Case Study: Grandstream, Objectworld Partner for School Division UC Solution

Located in Manitoba, Canada, Pembina Trails School Division is an award-winning school district encompassing eight different communities and 33 schools. The total student body population is nearly 14,000 students.

Pembina Trails School Division adheres to strict standards of excellence. More than 80 percent of graduates proceed to post-secondary institutions and universities. In addition, Pembina Trails’ graduating students are awarded the highest number of University of Manitoba entrance scholarships. The school attributes the students’ success to a well-rounded curriculum including: a successful international student program; competitive advanced placement programs, national and international award-winning band programs; national and international award-winning choral programs; outstanding elementary core programs enriched by technology and the arts; single- and dual-track French immersion programs; and high school and adult programs in technology and vocational education.

Pembina Trails is dedicated to educational excellence through challenging and enriching experiences for all, in a safe and caring community.

Problem

The school division’s IT team serves more than 2,000 staff members across 34 buildings all connected via Canada’s fastest educational dark fiber network. They need an IP phone that will broaden Pembina Trails School Division’s ability to build a stronger learning community with its 14,000 students and parents by making communication between parents, teachers, students and staff easier and more responsive.

Budget. Pembina Trails School Division, like most school systems, operates on a lean budget. The IP phone deployment must meet the allocated budget.

Interoperability with Objectworld Unified Communication Server. The Pembina Trails School Division integrated Objectworld’s Unified Communication Server in 2006 for its advanced functionality and cost savings. From the deployment, the school system has already seen a savings of $200,000.

Not only does the IP phone selection need to have the same cost and functionality benefits, but it also needs to be interoperable with the UC server to ensure that all important features of the UC system (see below) are used:

• Emergency out dialing, notification and paging. Emergency alerts can be broadcast through the school’s overhead paging systems and over the Grandstream phones for teachers, staff, students and parents to be notified immediately of emergencies with automated out dialing.
• Virtual voice mail. Temporary or mobile staff without office phones can still have voice mail and check their messages from anywhere, allowing them to respond more quickly to parents.
• Auto-configure and auto-detection. Staff members plug the phone into an Ethernet connection and UC Server configures feature-rich phones as required, saving IT staff potentially hundreds of hours of deployment time.
• Unified e-mail, voice mail and fax. Objectworld’s unified messaging feature integrated with fax allows anyone to fax from his or her desktop and receive fax messages in an e-mail, ensuring staff have all parent communications at their fingertips. This feature allows the school division to save hundreds every month by eliminating redundant fax lines.
• Provisioning. Time is a very valuable resource to the staff at Pembina Trails. For the well-being of the students, staff, teachers and parents, Pembina Trails needs a phone that will be provisioned to the UC network in a matter of minutes for emergency situation requirements.