Be Connected Day: the Italian phygital event about the future of Microsoft Modern Workplace
What do you know about Microsoft Modern Workplace and how to leverage it to enrich corporate communication? If you would like to become more familiar with these topics, in mid-June, you should attend the free and most popular UC event in Italy focused on the Microsoft ecosystem.
SAVE THE DATE: Be Connected Day - BCD will take place on June 15th in CUBO in Torre Unipol, Bologna from 8:30 to 18:30.
Don’t worry if you are not able to t come to the venue, the 9th edition of this event is in a hybrid format, so you can follow it on Live Streaming comfortably from where you prefer.
Please note that BCD is targeted to an Italian audience so presenters will use Italian as main language - only some keynotes by Microsoft representatives will be in English.
Be Connected Day is the Italian conference, organized in collaboration with Microsoft Italia, about the digital communication landscape that gathers together IT Managers, UC experts, and companies that will use (or are already using) Microsoft’s Modern Work applications for their daily activities. This event has the aim to shed light on the Teams potentialities and take a sneak peek at intelligent conversations, hybrid meetings, and modern collaboration within this platform. As some employees will continue working remotely and some others in the office, companies should be able to combine both scenarios by empowering their team with the right software and applications in an all-in-one Cloud workplace. The core features of this new way of collaborating must include extreme flexibility and ensure an improved experience for everyone within the company.
How to redesign business communications through Microsoft solutions? Some inspiring suggestions will be shared with participants at this one-day conference during specific sessions that will cover 4 main topics:
- Business Decision Maker (BDM) track - In the morning there will be speeches primarily aimed at the business leadership (e.g. CEO, CTO, VP), focused on Strategic Thinking and emerging UC market trends. Managers and decision makers should harness these themes to better understand the new employees' expectations and how to meet their working needs. This track will be a good opportunity to get interesting food for thought for establishing new corporate norms and practices to securely get the most out of new Microsoft Teams technologies. These tips will help companies create new business operating models and be aware of future strategies.
- Communication (COM) track - During the afternoon, sessions dedicated to immersive, interactive, and inclusive digital experiences for modern meetings and communications will be scheduled. The COM track will allow attendees to go deeper into the Artificial Intelligence topic, the Metaverse environment, and the Microsoft Mesh technology to discover how to exploit them in relation to Teams platform. These speeches will also give room for thoughts on what devices and voice applications companies might pair with Teams to provide a better experience.
- Security (SEC) track - Being aware of how to protect digital assets and corporate data is an essential requirement that companies must fulfill. This track, which will take place in the afternoon, will give important tips to help companies implement security tasks resulting from the current modern workplace. The “Zero Trust Security”, the “Threat Protection” models, and the “Red Team vs Blue Team” strategy will be explained by experts to help attendees understand which Microsoft approach is best to protect their information.
- App Integration and Development (APP) track - Microsoft Power Platform, its code, low-code, and no-code development environments, and Microsoft Viva will have no more secrets after BCD. In the afternoon, speeches about efficiency, automation, innovation, and how to increase employee collaboration within Microsoft ecosystem will be covered. The speakers will give attendees helpful suggestions on how to optimize workflows and how to handle and share corporate knowledge.
The agenda of all these track sessions has not been published yet on the official event website but it will be soon available to let people organize at best their own agenda.
In addition to these useful tracks, those attending the physical event will have the chance to meet the sponsors that are supporting the event, including Mida Solutions, at the venue. We will present our professional UC applications for Microsoft Teams and the advanced features and integrations with third-party applications they enable for companies that adopt them.
Stopping by Mida’s booth, visitors can discover all the advantages of having a contact center and a recorder integrated with Microsoft's most popular communication and collaboration platform. Attendees can seize the opportunity to address questions to our sales and tech people and get suggestions on how to improve corporate communications thanks to this UC suite. Mida team will explain also the integrations between this suite for Teams and the main CRM tools, such as Dynamics365 and Salesforce, and the Business Intelligence platform Power BI. These integrations are an added-value companies can count on to provide a top quality customer service, as they allow on the one hand to immediately access to caller’s information, and on the other hand, to obtain relevant UC insights (e.g. about agents' performance and infrastructure costs).
Have we convinced you to attend Be Connected Day next month? Get your ticket here for free!
Commsverse 2022: the Teams conference you should attend
Commsverse is the biggest annual independent Microsoft Teams conference organized since 2019 by a small group of members from the Teams community. The event gathers the main IT Professionals, industry experts, and global UC vendors to discuss the latest news about Microsoft most popular collaboration and communication platform.
