Schools Embrace IPitomy’s Unified Educational Institution Applications

Moving to VoIP is not just a trend for educational institutions, It’s a necessity. Education has been moving away from legacy systems and embracing new VoIP technology - only limited by constrained budgets. The reasons Education institutions choose new technology is much the same as other enterprise customers.
Schools have always had the need for a phone system, intercom system, paging system, scheduled bells and emergency notifications. Many of these individual applications have lagged behind the technology curve as they were designed to integrate with an old fashioned phone system or out of date paging hardware. Some were installed as a separate system because there was not one single unified product that could provide most of the applications required. IPitomy can integrate with the older hardware or replace it.

Once the enterprise phone system became married to the network infrastructure applications that might have required standalone hardware components and infrastructure have become obsolete. For instance, it is no longer necessary to purchase and maintain a standalone PA system and analog speakers. This is now integrated directly into the IPitomy phone system and is integrated into the network infrastructure of the institution. The same is true for scheduled schools bells, paging, emergency notifications and much more.

The network infrastructure is being maintained and supported by IT departments that have limited budgets. These limited budgets have driven the need for more integration and unified applications that can reduce the need for expensive components that can be easily replaced with features in the phone system. IT managers have taken notice and view IPitomy as an alternative to much more expensive systems. “You have been a viable alternative to the Cisco, Shoretel, and Mitel market“, writes one school system IT administrator. IT managers know that stretching their limited budget increases their ability to purchase other required systems and software while solving an important application requirement.
Another large factor in the deployment of a VoIP Unified phone system is for the IT technicians to be working with technology they understand. Having VoIP hardware on the network is very similar to all of the other network devices and provides a familiar configuration interface and operation that does not require a long learning curve for technicians. Maintaining separate paging systems, bell schedule software and supporting analog hardware, can require more expensive training; with IPitomy, it is seamless.

It is more common now for educators to use an iPad that includes many applications suited to their daily tasks. IPitomy knows this and has developed features that allow educators to be more efficient. Details like delivering voice mail as an MP3 file instead of a .WAV file allow the user to stream the audio from their email system instead of downloading it. This eliminates the user from filling up the memory on their iPad and eliminates the task of dealing with the downloaded files later.

Extreme Value for Education Vertical Market
As schools consider the latest in technological advancements in communications systems, they look for specific features that focus on the educational environment. Specific to the industry, IPitomy developed a unique emergency notification system which keeps key personnel informed when emergencies come about. For example, emails and desktop notifications are sent when 911 is dialed from any extension, notifying key personnel of when and where the call was originated. These notifications are also used for other purposes such as weather alerts, classroom assistance and school lockdowns.

IPitomy’s uniquely integrated overhead paging allows announcements to play in conjunction with emailed and text alert notifications. Weather messages and other important announcements can be played so the entire school system is informed about important events or even evacuation notices. Scheduled announcements can be played at predetermined times of the day to play school bells over the phones and paging, or to make regular daily announcements. IPitomy’s integrated SIP speakers allow for two way communication which is popular in school classrooms, allowing faculty or students to talk back to calling parties. Administrators can also monitor classrooms if a situation warrants.
IPitomy is easy to maintain and manage with its well-designed GUI interface and built in programming help functionality. School staff can manage the day to day programming changes reducing costly service calls. It is very easy, for example, to change extension names, add members to ring groups or change greetings and prompts. IPitomy’s multi-level administration login allows administrators to determine what user admin permissions can be granted to individual users. IPitomy offers more feature value and costs significantly less over time than other systems making IPitomy a smart choice.

Summary
IPitomy offers an impressive, feature rich and affordable VoIP solution to the educational vertical market. Features such as emergency notifications and scheduled announcements keep the campus informed and connected. The robust desktop Q Manager makes call presence and call management easy. The overall management of the system is very intuitive and easy for school staff to manage on a day to day basis.
IPitomy’s overall value for a school’s budget is second to none and not only makes a new system affordable on the front end, but also costs much less over time than other VoIP solutions. An IT manager who manages the IPitomy system in his school system writes, “You have been a viable alternative to the Cisco, Shoretel, and Mitel market. “