Teams revenues have grown from $0.01 billion in 2017 to $6.8 billion in 2020, making it Microsofts fastest-growing business application of all time. With over 250 million users worldwide, Teams has successfully rivalled Slack for its messaging capabilities but is much less advanced when considering its telephony capabilities. Are you getting everything you need from your investment in Office 365? While Teams includes collaboration essentials in messaging and video many businesses still require a secure, reliable, and scalable telephony solution. Calling is still one of the most valuable communication tools used by businesses globally and an SLA of 99.9% which allows up to 9 hours of downtime a year isn't enterprise ready. The solution? Integrate your Microsoft Teams environment with RingCentrals industry leading enterprise PBX; and benefit from a 99.999% SLA, enterprise-grade quality of service and global availability. RingCentral’s Direct Routing integration enables users to get more done. The PBX integrates into Teams, keeping Teams at the centre of the collaboration experience. A single application reduces downtime and application overload for users, as well as simplifying training and management for tech teams. It also allows users to combine Teams collaboration tools with an enterprise PBX, delivering a native, feature-rich PBX experience, elevating workplace collaboration for everyone. With RingCentral's Cloud PBX for Microsoft Teams, all communication and collaboration essentials live in the Teams platform. This boosts businesses productivity by simplifying the user experience but enabling an industry-leading enterprise PBX with innovative features, including call controls, IVR and call handling, automatic call recording, reports and analytics. If security is a concern - RingCentral has leading security certifications, such as SOC 3 and HITRUST, and compliance with industry requirements, such as HIPAA and FINRA, ensuring that users always operate securely and in accordance with industry standards. Contact the team for more information; hello@fortayconnect.com
Evaluating Enterprise Telephony for Microsoft Teams While Teams includes several collaboration essentials, telephony isn’t one of them. Tools like team messaging and video conferencing are readily available, but Teams requires a separate solution to enable workers to make calls in the platform. This whitepaper will provide your clients a rundown of what to look for when evaluating a Teams telephony partner, and walk you through the benefits of RingCentral’s Direct Routing option. Download the Whitepaper Here
Take the first-class route from PBX TO CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS. The future of work is in the cloud. Welcome on BOARD. Develop a solution that easily scales with your company, integrates with your mission-critical apps, and saves your business a bundle. Our team of experts will: Design a custom project plan with precise deployment steps Reduce infrastructure complexity to cut costs and boost ROI Provide QoS analytics and monitoring to ensure call quality Discuss how to integrate your contact centre with your business phone system Register below to book your free consultation with one of our specialists and receive a free pair of personalised airpods* *No purchase necessary. Must be at least 18 years old to enter. Entrants enter on behalf of the employer. Must have authority from the employer and act in accordance with internal gift policies. Offer is non-transferable and limited to the first 20 qualifying participants.
You're invited to Fortay Connects exclusive Christmas Party. As a thanks to our valued partners and customers, we would like to invite you to celebrate with us as the year draws to a close (and meet you all in person). Join us for food and cocktails at the Ivy's Sunlight Terrace, an enchanting oasis in the heart of Manchester with views over the Spinning fields skyline. Please register your details below to confirm your place as spaces are limited. Date: Thursday, 16th December 2021 Time: 6:30pm-1am Location: The Ivy Spinning fields Manchester The Pavilion, Byrom St, Manchester, M3 3HG
You're invited to an exclusive PalmerSport Race Day in partnership with RingCentral and Avaya Cloud Office on Thursday 11th November. PalmerSport is a totally unique motorsport experience without limits, where you will enjoy superb hospitality and driving time in some of the most thrilling cars. Including a Palmer JP-LM and a Formula 3000. You will be encouraged to push yourself – and the machinery – and see if you have what it takes to win a trophy! Register below to secure your space.* Itinerary 07:45 Hospitality suite opens 08:00 Registration and breakfast 08:30 Event briefing The lowdown on the morning’s activities and how best to do them. 09:00 Driving commences – Go, Go, Go! Drivers meet their instructors and take to the track in the first of five vehicles 12:00 Lunch and prizegiving. A two course table-served lunch, with trophies presented to the fastest drivers. 13:00 Guests can depart When Thursday 11th November 8am-1pm Where PalmerSport, Bedford, MK44 2YP *Terms and Conditions apply - Must be at least 18 years old to enter. Entrants enter on behalf of the employer and must have authority from the employer to attend. Offer is non-transferable and limited to 10 qualifying participants. To qualify the participants organisation must have over 100 employees, participants must use corporate credentials for registration and participate in a call to discuss UCaaS with Fortay Connect.