Commsverse is among the UC technology events you should attend to get inspiring suggestions and practical takeaways about the adoption of Teams as the hybrid workplace enabling platform. Today Teams is chosen by more than 115 million people as the professional tool to daily handle business conversations and smoothly manage teamwork with colleagues and collaborators around the world.
Keeping always updated on how to get the most of this platform isn’t an easy task and attending dedicated events - whenever that is possible- is always a good idea. Commsverse is a great opportunity for visitors to address their questions to some of the biggest experts and technology vendors in the world. Takeaways may even include strategic advice to empower business communications via Teams new features and third-party software integrations. During the 2-day event, vendors welcome Commsverse attendees to their booths - either they are visiting virtually or in-person- to present the peculiar advantages of integrating their third-party applications to Teams.
SAVE THE DATE: Commsverse will be on June, 29th-30th.
Like it was for the last edition, the event will have a hybrid format so, if you can’t reach Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey, UK, you can still participate virtually for free by following the recorded sessions and visiting the exhibitors’ online booths. There you will find white papers and product documentation to download and video contents to watch. This opportunity allows you to decide how to participate in the event without missing the chance to strengthen bonds between IT professionals and UC vendors and listen to 55 experts.
Commsverse has organized 60 sessions on-demand that cover these main topics:
- Calling & Contact Center
- Deploy & Operate
- Extend & Automate
- Meetings & Collaboration
- Strategy & User Adoption
The complete agenda of Commsverse sessions is already available on the event official webpage, for attendees to create their own favourites agenda.
What to expect from Mida Solutions?
Mida will be one of the 40 exhibitors that will welcome you in the venue. Stopping by our booth #14 you will have the chance to speak with our sales and tech team of professionals to discover our UC suite for Teams, which comprehends contact center, attendant console, and compliance recorder. The most interesting added-value for enterprises and channel partners lies in the professional features and in the integrations of the suite with the main CRM tools, such as Dynamics365 and Salesforce, and with the most popular Business Intelligence tool, Power BI.
Leverage the chance to learn more about this topic during the event, by speaking with one of our representatives. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have and help you understand if our solutions suit or do not suit your business needs and which are the advantages/ disadvantages of the migration of UC to MS Teams. Seize also the opportunity to ask for a live demo to watch our solutions in action.
Have we convinced you to attend this event?
Get your ticket here to become part of this tech community, expand your Teams’ knowledge and make new connections.
Visit our virtual booth here.
Connect, Extend, Power: features and business opportunities behind labels
From discussions with customers and partners, we realized that there is still quite a lot of confusion about how a contact center can be integrated with Microsoft Teams. Over the last couple of years, many UC companies have launched on the market their contact center solutions for Microsoft Teams and some common adjectives used in their products’ presentation are “fully integrated”, or“native” to Microsoft Teams.
This is definitely one of the aspects that generate confusion and ambiguity as, despite the fact that contact center solutions use different integration approaches, they all (or almost all) claim to be “completely” integrated into Teams.
Integration models: Connect, Extend, Power
Yet there is a classification, defined by Microsoft itself on this page which is a good starting point in shedding light on the different approaches and their main differences.
Microsoft differentiates contact centers in Connect, Extend, and Power depending on how contact center solutions can be integrated with Teams. It should be noted, however, that on this official page Microsoft lists all the providers offering contact center solutions “that are integrated into Teams using one of the Connect, Extend, or Power integration models”, without specifying which type of integration each of them uses. Probably in the future, Microsoft would make a distinction between providers using one or another approach, which would definitely help clear up any remaining doubts.
In this article, we want to unfold the different approaches and highlight the peculiar pros and cons for customers.
Connect: the certified approach that uses SIP connectivity
Contact centers developed using the Connect model leverage Direct Routing to connect the contact center solution to the PSTN and to Microsoft Teams. In terms of technology they then use SIP connectivity and Graph APIs to retrieve the presence from Teams.
There is not just a single way in which connected contact centers integrate into Teams. To our knowledge, here are the different possibilities:
- Third-party client: the connection to Teams is used to retrieve just users’ presence status and the contact center solution is a third-party client or website, managing in a proprietary mode voice communications, video, screen share etc.
- Microsoft Teams client: the contact center leverages Teams as a telephony solution, which means that Teams becomes actually the PBX within the architecture managing communications. In this case, providers may also offer the opportunity to manage calls via a third-party app within Teams.
This last approach is the one we have decided to adopt in Mida Solutions’ C3 Cloud Contact Center for Microsoft Teams, as in our opinion, from a business perspective, it provides several crucial advantages for enterprises (see the following paragraph). Moreover, the SIP connectivity allowed our customers to count on a MS Teams integrated contact center solution since 2019, long before Teams became so popular as UC platform.
