams use Microsoft Office as one of their primary communications tools? No problem. We can interconnect OpenScape Fusion with your Outlook as well as with your Skype for Business / Lync client so that all communications and collaboration can be directly initiated from within your preferred user interface (e.g. via vCard in Microsoft Office).

OpenScape Desktop Videoconferencing
OpenScape Desktop Videoconferencing allows you to schedule video conferences and easily launch the conference with a mouse click within the OpenScape UC softphone window. OpenScape’s videoconferencing provides Continuous Presence video views or Voice Activating Switching, so that all participants in the video call can be seen on screen at the same time – and everyone can see who is speaking because the speaker is shown with a larger picture. Any user with a standard desktop video camera or webcam can easily initiate or join video conferences right from their OpenScape desktop client or web client with browser softphone (via WebRTC). OpenScape Desktop Videoconferencing
also interoperates with conference room solutions and video phones from leading manufacturers.

In particular, the following benefits are provided:

  • Full HD resolution with video room systems integrated directly without a gateway and extra costs.
  • HD resolution with OpenScape desktop clients.
  • Seamless scheduling of all conferencing services (only one dial-in for audio).
  • High security standards.
  • Hide/display of participant names, also for audio participants.

Rules and routing
All employees can customise their individual routing rules to organise their personal communications effectively. Routing rules can be defined and prioritised by a variety of factors such as caller priority levels, current presence status and time of day/weekday.

Call journal
Incoming and outgoing calls are logged in a personal call journal. Employees can immediately view an overview of missed calls and can respond accordingly. Selectable filters help simplify sorting or finding individual journal entries.

Directory search
OpenScape UC can be connected to different enterprise directories, including an unlimited number of LDAP directories. Via a directory search that can also include personal contacts and Microsoft Outlook contacts, employees can quickly access other people.

Mobile employees
The OpenScape UC Mobile Client provides additional convenience, flexibility, and efficiency for highly mobile workers. The Mobile Client software is available in three modes. It can run in “UC-only” mode, “VoIP-only” mode, or combined UC and VoIP mode. The “UC-only” mode is included with each OpenScape UC user license. Mobile UC Client users can benefit from presence awareness of key contacts, quick access to conferences, setting their presence status and preferred device, among many other OpenScape UC features. Furthermore, audio as well as video calls can be initiated from cell phones and tablets (with Apple iOS or Android) with OpenScape Mobile Client (OSMO).

The Mobile UC Client runs on the most popular operating systems including those from Apple, Android, Blackberry, and Windows. The DTMF and speech-enabled voice portal provides access to features from any phone while away from the desk and allows users to retrieve and process e-mail and voice messages from a single unified voice mailbox. The voice portal supports Natural Language Understanding (NLU) which enables you to talk to the system as you would talk to another human being without having to follow or wait for prompts.

Executive/Assistant communications
OpenScape’s Executive/Assistant feature is an XML application that can be used to display OpenScape UC. Presence status changes, device status, and telephone events on the CP phone display. This feature is ideal in an executive/assistant environment where assistants need up-to-date status information on the activities of the executive’s phone.

OpenScape Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications
For simple IVR configurations, incoming calls can be forwarded and processed automatically by using the intuitive, web-based OpenScape Auto Attendant. For more customized interactive voice and speech applications, the easy drag & drop graphical OpenScape Fusion Application Builder can be used.

The solution permits operation as a classic IVR application, by UC functions, or use with OpenScape Contact Center. Very large directories can also be managed when it is used as a voice-based attendant service (Auto Attendant).

OpenScape UC is open

OpenScape UC implements powerful multimedia communication functions via the media-independent Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and WebRTC, offering stability, speed, and high scalability.

Client access options
OpenScape users can choose between several different clients: the Microsoft Windows-based OpenScape Fusion for Office Client, the Web Client for use with browsers, the Mobile Client, and the speech-enabled Voice Portal. When integrated with Microsoft Exchange, users can communicate from within their groupware client and listen to their e-mails from the Voice Portal.

The OpenScape Fusion for Office Client also includes softphone functionality based on SIP. By design, OpenScape UC Application is based on an open architecture. The OpenScape Fusion Software Developers Toolkit (SDK) allows customers and developer partners to embed OpenScape UC capabilities within the business applications used by the enterprise, such as presence information or click-to-call/conference functions.

OpenScape Fusion clients are included with each OpenScape UC user license. It provide easy-to-deploy pre-built integrations to the e-mail and calendar applications of Microsoft Outlook and HCL (IBM) Notes as well as Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business.

Interfaces

  • Instant Messaging: OpenFire over XMPP
  • Directory Access: via LDAP
  • Groupware: Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Microsoft Exchange 2013/2019 via Web Services and Exchange Online
  • Microsoft Lync over UCMA V5
  • Microsoft Outlook 2010/2013/2016/2019 via Microsoft Outlook SDK
  • Video: via H.264 (AVC)

Languages

  • German
  • English (UK) – user interface: international English, greetings: English (UK)
  • English (US) – user interface: international English, greetings: English (US)
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Portuguese
  • Brazilian Portuguese

WebConnex is part of Mitel’s portfolio of products. To find out more about WebConnex call On-Line Communications on +61 2 9496 4000 or send an email to: info@olcs.com.au

For more information about WebConnex and how we could set it up for you, visit On-Line Communications here.