UC services reach College faculty, staff

Engineering at Illinois users continue to embrace Unified Communications, or UC, a major, campus-wide technology initiative designed to unify email, voice, instant messaging and other collaboration tools.

Joel Franzen, the Engineering IT professional tasked with leading the College’s conversion from landlines to UC and its interface, Lync, noted that Engineering is quickly approaching 100% staff participation, with very few complications reported since the transition began February 13.

“I think the rollout went really well,” Franzen added. “We did not see a major influx in problems.”

Franzen credits the Engineering IT User Services contacts and Unit Telecomm Coordinators with the smooth transition to UC. “The staff was prepared, the help desk was prepared. … Engineering was one of the most prepared groups on campus.”

Users have reported that the new services provided within UC are proving helpful to their daily work. Bryan Kieft, an office support associate in the Materials Science and Engineering department, finds the “voicemail in email” a helpful and efficient feature.

“The voicemail is far easier to organize, save, and listen to messages than the old system,” Kieft said.

Kieft adds that he hasn’t had the opportunity to take advantage of the instant messaging function as much as he had expected, but he encourages users to take part. “(Instant messaging) is much more convenient to convey certain kinds of information and sometimes easier to ask someone a question while I am on the phone with someone else.”

As a user-support professional, Franzen has personally been pleased with the desktop sharing function. In this feature, the user can give access to anyone to see the screen or application he or she is actively working in, giving a visual component to collaboration that one can’t easily get with emails or phone calls.

For Franzen, “It means I can help (the users) faster,” particularly when they are located in a different part of the College.

The primary feedback continues to be: If you use it, you’ll like it. Those who are participating in UC want other staff and faculty to participate in the Lync environment, too.

Kieft encourages his fellow Engineering employees to take a class or have an Engineering IT professional assist with set up, if they haven’t done so already. Training sessions and presentations are available free of charge through the FAST3 program, for both Microsoft Outlook  (email and calendaring) and Microsoft Lync (voice and IM).

Engineering employees who have not made the switch to UC and Lync are encouraged to do so soon. The UC Project has set a June deadline for the changeover from landlines to the new system. As that deadline nears, Franzen anticipates users will realize they need to take steps to use the new system, including obtaining a communication device and contacting their support personnel, which may create a backlog in service. Contacting your Engineering IT User Services professional now will facilitate the process and aid in preventing a disruption in service after the June deadline.

Employees are also reminded to fill out their E911 Acknowledgement Form. This form is required by federal regulation for all Voice over IP (VOIP) deployments such as Lync. For more information about E911 with UC Voice, visit the CITES E911 information page.

For assistance regarding UC or any IT issue, please contact engrit-help [at] illinois.eduor your Engineering IT support professional. For more information on UC or to provide feedback about the UC project, please contact uc-uft [at] illinois.edu.

In addition, the following resources may be of interest to UC users:

• CITES Unified Communications home page
• CITES Wiki video training and tutorial collection