Business advantages
- INTEGRATION WITH OTHER PLATFORMS
Among the advantages of the Connect approach probably the most remarkable advantage is that customers can use an existing contact center solution and integrate it with any other communication platform or telephony system besides Teams (eg. Cisco phone system, Skype for Business, Avaya etc.), in a relatively simple and quick way. This is a consistent pro for companies using multiple communications and telephony systems, who want to gather in a single solution multiple contact center departments. The connected contact center uses the same advanced functionalities across all the communication platforms, providing users with these same contact center functionalities.
- AGENTS CAN ROUTE CONTACT CENTER CALLS TO ANY EMPLOYEE
Another key aspect is that any employee can receive contact center calls (using Microsoft Teams client). When an external call is routed via SIP trunk to the SBC and then to the contact center, then it is served by a contact center agent who can route the call to any Teams’ user, no matter what kind of license is associated with that user (i.e. no need to purchase Microsoft E5 or Phone System licenses for all the employees).
With the Connect approach call handling differ according to the contact center integration:
- With third-party client - The contact center software routes the incoming call to an available agent in the standalone contact center client using any modality that the solution offers (e.g. voice, video, chat, screenshare). From the user-perspective this option does not differ much from a non-Teams call handling.
- With Microsoft Teams - The contact center software routes the incoming call to Teams using Direct Routing – the agent receives a normal Teams call and manages it via the standard Teams UX. Optionally the solution provider might provide additional data and functionalities, available through a dedicated Teams app (e.g. operator’s dashboard). From the user perspective, this option does not differ much from a standard Teams call, making it very easy and straightforward for any employees to manage contact center incoming calls.
Mida C 3 Cloud Contact Center actually allows both options, so incoming calls can be managed in our standalone contact center, or they can be managed by agents (i.e. Teams users) using Teams native options or our Attendant Console App for MS Teams.
What is perhaps not immediate and deserves an ad hoc clarification is the fact that the Mida approach does not simply replace the PBX with Teams. This integration via Direct Routing allows enterprises to obtain advanced features and additional integration for their Teams contact center:
- leverage on the integrations of the Mida contact center with the main CRM applications on the market (Salesforce, Dynamics);
- define and change, when needed, the logics behind call routing in the contact center
- define and change, when needed, IVR in Microsoft Teams;
- collect any data related to the conversations passing through the SBC for KPI analysis (available in different formats, including Power BI reports);
- provide supervisors with real-time and historical advanced reports on operators’ activities and performances of the services managed;
- provide agents with basic real-time and historical reports on their performances.
Another key aspect to analyze in the Connect approach regards the compliance with Privacy regulations: de facto the call is managed by the contact center solution and either stays there (third-party client) or is sent to Teams (Microsoft Teams client). So in terms of security and encryption of conversations the solution provider must directly ensure the adequate management of these aspects.
According to some privacy regulations, like GDPR, it is also important to define where the solution provider hosts the service geographically. Regarding this aspect, we can either host the solution at the customer’s premises (in the cloud or locally) or at our premises (again, in the cloud or locally).
| Connect | Extend | |
|---|---|---|
| Technology | SIP connectivity Presence API |
MS Graph API Cloud Communication API |
| User client | Third-party client or Microsoft Teams |
Microsoft Teams |
| Connectivity/PSTN | Direct Routing (SBC) | Direct Routing (SBC) or Calling Plans |
| Call management | Call transit through the SBC and arrives in the contact center, which transfers it to Teams over a SIP trunk connection. | Call arrives in Teams and stays in the customer’s tenant. The contact center tells Teams to whom to transfer the call. |
| PROS for customers |
|
|
| CONS for customers |
|
|
Extend: integration via Cloud Communications API
This approach allows the integration to MS Teams via Cloud Communication API (part of Graph APIs) for presence status, call functionality, and call handling. Extend Contact Centers are entirely built on and exclusively for MS Teams: agents use Teams as their client application.
Call connectivity is managed via Direct Routing, as per the connect approach, or MS Calling Plans. Call handling is very straightforward: the call and media stream stay inside the customer’s Teams tenant so everything from security to encryption is covered by Microsoft itself. Conversations stay in the same location as the customer's Teams tenant so, as a consequence, call handling is also compliant with the business’ approved GDPR and internal data policies.
Business perspective
Relying on a service provider offering an extended contact center is the option for enterprises willing to fully leverage their investment in the Microsoft ecosystem, thus accepting - to date- substantial compromises in terms of call management functionalities and integration with other applications.
“How come we have these limitations if the Extend model is an API-based integration?” This is a legitimate question, companies may ask themselves when scouting for this type of solution.
