Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

Tennessee School System Implements Unified Communications Solution to Reduce Costs

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Education

Customer ProfileJackson-Madison County School System in Western Tennessee serves 13,000 students across 28 schools and employs 2,200 teachers, administrators, and staff.

Business SituationJackson-Madison wanted to upgrade its Microsoft Unified Communications solution to help it reduce costs and increase educational opportunities.

SolutionJackson-Madison deployed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to all schools so it could provide unified communications capabilities to help reduce costs and improve district-wide communication.

Benefits Reduce telephony and travel costs Improve district-wide

communications Expand professional

development opportunities Increase educational opportunities

“The real benefit of the Office Communications Server Enterprise Voice system is that we save costs while significantly enhancing communications capabilities for the district’s faculty and administrators.”

Chuck Jones, Chief of Technology, Jackson-Madison County School System

Located in southwestern Tennessee, the Jackson-Madison School System serves 13,000 elementary, middle school, and high school students. Education and safety are both priorities for the school system, and so is providing the latest technology to help its 2,200 teachers and administrative staff communicate effectively and be more productive at their jobs. It wanted to implement a more centralized system not only to help it reduce costs, but also to open up the lines of communication across the school district. In 2008, Microsoft Gold Partner Enabling Technologies and Jackson-Madison deployed a Microsoft Unified Communications solution to provide capabilities including centralized voice over IP, instant messaging, presence, desktop sharing, and voice mail. With this solution, the school system is laying the groundwork for more advanced education and communication options.

SituationThe Jackson-Madison School System has a mission to prepare tomorrow’s leaders by providing a safe, caring learning environment, working in cooperation with families and the community and providing appropriate curriculum and effective instruction. With 13,000 students and 2,200 teachers, administrators, and staff, creating an effective communications network across the district is key not only to ensuring people’s safety, but also to providing teachers and students with the necessary technology to ensure that graduates can compete effectively for higher education and better employment opportunities.

The school system had no centralized communication network. Schools had either private branch exchange (PBX) systems or analog phone lines going in to administrative offices and common areas such as teachers’ lounges, but no classrooms were equipped with phones. In case of an emergency, teachers would have to leave the classroom to find an available phone. The district was spending U.S.$76,000 per year for 250 standard telephone lines. In the current economy, the school district wanted to find a more centralized communications solution that could help it to reduce costs. The cost of maintaining licenses and maintenance for various PBX and analog phone systems strained the budget; it also took valuable time for the IT staff to manage various systems across the district. The school system considered several options for converting to a centralized voice over IP (VoIP) solution, including Cisco and ShoreTel, but the licensing costs and

complicated implementation with the school district’s wide area network (WAN) seemed prohibitive.

For messaging, it had deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, so teachers had email through the Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 messaging and collaboration client, but they had no access to it outside the classroom or offices. Teachers also had no voice-mail system, relying on administrative assistants in the office to take and distribute phone messages left by parents or district staff.

From March to August 2008, with the help of Microsoft Gold Partner Enabling Technologies, Jackson-Madison ran a pilot of a Microsoft Unified Communications solution that included Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and Exchange Unified Messaging. The district has a wide-area fiber connection of 100 megabits per second, which is linked to the Internet connection at the central office, making the possibility of converting to a VoIP phone system across the district attractive. The pilot was successful. Jackson-Madison was impressed with the additional instant messaging, presence, and unified messaging capabilities the solution offered.

Another area where the school system was interested in reducing costs—and increasing productivity—was travel. District officials and teachers traveling to weekly or monthly district meetings often spent 20 or 30 minutes one way for

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half-hour meetings. It wanted to find a way to hold more meetings through video or web conferencing, so that people would not have to leave their offices but could still meet to discuss important issues.

Jackson-Madison also wanted to provide teachers and students alike with more advanced technology. Most classrooms were equipped with computers, but the district’s IT staff saw that students and teachers were not able to use them to their full potential. By implementing a more unified solution that would include capabilities such as instant messaging or audio and video conferencing, it could lay the groundwork for distance learning and team-teaching programs that could help it improve education while also sharing resources and keeping costs down.

SolutionThe primary concern for Jackson-Madison was updating its phone system. After completing the Microsoft pilot in 2008, it had determined that a centralized VoIP telephony system would be the best method to ensure it could put a phone in every classroom and still keep costs down. It deployed the full solution at its central office, but budgetary issues kept it from expanding the deployment to schools.

