In attendance:
Jim Coleman, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Bob Shea, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer
Tina McEntire, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management
Terri Shelton, Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement
Donna Heath, Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services and Chief Information Officer
Julia Jackson-Newsom, Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategy and Policy
Jeff Whitworth, Associate Vice Chancellor for Enterprise Technology Infrastructure and Chief Technology Officer Vickie Gaskill, Director of ITS Resource Management
Topic: Voice Services Technology Strategy
Context: Information Technology Services (ITS) provides centrally managed enterprise communications services to our campus. These services include traditional voice services (desk phones, conference phones, Webex, Zoom,etc.), campus call center services, emergency phone services, building and elevator phones, and university switchboard services.
We have historically built our service delivery model for voice communications on Executive Leadership’s explicit desire for all faculty and information worker staff to be predictably reachable to external constituents in a unified, consistently available and uniformly branded way. More simply put, we have wanted faculty and staff to look like one UNCG team that is reachable on demand to external callers who need to reach them. Accomplishing this overarching goal in an operationally and cost-effective manner for the University necessitates having an enterprise voice services architecture that delivers both this level of service and externally branded presence.
There are two underlying assumptions that need to be validated by you to ensure that we continue to provide the level of service to our campus that you believe is appropriate today. First, do we still aspire to have a single unified set of voice services across all UNCG faculty and information staff? Second, are all faculty and information worker staff members still the right target to receive baseline voice services?
We deployed our current Cisco voice over IP communications solution more than a decade ago in 2009. A significant portion of our voice services infrastructure is nearing or is at end of life and it is time for us to replace the existing solution with a new more modern one. Our requirement to execute a 3-year renewal contract with Cisco for the existing legacy system is on the very near horizon (December) and we must make a decision to upgrade to newer technology (that better meets campus needs at significantly decreased costs) or to remain with the current system to avoid interruption in service.
Since 2009, voice services technology has dramatically changed and improved. We now have the option of managing our voice and call center services sustainably in the cloud. Voice services now also operate seamlessly across devices, from traditional desk phones, to mobile to computer. You no longer have to be sitting at a desk phone to answer calls with a consistent, branded UNCG presence. All types of communications, from voice, to email, to chat, now integrate seamlessly with each other to provide a much better “one-stop” experience for the end user.
The next generation of Voice Services at UNCG will provide three distinct, but necessarily integrated functions: emergency communications services, end user services (desktop phones), and contact center services. We will present you with a comprehensive strategy for each function that is based on more than a year of research, RFI execution, and extensive vendor engagement alongside key campus stakeholders to evaluate potential replacement technologies.
Decision: UNCG leadership intends for all faculty and information worker staff members to receive baseline voice services.
Decision: UNCG leadership intends to have a single unified set of voice services for all UNCG faculty and information staff.
Decision: The campus will transition to a new standard baseline level of individual phone service that does not include a traditional endpoint phone on the desk.
Decision: Voice services will be funded at the institutional level for basic phone services for non-auxilliary faculty and information worker staff members, eliminating department billing except for services above the baseline.
Decision: There will be a campus wide mandate to transition from analog based phone services, except in life safety situations when no other solution is available. Continued: Implementation of emergency line and call center replacement technology.