Fortay Connect are certified as Disability Confident Committed. As a Disability Confident Committed Employer we have committed to: ensure our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible communicating and promoting vacancies offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job anticipating and providing reasonable adjustments as required supporting any existing employee who acquires a disability or long term health condition, enabling them to stay in work at least one activity that will make a difference for disabled people This is an important step in our dedication to provide disabled people with an opportunity to work. Please contact us with your CV if you are interested in applying for a job - careers@fortayconnect.com
EXCLUSIVE FORTAY CONNECT & LOGMEIN EVENT Thursday 8th July 4pm (UK) You are invited to an exclusive GoToConnect Virtual Wine-Tasting Event. Now more than ever business communications and collaboration have been paramount for employees to feel connected to their customers and teams. GoToConnect removes the complications of legacy processes and costs associated to traditional VoIP phone systems, meaning your users can collaborate effectively across any channel, from any location, on any device. With over 100 features GoToConnect enables agile working from one single platform, in order to support your business with unified communications. Join us to learn how your business can access these benefits of GoToConnect: Work from anywhere Reduced costs Scalability Future-proof technology App Integrations In addition to learning about all the benefits of GoToConnect, you will also enjoy a 1-hour virtual wine and cheese tasting masterclass, hosted by an industry expert with all products gifted to you at home.
However you work with Teams, GoToConnect works for you Deploying an Office strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. With solutions ranging from free plugins to fully-integrated, direct-routing cloud telephony, choose GoTo to get the most out of your Teams investment. Whether you need to add phone capabilities to a limited audience or roll out global cloud telephony, we have the perfect fit for your organisation. Download the pdf here
Garden Court Chambers Founded in 1974, Garden Court Chambers is the largest barristers’ chambers in London with leading barristers and expert QCs providing legal advice and services to solicitors, members of the public and organisations around the world. In England and Wales, New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong, barristers are self-employed solo practitioners who, to reduce costs, share physical premises – called chambers – including conference rooms, ITC infrastructure and administrative staff. Reliable communications are critical to a barristers’ chambers – if the phones aren’t ringing, then work is not coming in or progressing. When Garden Court Chambers needed to update its communications infrastructure, it had to be done fast, without losing any direct dial-in numbers (DDI) and the technology solution had to provide its barristers with easy-to-use calling, messaging, meeting, always-on continuous collaboration, and more, with no hidden costs. Challenges: On-prem system required receptionist to be on-site to provide directory access and work switchboard Limited video licences, with staff required to set-up calls, resulted in requests for expensive alternatives Arduous call forwarding from within system and only possible to one remote device Barristers had to contact reception to find a number for a colleague, partner, or client limited support for flexible remote working Value Created: One DDI to reach barristers on any device, anywhere. Calls, chat, meetings, collaboration on just one app Workstream collaboration keeps all group comms and sharing of even large files in one place Workstream groups can include members from outside the organisation and abroad Ease of use for staff, and barristers able to manage own contact preferences Ability to assess sound and video quality with analytics to identify causes and fixes No hidden costs, just granular and transparent pricing with great support. Experiences Matters: Experiences matter when seeking legal help and advice, and the experience of the legal team providing that help and advice matters also. Garden Court Chambers was using a legacy on-premise phone system with direct dial hard phones on each barrister’s desk with calls transferred through the switchboard. This was a limited way of working. It meant a receptionist had to be on-site to manage the switchboard and, with only a few licenses available, video conferences had to be set-up by dedicated staff. Barristers were unable to move quickly to fulfil their own business needs – to find a phone number they had to call reception, and requests for expensive access to alternative video conferencing apps were increasing rapidly. In addition, although it was usual for barristers working away from the chambers to provide clients with their mobile numbers, transferring calls between mobiles was arduous and call-forwarding from a desk phone to a mobile number could only be done by the IT admin logging into the phone system. These limitations meant Garden Court Chambers was already looking at how to enable work-from-anywhere communications and collaboration when the pandemic hit and then, with all barristers and staff required to work from home, finding a solution became an imperative. In addition to the new technology solution providing easy-to-use calling, messaging, meeting, always-on continuous collaboration and more, it was critical for the transition to happen within a specific timeframe to minimise disruption and fit around workload – only one month – and that no DDIs or working days were lost in the process Dan Bunce, IT Systems Project Manager for Garden Court Chambers, puts it this way: “Communications are critical to a barristers’ chambers. If the phones aren’t ringing, then work isn’t coming in and cases aren’t being progressed Digital Workplace: Because experiences matter, Garden Court Chambers needed to provide its barristers with the best communications experience possible. This meant moving away from the old way of working where separate on-premise tools were used to connect, communicate and collaborate, to a new world of work where cloud-based solutions support cooperation between people in different locations and time-zone. “Barristers must be available all hours of the day and all days of the week, so they need a digital workplace with no departmental silos, always-on access to information from any location, at any time, and persistent team-enabled workstream collaboration for a true client- and legal team-centric experience. This meant the cloud,” says Dan Bunce. Dan had a shopping list of challenges that he wanted