Being developed exclusively for Teams, and having the aim to adopt Teams as a single experience hub, the extended contact center is not conceived to be integrated with any other communication or telephony platform. This is a major deterrent for companies having currently in place multiple systems, which they do not want or are not ready to replace at once with Microsoft Teams.
Secondly, the dependency on Microsoft to release APIs is a double-edged sword for service providers offering the Extend approach: on the one hand, the integration with MS Teams is ‘native’ by definition, but on the other hand, it is binding for everything concerning the product development.
Furthermore, being developed from scratch, from the pricing point of view an extended contact center may have higher market prices than a connected solution, as it is logical to assume since service providers have had to deal with larger initial investments into the solution’s design and development.
Mida Solutions’ philosophy towards the Extend model is very pragmatic: we constantly and carefully monitor Microsoft Cloud Communication API updates and new releases, as improving the customer experience within our contact center for Teams is one of our goals.
We will evaluate the Extend model as soon as we perceive that it allows us to deliver extra value to customers, compared to the current contact center solution built on the Connect model.
The way we see it, “Native” is nothing more than a label, if that does not imply that the solution provides all the call management features you expect from a professional contact center solution.
Power: Teams functionality in the contact center through SDKs (not available yet)
The Power approach will allow service providers to use Microsoft Teams SDKs to bring Teams functionality into their contact center solution. This third integration approach is the more complex and complete one and will make it possible for agents to manage calls directly from the Teams tenant: thanks to MS SDKs the contact center does not have to guide Teams on what to do with incoming calls - the contact center logics will already be present in Teams.
‘Power’ is not available yet, and there is no planned release date available - about this integration approach Microsoft's official source still shows a date in the past - end of 2021.
Do you want to know more about the Connected contact center solution we have developed for Microsoft Teams and how it works? Please visit the product page or contact us directly through this form!
Microsoft Teams updates - Spring 2022
Microsoft continues improving Teams user experience by unveiling new features every month. These periodic updates allow meetings to run smoother and chats to be more efficient, making it possible for people daily using Teams as a collaboration and communication tool, to carry out their activities at their very best.
Keeping up with the monthly Teams updates is not an easy task. You may have missed some of the latest updates and that’s why, as we usually do, we have summarized in this article the most important features in MS Teams this Spring.
TEAMS MEETINGS
- Send automated calendar invite for webinars - When a virtual meeting has been set up, the invite is automatically added to the attendees’ calendar after they have registered. This is a very useful reminder for people, to help them not to miss webinars they are interested in.
- Customize domain for webinar communications - In order to let attendees immediately identify communications coming from a webinar they have registered to, it is now possible to personalize the domain sender with the tenant’s name. This new option allows organizations to make their communications more efficient.
- Set the meeting room capacity and its notifications - Now it is possible to set a maximum number of participants for each Teams meeting room. When the capacity limit has been exceeded an automatic banner will appear at the top of the screen to let participants know. An additional notification in the panel can be activated to inform the attendees that the room reservation has expired and others are waiting for the room.
- Pin or hide video during meetings - Depending on the speakers’ preference and needs during a presentation, they can decide to make their video more visible on the meeting stage, increasing its size. They can also decide to pin or hide it to reduce distractions during calls while still having the video available for other participants.
- Turn off the notification during meetings - Another new feature to limit distractions is the option to turn off Teams’ notifications during all the meetings or mute them only during the current meeting.
TEAMS CHAT
- Pin a message in the chat - As people usually receive many messages throughout the day, there is now an option to highlight one of them in the chat by pinning it at the top of the conversation window. This makes an important message more visible even if others arrive later. By clicking on the pinned message there is the possibility to jump back to the original conversation to easily retrace what was written.
- Change chat message space - Users can now personalize their chat window by choosing how many messages they want to see at one time in the conversation. By default, the chat density is set up as a comfort mode but the spacing between messages can be decreased, by using the compact mode, in the personal settings tab. This option can be useful for small monitor or laptop or if the user prefers to limit the number of scrolls in the chat at the minimum.
- Add description text in the images - To make Teams more accessible for visually impaired and blind people now it is possible to add Alt text to the images sent in a conversation by just right-clicking the image and selecting the ‘Add alt text’ option. Thanks to this new feature, when these users activate the immersive reading tool, available in Teams chat, they can understand which are the images shown.
TEAMS FOR EDUCATION
- Use the Parent Connection - Teams is often chosen in Schools and Universities to support remote education and Microsoft always strives to reach students' potential. This spring update allows teacher to quickly match parents/guardians with students, allowing them to connect directy in a click. Teachers can go through the parents' list and chat or call them to quickly discuss matters and work together to increase students’ progresses. This new feature allows a more iterative updates back and forth to help manage & track student’s progress.
