Resources and Overview Group
7th September 2006
CORPORATE TELEPHONY SYSTEM UPDATE
1. Purpose of the Report
1.1 To provide the group with an update of progress on the implementation of the corporate telephony system.
2. Recommendations
2.1 For noting.
3. Background
3.1 In February 2004 Cabinet agreed to the extension of the current telephony system supplier contract with Siemens to September 2005. Cabinet also agreed that the then Head of IT Services should engage consultants to assist in the preparation of a requirements specification and full tender for a new corporate telephony system.
3.2 The full Invitation to Tender (ITT) was issued in August 2004 and following a rigorous process the final supplier selection was agreed in December 2004. The order for the new Alcatel system was placed with NextiraOne in April 2005 following a protracted contract negotiation and final system design.
3.3 In preparation for the new telephony system a number of necessary technical infrastructure works were required prior to implementation of the system. In November 2004 a resilient second ‘core’ for the authority’s network was successfully installed. It was also necessary to upgrade the voice and data links to a number of sites and in some areas implement a second resilient voice and data link. This work at twelve council buildings was successfully completed in February 2005.
4. Implementation
4.1 The first users of the new telephony system were PHP who were successfully migrated to the new system in July 2005 to coincide with their move to Beech House.
4.2 Due to the change in telephony technology from an analogue to a digital platform and the number of system users, it would not have been possible for a big bang implementation. A phased approach to the implementation is beneficial in reducing risk, allows for timely training and when necessary can accommodate other conflicting priorities.
4.3 The main telephony switch for the Civic Centre was installed in September 2005. The system design required the new digital switch to sit alongside the analogue service until such time as the remaining fourteen analogue switches at sites around the borough had been replaced. Unfortunately, a number of technical issues and hardware failures resulted in users experience intermittent service disruption for approximately five days. The root cause of the issues took some time for Alcatel the software vendor to resolve although an effective work around was in place within four days.
4.4 Given the technical issues around the "old to new" technology connectivity officers worked to a very conservative rollout plan to ensure we did not expose the business to unnecessary risk. Since the introduction of a resolution to the issues in May 2006 an aggressive roll out has seen implementation of the new system to 1200 users with the remaining 400 planned to be completed by October 2006.
5. Contract Management
5.1 While extension to the old Siemens contract was formally agreed for one year to September 2005, clearly the roll out of the new system has taken longer than anticipated. Since September 2005 there has been an agreement with the supplier for a rolling monthly contract with no additional enhancement charges.
5.2 Due to the number of initial technical issues the performance of the new telephony supplier NextiraOne was felt initially to be poor. However, following changes to both their technical and senior staff, confidence in resolving the system issues has greatly improved, as has their understanding of our business and the way in which we work.
5.3 Despite the extended roll out timescale the Council has not incurred any additional charges either from Siemens the exiting supplier or NextiraOne the incoming supplier.
6. Financial Outline
6.1 Below is an extract from the current (August 2006) Financial Monitoring Statement.
Resource / RemainingTotal / Spend / Available / Spend / Resource
Item Description / Budget / 2005/06 / 2006/07 / 2006/07 / 2006/07
£000’s / £000’s / £000’s / £000’s / £000’s
Resilience for Network Core / 54 / 54 / 0 / 0 / 0
Resilient voice & Data Circuits / 81 / 81 / 0 / 0 / 0
Active Directory Integration / 10 / 0 / 10 / 0 / 10
Network Switches / 169 / 169 / 0 / 0 / 0
Siemens Support / 4 / 4 / 0 / 0 / 0
VIP Support / 10 / 5 / 5 / 0 / 5
Call Management / 16 / 16 / 0 / 0 / 0
Miscellaneous support / 13 / 9 / 4 / 4 / 0
Project Management / 20 / 0 / 20 / 0 / 20
Customer Contact Centre Model / 81 / 67 / 14 / 0 / 14
Beech House net recharge / 10 / 10 / 0 / 0 / 0
Main NextiraOne - Contract Costs / 501 / 192 / 309 / 245 / 64
Total / 969 / 607 / 362 / 249 / 113
ICT Project Management Support for 2005/06 provided from other resources available to the Service Unit.
The remaining £113,000 resource for 2006/2007 is made up of agreed retention amounts that become payable to suppliers on final acceptance of the system. Likewise the final project management sum will be paid following the agreed close down of the project.
6.2 Budget for the project has been funded by prudential borrowing over a 7 year period.
7. Benefits
7.1 The introduction of a modern technology presents many benefits and potential opportunities, some of the key ones are highlighted in the following paragraphs.
7.2 The system uses open standards and this can facilitate integration with other systems. For example, the current integration between the call contact centre system and the CRM system which enables dialing from the desktop using a ‘softphone’. It could also, with joint agreement, enable free calls between participating groups such as Police, Health Services or neighboring authorities.
7.3 From a user perspective the new system provides caller identification, handset lock, conference calling and the ability to ‘log in’ and receive your calls from any IP telephone in council offices. This supports both smart and flexible working for staff and managers.
7.4 In terms of the voice infrastructure, phone numbers are no longer tied to buildings, users or units and this flexibility offers real efficiencies in the time taken change the voice set up in the event of an office move. Previously during an office move technical staff would need to physically re-patch the telephone connection and could complete approximately five per hour. The new system would only require the user to log out of the old phone and log in to the new phone and when supervised by a technician each one could be done in under two minutes.
8. Project Closedown
8.1 This project began in advance of the new ICT Strategy being formalised however it is, and will be, classified as a Tier 1 major project and as such a formal post implementation review is a mandatory part of the project close down.
8.2 While the main part of the project to roll out the system to all sites will complete in October 2006, there will be a significant element of ‘mop-up’ works to complete such as move of the switchboard to the new switch in November and the decommissioning and final removal of the Siemens switch from the ISDX in rm 100. To this end, it is not expected that the final project closedown report will be completed before January 2007.
Katie Lacey – Head of ICT & Business Support - 01202 633186
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