The advances that have taken place and continue to change within IT have presented many challenges for organisations wishing to maximise their use of technology.
Traditionally separate networks have been deployed to handle voice, data, and video traffic. Each of these technologies has had different transport requirements, making them expensive to install, maintain and reconfigure and difficult to integrate. Most telephony applications had a separate software interface for each separate supported piece of hardware. The advent of IP telephony converging voice, video, and data over existing IP-based LANs, WANs, and the Internet requires a new breed of collaboration tools and standards.
The Windows Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) standard was developed by Microsoft and others to simplify the interface between Windows applications and telephone equipment. Support departments are under constant pressure to speed up call handling. Recognising the caller and being able to bring up details before the call is answered presents a more professional and knowledgeable experience. RMS TAPI interface requires the customer telephone exchange to be TAPI 2.0 or higher compliant.
RMS Service Desk using TAPI integration brings benefits including:
When a call is received the incoming phone numbers are matched against the customer phone numbers, the contact telephone and mobile numbers. The system can be configured to check either contact or customer first.
When the phone rings the user is given the option to either start a new call, to list the calls currently open for the call , to open a worklist or simply list the calls.
The call details page has a button against both the customer and location phone numbers for fast dialing allowing the system to pick up an outside line and dial the required number.
Possible applications for IP telephony include telecommuting, real-time document collaboration, distance learning, employee training, video conferencing, video mail, and video on demand.