- Take advantage of Assignments - Educators can rely on the Assignments area in Teams to upload documents for students, set deadlines, and choose to be notified when tasks are completed. To personalize this education experience, teachers can also activate additional notifications to be informed when an assignment is published, modified, returned, or failed.
What do you think about these new features? Are you going to try some of them?
Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to be notified on the next updates.
UC Partner Summit 2022: the new event powered by Today Digital
UC Partner Summit is the new annual expo and conference that gathers some of the greatest range of industry experts and thought leaders from across the B2B marketplace to discuss what is new in the Unified Communications and Collaboration and Customer Experience fields. During the event, attendees can collect information about the latest insights and trends, exchange strategic advice to offer innovative solutions to customers, and discover new vendors in the market.
SAVE THE DATE: This new digital event will run from the 25th to the 28th of April.
Why attend this event?
After two successful editions of UC Summit, Today Digital has decided to leverage the virtual platform Tech Summit to host a new annual conference dedicated to UC global experts. The new partner-focused event will comprehend:
- EXHIBITORS VIRTUAL SPACES - Leading market enterprises and vendors will have the opportunity to present themselves and their products through a customized virtual booth. During the event each exhibitor will share product resources, company presentations, or exclusive video contents. This will be a great opportunity for market vendors to know more about each other and eventually get in contact directly to discuss potential future partnership opportunities.
- EXHIBITORS VIDEO INTERVIEWS - Exhibitors have been interviewed by Today Digital about what is now dominating the conversations between them and their existing partners. Starting from this point they then present the most popular channel products and services in their portfolio. This is an important occasion for companies to have their say on how they are shaping their relationship with existing customers, which are their expectations when onboarding new companies to their partner program, and which are the potential concurrent advantages for final customers.
- ONLINE ACTIVITIES - Exclusive keynotes and sessions from the greatest industry leaders will be provided at this event. Here are some examples of the main topics discussed:
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- UCaaS into the digital workplace
- Co-Selling Business Model
- The evolution of the Customer Experience in the current era
- Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience
- How to evolve your sales teams
- Partner led discussions
- Operating in a consolidating market
All these contents can be watched for free during the four-day event but if attendees can’t watch them in real-time, they can do it later on-demand.
Why visit Mida Solutions’ virtual booth?
This is a more than legitimate question. Here’s why we’re anticipating in this article some of the upcoming contents we’re currently preparing for our virtual booth:
- Product documentation about UC suites for Teams and Zoom. As anticipated during some recent events, like Enterprise Connect 2022, we have made our trusted suite of UC applications - including contact center, attendant console, recorder- available in Microsoft Teams and Zoom. These applications can really complete the picture of Teams and Zoom as professional environments: these third-party applications allow enterprises to host in the same platform collaboration, UC, and even customer services. Thanks to advanced call features and CRM integration operators can make their best to efficiently handle conversations, while managers are assured that they are always stored, archived, or deleted in compliance with the relevant regulation. These documents will help potential partners to understand the value Mida products can add to their offering.
- Product overview about Mida new advanced call reporting solution, Mida Call Analytics. This analytics application is integrated with Power BI and Excel and compatible both with Mida suite for MS Teams and Mida suite for Zoom. It helps companies easily understand how to improve their services, by analyzing their UC data, available in a set of ready-to-use reports or customizable ones. The integration with Power BI makes it possible to cross-referencing any UC data with other business-related data. Our active partners leverage this product to address the requests coming from companies willing to identify weaknesses in their UC system in order to transform them into opportunities.
- Partner documentation and video contents that explain how to become Mida’s partner and why to join our global network. Mida allows UC vendors, system integrators, or service providers to expand their portfolio with a complete suite of advanced voice applications. Their technical and sales teams will be trained by Mida engineers and will become familiar with the solutions through dedicated training sessions, support, and white-labeling documentation. This will make them ready to meet customers’ requirements across the globe.
What are you waiting for? The event is approaching, sign up now here for free and enjoy UC Partner Summit 2022.
Mida lands in India: the partnership with Jampot Technologies
Mida is proud to officially present its partnership with Jampot, a new business partner active in the Indian region that has been collaborating with Mida since a few years ago. The tight partnership initially consisted of operational support, but recently expanded into a commercial partnership, aiming to provide enterprises in India with Mida professional suite of UC applications.
Jampot Technologies is a specialist in Consultancy, Product Management, Integration and worldwide support based in Mumbai, India, that provides Telecom solutions and services, especially for the financial and command and control sectors. Over the years they specialized in Trading Floor Telephony (IP Trade), Land-Mobile-Radio Integration, in Call Center Equipment - including video conferencing solutions- and voice recording solutions. From the services point of view, Jampot Technologies provides VoIP and RoIP services.
