Fertin Pharma

The challenge

In connection with a technology face-out of an old analogue PABC (Philips IS3000), and the transformation toward a voice/telephony platform based on Skype for Business (MS Lync), Fertin Pharma had to replace their existing PC based attendant solution, due to a poor integration to Skype for Business (Lync). It was key to the company, that they continued to have a high level of traditional attendant features, even though they would get some new features “out of the box” with Skype for Business (MS Lync). “Quite quickly we had a list of features that was essential for or reception and attendants in Vejle. These functions were a necessity when we should go live with the Skype for Busines (MS Lync) system” explains IT Manager Thomas Bøge Mikkelsen. “We evaluated several switchboard attendant systems from different 3rd party vendors, but quite quickly it became clear for us, that the way Competella – on the technology side – , had developed and implemented their application directly onto Skype for Business (Lync) via the Microsoft API; UCMA (Unified Communication Manager API), was quite unique. From our point of view it should lead to several benefits, i.e. that the deployment and system management would easy and transparent, as the Competella system would act and respond as an integrated part of our Skype for Business (Lync) system in a pure and native Windows environment. And when it turns out, that Competella Attendant Console matched (and even went above) our system feature “check list”, the decision was easy” Thomas Bøge Mikkelsen continued.

The solution

In the beginning of April 2011, Fertin Pharma implemented their present Lync 2010 as a voice enabled platform together with Competella, in parallel with their old Phillips system, which continued to be in daily operation. During a 6 months transition period, some users were on the MS Lync voice platform, while some users were still on the Phillips platform. Today all users has been converted and moved onto a pure MS Lync platform.

Today Fertin Pharma operates with a Competella Attendant Console system for 2 attendants and has service for approx. 375 telephony users in the company. In comparison with old attendant system, Fertin Pharma have got following benefits with the Competella solution:

• Improved queue possibilities (i.e. “Camp-on-busy”)
• E-calendar integration (direct Exchange integration with Presence information)
• New searching tools (witch improve the service level for customer to Fertin Pharma)
• Statistics
• More updated information on the employees (via the Active Directory integration)

The conclusion

“The implementation of Competella went as expected. There were a few smaller adjustments we had to get in place the first day, but that was anticipated as both Competella and Skype for Business (MS Lync) was generally new in the marketplace in the spring 2011. After the deployment, new features and functions was developed from Competella, and after normal testing procedure, they went into live on our Skype for Business /Competella system” explains Thomas Bøge Mikkelsen.

”We have been in close cooperation with Competella, and in October 2011 we took a new step forward and agreed to test the next major release of Competella and even before it became general available for other Competella customers. That was a “calculated” move from our side, as we might be able to prioritize some of the coming features in general, and might even be able to influent Competella to make some features “customized” for Fertin Pharma. And I think it has been the benefit of both parties, as we today have a very good system that turned out to be the right choice for us with a good daily operation for our attendants” finalized Thomas Bøge Mikkelsen.

Today Fertin Pharma use the Competella Attendant Console R2 for Skype for Business Server and have since April 2011 been using the system for approx. 375 Skype for Business voice users and 2 concurrent attendants.