by Pat La Morte, Education Solutions Lead at Zoom

For schools and universities looking to achieve a connected campus, communication plays a major role. Video, phone, and chat communication can enable a variety of impactful connections within your community — how schools and universities interact with faculty and staff, keep parents informed, build relationships with students, and deliver education, especially options for hybrid learning.

Onboarding remote employees in a virtual setting can be much more challenging than your regular on-site onboarding. However, this training and support are crucial for new employees in a hybrid work model to get on board and start feeling like they belong. 

Cutting the cord on desk phones

At Western Iowa Tech Community College (WITCC), where the move to flexible mobile learning had been underway for years, campus closures during the pandemic meant faculty and staff could no longer access their office phones. “We left our phones sitting at our desks,” said Mike Logan, dean of information technology at WITCC.

To augment emergency remote instruction, the college implemented Zoom Phone, providing employees with Apple AirPods to ease the transition to using a softphone. “Our employees are enabled to be wherever they need to be when they need to be there. They aren’t chained to their desk anymore,” Logan said.

One number, any device

Zoom Phone makes it easy to call someone and actually get them on the line, whether they’re working from home or on campus. As Lauren Erardi, director of academic technology at Quinnipiac University, said, “Zoom Phone allows me to receive my office calls from any location, anywhere I’m connected to Zoom — whether it’s my mobile device or my laptop from home.”

A single platform for communications

For faculty and staff, one of the biggest advantages of using Zoom Phone is that it’s part of the Zoom platform. That means using one app to connect with a colleague or parent by chat, phone, or video — and being able to switch your method of communication on the fly. “I don’t need to go looking for a [printed] directory. I pick up my phone and go to the Zoom directory, type in a name, and connect,” said Steven Ramos, director of information services and technology at Solano County Office of Education. “Being able to convert a phone call into a meeting so I can do screen sharing is big.”

Support access for all users

Streamlined communications, combined with powerful features, support accessibility for faculty, staff, and students with different needs. At WITCC, an IT help desk employee who is deaf uses Zoom Phone’s voicemail transcription feature so she can read and understand her customers’ issues, then communicate via Zoom Chat to help them troubleshoot.

“Her phone is set up to go immediately to voicemail so she gets the transcript by email. Then, she goes to Zoom Chat to send a message to the customer. She can also send an SMS text [using Zoom Phone] if the customer doesn’t have Zoom,” Logan said. “She can interact with the customer in a way she’s never been able to before — and that’s pretty amazing.”

Simple to deploy and manage

If your school already uses the Zoom platform, adding Zoom Phone is easy. According to Ramos, Solano County Office of Education replaced an antiquated on-premises phone system, and “it didn’t take a huge army of technicians. It went really smoothly. We don’t need an engineer to run our phone system now, which is great for schools.”

Zoom’s Professional Services Organization (PSO) team can make the migration even easier. WITCC worked with Zoom’s PSO team to roll out Zoom Phone in the middle of the pandemic while working remotely. “I’ve worked with lots of implementation teams, supplier-vendor partner projects, and this was probably the most pleasant project I’ve been involved in,” Logan said. “And we did this without any interruption in service to the college.”

A final note on campus safety & E911 compliance

As you migrate to a cloud phone solution, Zoom Phone’s Nomadic E911 service helps support compliance with several Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations, including:

• Kari’s Law, which requires multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) to support direct dialing of 911 without any prefix or access code, and requires designated personnel to be alerted in the event an emergency call is placed.

• RAY BAUM’S Act, which requires that information such as a street address, building number, floor number, and suite are included in the dispatchable location information provided to public safety at the time of a 911 call.

Zoom Phone’s Nomadic E911 service supports direct emergency dialing, alerts designated campus safety personnel and provides the ability to dynamically track the location of users as they move around your campus and pass along that information to emergency responders.

This is especially important for schools and universities that need to comply with the FCC deadline for RAY BAUM’S Act on Jan. 6, 2022, which requires organizations with non-fixed phone devices (like cloud phone services) to provide the “dispatchable location” of the 911 caller so emergency personnel can more accurately locate them.

Want to learn more about connecting your campus with the Zoom platform?
Click below to connect with a TeleSwitch Consultant.

TeleSwitch partners with Zoon, offering unparalleled leading voice and video communications and collaboration solutions that are easy to adopt and simple to use, allowing you to connect with your clients while having a successful digital transformation of your business.

You can find the original source and some additional information by visiting Zoom website or using the direct link below.
What a Modern Phone Solution Can Do For Your Connected Campus