Our relationship goes back to 5 years ago and when we realized that Jampot had the competencies and the potential to support us in the Level 1 IT support, we immediately began our collaboration, gradually moving towards being in charge of the service 24/7 from 2020.
Delegating Level 1 IT support to Jampot has allowed Mida to focus its resources on higher grade support, but mainly on research and development. That has allowed Mida to be more focused only on pure software development to provide cutting-edge UC products with new features and relevant integrations. In recent years this was crucial, as the focus was making our professional set of UC applications available in new environments, like Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
Jampot successfully managed to implement Mida Recorder in several projects across the Indian region. In most of the cases, it was chosen to complete their trading turrets offer in financial projects.
Over time we realized that Jampot's ever-greater experience in the UC environment combined with excellent product knowledge and the perception of the local businesses’ needs in terms of UC technologies, could worth our relationship to make a quantum leap.
Being Jampot so far an excellent partner, we are sure that they will be committed and successful also from the commercial point of view, bringing to the table new joint opportunities in the future.
“We’re competing with established players in the Indian market so partnering with Mida has really helped us,” says Sameer Mukund Gorkhale, Director and CEO of Jampot Technologies. “We saw that we could win customers by joining hands with Mida and we share a good relationship and get excellent support from the Mida team. We’ve now extended our knowledge and team to support Mida’s solutions 24/7 and also test every new Mida release.”
For any questions about this partnership, feel free to contact us by filling out this form.
Why are CRM and Business Intelligence essential integrations for this hybrid work scenario?
In recent times, due to the restrictions caused by the Pandemic, companies all over the world have been suddenly forced to reinvent their working environments and shift their communications to the Cloud. From a business perspective, creating new environments that bring together multiple services to easily complete daily tasks has become a need. People are now used to work in different locations. Having all the information and all the applications needed in a single hub plays a crucial role in their productivity and, consequently in the business growth. They manage to be more concentrated on their activities, as the time they had to spend switching from one application to another is reduced.
In recent years tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, have rapidly become very popular because of the simplicity with which they allowed remote interaction and collaboration. But this turned out not to be enough for the businesses willing to transform their entire UC in those platforms... To meet the current need of having all the necessary services at fingertips, these platforms have had to evolve into huge ecosystems where companies can find the applications employees use daily. For example, third-party contact center solutions can be integrated into Microsoft Teams and Zoom to add their advanced UC features to the standard native ones. They can also be integrated with CRM and Business Intelligence software to help agents promptly manage conversations at their best.
“Isn’t it much more comfortable to immediately know who is calling, their personal details (e.g. order data and previous requests list) instead of manually searching for this information in several company's applications? Having a contact center integrated with the corporate CRM in Teams or Zoom makes agents’ life easier: it helps them be more productive and makes callers more satisfied with the provided services. This can have a direct influence on first call resolution rate”, explains Mauro Franchin, CTO and Founder at Mida Solutions.
Of equal relevance is the integration of the contact center with analytics tools, such as Power BI and Excel, because it allows companies to consistently monitor UC data to plan the best strategic actions to improve their services.
“Being aware of service weaknesses and monitoring agents’ KPIs are crucial activities companies should not leave out or underestimate. UC reports should be periodically analyzed to catch important business information which requires attention and probably would not have emerged without this activity.” highlights Mauro Franchin, “Mida has recently presented a new advanced reporting solution, Mida Call Analytics, that helps highlight key information as, for example, if agents need extra training sessions or if the number of operators isn’t adequate to efficiently manage all the requests”.
These are only a few examples of the aspects companies can benefit from in these new working environments. Their possible integrations are an added value for business growth!
Do you want to understand how to integrate all this into your business communications? Contact us now to discuss your project!
“All you need to know about Microsoft direct routing” RBBN workshop, Dubai, March 23rd
We are always glad to participate in events together with our longstanding partner Ribbon Communications. This time it is an event organized by Ribbon in collaboration with Microsoft, and it will be on March, 23rd in Royal Meridien Beach Resort, Dubai. “All you need to know about Microsoft direct routing” is a one-day workshop reserved for RBNN network of partners and distributors and it will be focusing on Direct Routing deployment in Azure, with Ribbon’s SBCs and Mida integrated UC solutions for Microsoft Teams.
As you would imagine we've got a lot to cover, so let’s start telling you what you should expect from this in-person event!
What are the main topics of the event?
