Organizations with several branches, sooner or later have to choose a solution that can support a single telephone network to connect remote departments.
The main factors that influence the choice of a company:
- no charges for calls between offices;
- fault tolerance and reliability of the solution;
- high quality of voice communications;
- no loss of time when communicating with other offices.
Most modern IP-PBXs solve the problem at a basic level: for example, an employee from Yekaterinburg can always call colleagues in Minsk or Krasnodar for free. The main difficulties will show up in the details. For example, employees will not see the status of extension numbers in other offices, they will not be able to transfer a call to a colleague from another city, an incoming request will not be placed in a general queue, etc. This also creates problems when different stages of one business process go through in different offices, and in the case of distributed call centers that solve one common task.
Similar issues and many other tasks are successfully solved using the 3CX software IP-PBX deployed on the customer's server or in the cloud:
- combining internal numbers in all offices into a common numbering plan (moreover, with any breakdown by groups and in any sequence) or, conversely, their inclusion in different numbering plans, if business processes require it;
- call routing by groups in different branches;
- a single IVR within the general numbering plan;
- call parking within the general numbering plan;
- call transfer within the general numbering plan;
- BLF statuses visible to all users.
Consider the last point on a specific example. When using PBXs that are not able to transfer statuses to each other, this is how the field of DSS buttons with BLF on the Yealink SIP-T48G phone looks like, including numbers from both the "home" office and from other cities:
Numbers of colleagues from other cities are marked in gray, and their statuses are not displayed. 3CX successfully solves this problem as well. It will look like this, already without gray values:
There are a number of other advantages when using a software IP-PBX (3CX) in a branch network rather than a hardware telephone exchange:
- no logistics costs: no need to physically send "iron" PBXs to all offices;
- no need for additional staff: remote setup eliminates the need for a trained engineer to be present at the branch office;
- end-to-end setup: 3Π‘Π₯ has an end-to-end logic for setting up an IP-PBX (common computing center), while when using several hardware PBXs, unified settings cannot be implemented in principle;
- easy setup: 3CX setup is much easier due to a single administration interface (management from a single window);
- infrastructure monitoring: 3CX allows you to monitor infrastructure in a distributed branch network (statuses of external trunks and internal lines, resource load, logging) and send notifications to e-mail on certain events;
- easy system upgrade: Thanks to 3CX, the phased transition from the legacy telephone network to modern IP audio and video communications is seamless and without overpayments; PBX upgrade with the integration of all necessary channels (SIP, E1, PSTN, etc.) can be performed at any time and any number of times.
When talking about using 3CX in multiple offices, consider two main scenarios:
- one "large" IP-PBX for the entire pool of subscribers;
- own "small" IP-PBX in each division.
There are both technical and economic differences in the implementation of these scenarios.
Price
Consider an organization with a central office for 100 employees, two call centers for 20 agents in the regions, and a remote R&D center for 50 engineers.
When installing a single IP-PBX, it is necessary to take into account the number of employees (about 200), the high density of calls (call centers) and the functionality required for the call center. The requirements are met by a 3CX Enterprise license for 64 simultaneous calls with an estimated retail price of 326 rubles per year.
In the case of distributed IP-PBXs, you may encounter the fact that some departments will need a full set of functions, while others will only need basic capabilities (a small number of calls, mostly outgoing calls). An example calculation would be:
There is a saving of 73 rubles a year.
If we consider a simpler example - two absolutely identical offices - you can see that, for example, two IP PBXs with 16 simultaneous calls cost 11,5% less than one IP PBX with 32 OBs.
Technical implementation
Both in the first and in the second example, a number of restrictions must be taken into account:
- the need to configure two IP-PBXs (additional costs and time may be required);
- load distribution cannot be controlled. For example, in two offices in different time zones, in total there can be no more than 100 simultaneous calls, and individually (during a peak load period that does not coincide in time) - 80 each.
One of the benefits of using multiple IP PBXs on different servers is the potential increase in overall system resiliency. If the server fails or there is no Internet in one of the departments, the rest will be able to communicate with each other via other routes. However, external lines can also be configured independently.
Conclusion
Regardless of the connection scheme, 3CX provides the user with wide functionality, including specialized options for various business areas (for example, hotels and call centers).
In addition, the ability to conduct web conferencing with up to 250 participants, as well as useful features for mobile workers, make 3CX solutions very attractive for today's companies actively using unified communications tools. Thus, a corporate communication system based on 3CX solutions provides the optimal combination of investment and the volume of tasks to be solved.
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What PBX are you using?
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61,5%Software8
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30,8%"Iron"4
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7,7%Virtual1
13 users voted. 4 users abstained.
Source: habr.com