59 Hewitts Road, Merivale,
Christchurch 8014, New Zealand
Ph +64 3 983 3700
office@rangiruru.school.nz

The Environment:

Rangi Ruru Girl"s school is a well-established educational institution based in Christchurch NZ since 1889.
The school accommodates 650 students including daytime and boarders from NZ and overseas.
The school buildings are a combination old and new, however, since the Christchurch earthquake when many buildings were lost or deemed uneconomical to repair, the school decided to take the opportunity to completely review, revise and potentially rebuild much of the school in a completely different shape and form.
The school employs over eighty (80) staff.

  

The Background:

When Tim Jones (Head of IT) joined RangiRuru the school was using a Legacy telephone system.

All the telephone handsets were proprietary & staff, as a consequence, could only be contacted when they were at their desk, or in the staff room. There was no messaging available with the system. The phones required dedicated cabling & could not be moved or added without costly technical support. There was no integration at all between the computers & the phones.

Initially Tim fully upgraded to a cable and Wi-Fi gigabit data network. The hardware backbone is comprised of Layer 3 fully configurable switches.

The Challenge:

Tim wanted to replace the existing legacy communications equipment with a solution that would enable him to leverage upon his investment in the data network, provide the staff with considerably more flexibility and control and allow extensibility for the future-all without breaking the bank!

The Solution:

After some careful consideration Tim settled upon eTellicom's IMX.

For the following reasons:

• Because IMX is an IP system it runs on the existing gigabit data network
• ... and as a consequence no hefty deployment costs
• The IMX is Open Standards & does not require costly dedicated proprietary equipment.
• The My Attendant PC Console has made it much easier for the receptionist to manage inbound /outbound calls and contact staff members
• The Outlook Plug-in application seamlessly integrates email/fax/contact data/text messaging/collaboration & conferencing for "point & click" operability
• eTellicom wrote an API for the SQL database so that vital information is now shared between the communication & computer systems
• Call congestion is a thing of the past due to the IMX IP architecture which supports unlimited outbound traffic
• All outbound calls now go via an IP Voice Telco ensuring significant cost savings
• The IMX for mobile application, running on the Wi-Fi, ensures that staff members with Smartphones or tablets are connected wherever they might be on the campus

Summary:

Not only is the IMX delivering on all Tim"s criteria, but because he wisely set extensibility & flexibility as key criteria for the communications platform, moving into the new buildings (when completed) will incur little or no extra cost.

There are 129 endpoints currently on the campus comprising of: