A city counts on innovaphone

The city of Villingen-Schwenningen in Baden-Württemberg has relied on the support and expertise of IP Dynamics for more than ten years. The collaboration began in 2012, when the Hamburg-based IT company took over support for the PBX system from Avaya that was in use at the time. Only one year later, the city started to gradually replace its old telephone system with a new system from innovaphone. In the course of this, IP Dynamics set up three attendant desks, which are still in use today, using the Dynamic Attendant which was developed in-house.

Since the telecommunications infrastructure of the city of Villingen-Schwenningen covers several locations and properties, the migration to the new system was carried out smoothly. The city determined the pace at which the change was implemented. This was possible without any problems as IP Dynamics provided service support for both the old and the new system. Today, innovaphone provides the leading system with over 1,000 connected users. The Avaya system is connected via gateways and is only used by a few field offices.

The system covers a total of 26 schools, 18 kindergartens and seven local administrations. The facilities were connected in very different ways – partly via VPN, via a reverse proxy, via directional radio or via their own network. The flexibility of the innovaphone system has paid off here. 2022 the next modernization step took place: the innovaphone system was upgraded to the current version v13. At the same time, the city of Villingen-Schwenningen acquired a Unified Communications license for all users.

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“Throughout the years, IP Dynamics has proven to be a reliable partner,“ said Herbert Reser, responsible for network and telephony at the city of Villingen-Schwenningen. “Because of the high level of expertise and fast response times, we were looking forward to working with IP Dynamics again.”

Villingen-Schwenningen uses both traditional telephone devices and soft clients. Once the rollout is complete, the city‘s system will be expanded to 1,200 devices. The old system from Avaya will then be finally replaced.

The upgrade to innovaphone version v13 also involved the change from the old myPBX Unified Communications platform to the new myAPPS platform. Previously only a few employees had access to the UC functionalities, now everyone can enjoy them. From now on, it will be easy to communicate via chat, arrange spontaneous telephone conferences,

use voicemail functions, share the screen and much more. The introduction of myAPPS makes various work processes much more convenient for employees of the city of Villingen-Schwenningen. Thanks to the softphone function of the myAPPS client and the location-independent use of all office numbers, it is now also possible to quickly switch to obile working. Switching to myAPPS was not difficult, as all employees were given brief instructions. “In fact, after the rollout, there was even applause from colleagues at an internal meeting,” recalls Herbert Reser. “The joy about the new solution was really great on all sides.”

Another special feature of the system is the previously mentioned attendant consoles. The Dynamic Attendant software solution, in combination with a Voxtron Communication Center from Enghouse Interactive, was able to operate the old and new telephone systems in parallel. Since a visually impaired colleague works at one of the three attendant consoles, the software was designed to be barrier-free and can be controlled via Braille display.

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The switch to innovaphone and the Unified Communications client myAPPS has already paid off for the city of Villingen-Schwenningen. The solution is well accepted by the employees and leaves enough room for future developments. It is already evident today that it is possible to respond flexibly to new requirements. In times of increasing home office activity, it is imaginable, for example, to introduce a shared desk working method, says Herbert Reser, looking to the future. For this purpose, the affected areas could then be completely converted to softphones. Reser: “Whatever comes – we are pleased that IP Dynamics always supports us with advice and support in our projects.”

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