to address and looked at several cloud-based communication solutions. He wanted a single technology and service provider, as his previous experience of having different providers separately responsible for lines and phone system had been poor. “When things go wrong, they each blame the other,” he says. As IT Systems Project Manager, Dan wanted a UCaaS cloud-based solution for its resiliency, automatic updates and the simplicity of an all-in-one application that runs on any platform and does calling, messaging, meeting, and more. “With cloud-based comms, there are fewer points of failure as someone, somewhere, will have an internet connection and be able to take calls. Previously if we had an outage, we lost calls which is a major problem for barristers,” explains Dan. “Another benefit of having a cloud-communications system is that its technology is always current thanks to automatic updates. This is important, as I’ve had problems in the past keeping firmware up-to-date.” One Predictable Bill: Knowing time was of the essence, Fortay Connect moved quickly to arrange a demo and ensure that if Garden Court Chambers went with Avaya Cloud Office, all the stakeholders could move quickly to ensure migration and installation would happen within the month allowed to ensure no loss of business. In addition to its ability to deliver a world-class all-in-one cloud communications solution, the chambers chose Avaya Cloud Office because it provides call analytics, straightforward billing and is easy-to-use. At first, staff trialled some integrated apps from more familiar tools but soon found they didn’t need them – saving the additional cost – as the native platform is so intuitive and easy to use. “With Avaya Cloud Office, barristers get one number for calls, chat, video meetings, file sharing and collaboration and it reaches them wherever they are, on any device they are using. They can easily manage their own preferences for call forwarding, availability, presence, messaging, and video meetings,” says Dan Bunce. “In addition to all this, I am particularly pleased to have some analytic ability, allowing me to assess call quality and drill down to discover why video or sound might be poor, so it can be fixed,” he says. “A final deciding factor in the choice of Avaya Cloud Office was that the other solutions I looked at had hidden factors in the pricing, such as call tariffs or monthly hardware costs. Avaya’s pricing was transparent and granular, with a single predictable monthly bill, which makes a lot of difference.” Winning Communications: In less than a month, and a couple of days ahead of deadline, the installation team from Avaya and Fortay Connect performed a seamless transition to Avaya Cloud Office. The speed of deployment was crucial in protecting Garden Court Chambers as, if any DDI numbers had been lost or working days missed, its barristers would have lost business. “Everything happened when it should,” says Dan Bunce. “Cloud enabled the fast migration, which protected the business, and everything was done when it needed to be done. Since installation, we have been well looked after by Avaya and the support team.” Through the Avaya OneCloud UCaaS platform, Garden Court Chambers is delivering a massive experience improvement for the barristers, staff, and barristers’ clients. This is because Avaya Cloud Office is an always-on digital workplace enabling barristers and staff to work from anywhere at any time in a collaborative, workstream environment. Previously, the legal team working on a case had to create file-sharing links to be circulated via email. Now everything relevant to a case can be securely shared within a dedicated and persistent Avaya Cloud Office group – even with stakeholders outside of the chambers or overseas – eliminating the need to search through emails or the chance of missing downloads. Dan concludes, “The new platform has been revelatory. Not only does it answer all of the needs we outlined, it also provides a single supplier of connectivity and platform, and it is enabling entirely new ways of collaboration. This in turn is reducing the amount of time and work involved in each case, accelerating timeframes and the amount our barristers can get done every day.” Furthermore, the single number that reaches each barrister for calls, chat, video meetings, file sharing and collaboration can be managed by themselves. They choose how they can be reached and when, allowing them to be fully connected to the people and information they need, no matter where they are, what device they have with them, or what network they’re connected to. Future-Proofed: With barristers now able to manage their own call preferences, Garden Court Chambers hopes that over time there will be fewer calls into reception needing to be forwarded on. However, with Avaya Cloud Office, receptionists are also empowered to work remotely and are assisted by the ‘presence’ feature, which indicates which barristers are available to take a call or not, saving time and improving the client, receptionist, and barrister experience. In future, Garden Court Chambers is considering moving towards a hot-desking office model and may even move building. The transition to cloud-based unified communications means that if either of these plans moves ahead, Garden Court Chambers will not lose capital investment in hard phones that are tied to specific desks and any physical move to new premises will be easy from a communications point of view.
Fortay Connect has been recognised in RingCentral's High-Performing Partner Programme as a Preferred Partner! Fortay Connect’s inclusion as a RingCentral Preferred Partner confirms our status as one of RingCentral’s most strategic partners, and as such, means we are eligible for many customised benefits allowing us to better serve our customers, including increased training, support and marketing resources. This is a very proud moment for the team at Fortay Connect and testament to our expert knowledge and dedication in fulfilling our customers business needs. What about my organisation? Each of our customers is in a different stage of their unified communications journey, and our service offerings have been designed to help and support all of our customers. We recognise that there is no “one-size fits all” when it comes to unified communications. Each organisation's journey to RingCentral is different and our services provide you with the building blocks needed to support your business effectively. Our dedicated RingCentral services include telephony audits, feature scoring, technical demonstrations, project management, training and deployment to ensure our customers receive the full value of RingCentral’s message video and phone solution If you would like to know about RingCentral’s solution, email us on hello@fortayconnect.com