In this workshop, dedicated to Ribbon’s partners and distributors, they will be trained on key information they should know to efficiently propose and deploy Ribbon Direct Routing certified SBCs to companies willing to shift their entire communications in Teams. Johan Van Bruck and Rafael Vicent from Ribbon together with Eric Moneyang and Hikmat Tony El Ajaltouni from Microsoft will kick off with the presales session, including key aspects of the Microsoft Phone System and Ribbon SBCs suggestions and proof of concepts. Ribbon will train participants to deploy and install their SBCs on Azure and configure the process of Microsoft Direct Routing to easily connect the PSTN to the Microsoft tenant.
Mida’s Business Development Manager, Giovanni Nieddu will introduce to the attendees the Mida UC suite for Teams, which is interoperable with Ribbon’s series of SBCs certified for Direct Routing. He will explain the product architecture, the main features, and how to leverage the suite to manage the entire corporate communications, without regretting the advanced features of contact centers based on legacy technologies.
He will also highlight all the benefits of deploying Mida UC suite for Teams combined with Ribbon’s SBCs, both for distributors and for final users.
What does Mida’s offer comprehend and which are the advantages for companies?
Mida had already understood the enormous potential of Teams some years ago and, for this reason, designed a comprehensive set of UC solutions, including Contact Center, Attendant Console, Compliance Recorder, enabling enterprises to professionally manage and securely store all their business conversations in this platform. Moving the entire corporate communications in Microsoft Teams was made simple by this suite, which is easy to implement and install and guarantees a smooth user experience.
Adopting a professional contact center for Teams optimizes the interactions with callers, and can lead to improved service overall performances and consequently to greater customer satisfaction. Indeed, this solution adds to Teams standard native call management features, more sophisticated ones, which facilitate agents in their daily tasks. Advanced call distribution algorithms and the possibility to track all incoming calls (not only the ones that are handled by agents) are only some examples of the features operators can benefit from. Operators can also take advantage of the integration between Mida C3 - Cloud Contact Center for Teams and CRM tools such as Dynamics, Salesforce, to empower them with instant access to all the applications they use daily in a single platform.
Power BI integrated reports enable supervisors and managers to cross-reference UC data with any other business-critical data, directly in Power BI.
What are the benefits for Ribbon’s distributors?
Proposing Ribbon’s SBCs combined with Mida products for Teams release access to some advantages :
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- These solutions are fully interoperable with Ribbon’s SBCs and Mida C3 - Cloud Contact Center is in the Microsoft certification program (it will be soon certified as a connected contact center). This means the products have passed some specific technical tests to ensure they efficiently work with Ribbon’s SBCs and they are compliant with Microsoft quality standards. So, distributors can propose them as a joint proposition characterized by the quality, compatibility, and reliability companies expect from a Microsoft solution. This will make the final customer more confident in the decision phase.
- Mida’s products are included in Ribbon’s price list. This allows companies to buy a certified SBC and a UC solution for Teams in a one-shop purchase. From the sales perspective, this is a huge advantage for distributors, as it facilitates their sales proposals to customers.
- Contact center, Attendant Console and Recorder for Teams are just part of Mida suite of UC applications. Ribbon partners can easily cross-selling other key UC applications, such as Call Analytics, FAX Server, Automated Attendant (IVR).
Are you part of Ribbon network of partners and distributors? We will be happy to meet you in Dubai, click here to register for the event!
If you don’t belong to this category, but you would like to know more about Mida-Ribbon joint UC proposition for Teams, do not hesitate to contact us at marketing@midasolutions.com.
Enterprise Connect 2022: a preview of our hybrid booth
It seems like this year we are going to make it! After 3 postponed editions due to Pandemic restrictions, we are excited to announce our team will be at Enterprise Connect, at Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center, in Orlando, Florida, to welcome EC visitors, old acquaintances, and partners.
SAVE THE DATE: March, 21th-24th
We will be at booth #437 to present our latest UC products for MS Teams and Zoom and explain to visitors all their features and the advantages for SMBs and large enterprises as well. For those who will not be able to join us in Florida, there will be the opportunity to connect online in our online booth!!
Why attend Enterprise Connect?
Enterprise Connect is one of the most globally popular events in the UC field: it is an IT conference and expo that gathers global companies, UC experts, and service providers putting on the discussion table the new communication and collaborations challenges and trends.
This year Enterprise Connect doubles: as anticipated, this edition will be in-person and virtual. If you’re asking yourself what does it means and what are the benefits of this 2022 edition, here’s a summary:
- IN-PERSON EVENT - As in all traditional events, the plus is that you will be able to shake hands (or elbow bumping) with persons, or make new connections with industry professionals who can give you relevant food for thought to get the most from new Unified Communications technologies. Either if you are in the process of scouting for a new UC product for your business, or if you are just snooping around to find out what the trends are, at EC2022 you will be able to find what you are looking for!
- VIRTUAL EVENT - After logging in here (link) you will access the event virtual platform from which you can download exhibitors’ products documentations, watch their presentation videos, and chat with their experts. This is an alternative way to know more about the exhibiting companies and their offers by getting in touch with them comfortably from where you are working. The virtual pass of course gives access to the in-site speaking sessions, which helps the experience to be more realistic, though still virtual.
- MORE ACTIVITIES PLANNED - During those days you can virtually attend 60 minutes webinars and follow online and in-person conferences on these topics:
- Contact Center & Customer Experience
- Video Collaboration & A/V
- Collaboration Platforms
- Practical AI
- CPaaS & Communications APIs
- Unified Communications & UCaaS
- Workplace Strategies
- Management & Networks
- Security & Compliance
The complete agenda of the sessions has already been shared in the event official webpage to allow visitors to define their personal agenda, plan commitments, and choose the must-visit booths.
What to expect from Mida?
Enterprise Connect is a great opportunity also for us to present to the United States audience our UC products, especially the new ones we have recently been unveiled. Mainly, we will present:
- a new UC suite for Zoom that allows companies to transform it into a unique hub for the entire business communications;
- a professional suite for Microsoft Teams, deeply integrated into the latter, thanks to the Attendant Console Teams App. Moreover, the integration with Salesforce and Dynamics is a plus that helps operators, to promptly manage informations interactions directly in the corporate CRM.this communication and collaboration platform.
- a new advanced UC analytics reporting solution integrated with Power BI and Excel. Call Analytics -that’s the name of the product - helps enterprises analyze UC data, unveiling weaknesses and unexplored potentialities and consequently allowing them to plan strategic actions, supported by data, to improve their services. This application is compatible both with Mida suite for MS Teams and Mida suite for Zoom.
Choose where to meet us, in-person or virtually: our team will be available both in the venue and online to welcome you at our best and provide you the answers you need.
Have we convinced you to attend Enterprise Connect? Catch this great networking opportunity and register immediately here for this four-day event. Enterprise Connect is less than 2 weeks away!
Mida and Microsys: together on Teams CRM integration
Our partner network is constantly widening and we are glad to rely on trusted partners around the world to help global companies get the most from UC technologies. Now we are glad to officially present our new business partner Microsys, an Italian System Integrator with which we partnered to provide our common customers with a complete contact center for Microsoft Teams integrated with Dynamics 365.
Who is Microsys?
Microsys is a System Integrator that for over 30 years, thanks to Microsoft technology, has been helping companies of all sizes take on the challenges of digital innovation effectively.
With more than 300 customers throughout Italy, Microsys supports entrepreneurs and managers to increase business productivity, improve data analysis and interpretation, adapt and use vertical ERP and CRM solutions and fine-tune the technological infrastructure for maximum efficiency and security in response to business needs.
Why did Mida and Microsys start to partner?
Some years ago we decided to put together our expertise to come up with the useful integration between our UC suite for Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 CRM to provide contact center agents with an integrated application, helping them be more effective in their daily activities.
We both understood how relevant it is for agents to have all the information at hand during conversations and that’s why we combined our different skills to provide a powerful solution that helps companies increase their customer service quality. For us, this common value proposition highlights a win-win relationship because Mida was searching for a Microsoft partner with Dynamics 365 expertise, and Microsys was looping up for an independent software vendor with innovative UC solutions for Microsoft Teams to complete its offering.
“Often many companies, which contact us to adopt Dynamics as CRM, ask us also for an integrated attendant console solution for Microsoft Teams. Now, thanks to this partnership, we have a joint solution that combines the professional features of a corporate contact center in a unique hub”, says Gianpaolo Vittorelli, the CEO and CTO of Microsys, explaining that being able to efficiently handle conversations in this way, is a crucial aspect for companies because it increases their service overall performances.
With this new powerful integration, when someone calls the company, immediately a Dynamics pop-up window showing the record of the caller appears: this makes both agents’ and customers’ experience better because the first is immediately aware of the scenario, without wasting time copying and pasting the caller number in the CRM to access records, and the second has a better perception of the service.
“Agents can make the same action manually but, with this integration, the service will be more efficient: it allows companies to provide a higher quality customer service and consequently enhance reputation. This does not concern only the big companies which have a high volume of calls to be handled but also the smallest.”, explains Marco Cortese, President at Mida Solutions.
“It’s simple and it works, this is the solution we thought for our customers and we are happy to provide it thanks to this partnership”, says Gianpaolo Vittorelli during a recent interview with Marco Cortese. They also anticipated that they are considering common future steps in this direction: provide an outbound product with the same integration.
For any questions about this joint solution contact us from this page.