In May 2010, working with Enabling Technologies, Jackson-Madison accelerated the implementation of its unified communications solution by deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to centralize its voice communications and

put a phone in every classroom, as well as offer capabilities such as instant messaging, presence, conferencing, and desktop sharing. The solution provides high-availability through multiple front-end servers and a F5 Big-IP load balancer. The Microsoft Unified Communications solution also integrated easily with its current Exchange Server and Microsoft Office deployments. The full solution has been deployed to all 2,200 employees.

Jackson-Madison deployed the solution at its central office, using SIP trunking to connect Office Communications Server directly to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN). SIP trunking uses the session initiation protocol (SIP) and real-time transport protocol (RTP) to pass network traffic from Office Communications Server over an IP connection to the PSTN. Using Office Communications Server, it eliminated 170 analog phone lines, and believes it can make further reductions by the end of 2010.

As with the staff in the central office, Jackson-Madison provided school administrative staff with Plantronics Calisto P540 desktop phones, which easily connect to a PC through a USB port. In classrooms, teachers have USB headsets connected to their computers. Even when they are not wearing a headset, they can hear the phone ring through external speakers connected to their computers.

School employees also now have access to voice mail through Exchange Unified Messaging. They can access voice mail

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“With the conferencing capabilities, we can offer professional development sessions that teachers can attend online, or in their own classrooms before or after school.”

Chuck Jones, Chief of Technology, Jackson-Madison County School System

and email messages through their Outlook inboxes and can easily keep track of missed calls. “With Exchange Server Unified Messaging, I know someone has called—even if there is no message—because the system registers the call,” explains Chuck Jones, Chief of Technology at Jackson-Madison County School System. “I can also call into the system, change my appointments over the phone, and have my email read to me.”

Faculty and staff can view each other’s presence information, so they can start an instant messaging session or click-to-call through Office Communicator if they see the person they want to talk to is available. They can also initiate a desktop sharing session, which is especially helpful when they have questions for the IT staff. The IT staff also uses federation to connect to partners such as Enabling Technologies and Microsoft for its own technology support. Employees can place Communicator calls, share a desktop, start an instant messaging session, or view presence and calendar information for any trusted organization in its network that has also enabled federation.

As it becomes more comfortable with the technology, Jackson-Madison plans to implement more features of Office Communications Server to ease administration and improve education. Some schools have already started using the Response Group Service in Office Communications Server to configure workflows to route calls through the system. For example, if a call comes in at one area high school, phones at all three

area high schools will ring, ensuring that no calls go unanswered. Jackson-Madison also plans to take advantage of the video and web conferencing capabilities, to reduce travel time for faculty and staff who need to attend meetings off-campus or out of the office. Another possibility for conferencing is teacher training. It also hopes to implement distance learning or team-teaching, extending resources beyond the walls of the school building.

Other ways Jackson-Madison hopes to expand its unified communications solution is by offering Office Communicator Web Access, so that faculty and staff can access Communicator from any computer that has an Internet connection and a browser, making it easier for them to communicate with parents and other outside resources. It also hopes to give teachers the ability to access their email from home.

BenefitsWith the Microsoft Unified Communications solution, employees of the Jackson-Madison County School System can communicate and collaborate more efficiently and cost-effectively. The district can expand professional development opportunities for faculty and administrators. It also expects to reduce phone service costs significantly and save hundreds of hours of travel time and thousands of dollars in travel expenses.

Reduced Telephony and Travel CostsBy replacing analog phone lines with Office Communications Server 2007 R2,

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“We have a huge potential for distance learning with Office Communications Server. And apart from cameras, we would have no additional costs from a hardware or software perspective to provide it.”

Chuck Jones, Chief of Technology, Jackson-Madison County School System

Jackson-Madison has reduced the number of standard telephone lines it uses from 250 to 40, resulting in a projected $65,000, or 85 percent, annual reduction in service costs. At the same time, the district is providing every teacher with a phone for as little as the cost of a headset and a software license. “Using hardware devices in the administrative offices and soft phones on the teachers’ computers will help us keep costs down,” says Jones. “But the real benefit of the Office Communications Server Enterprise Voice system is that we save costs while significantly enhancing communications capabilities for the district’s faculty and administrators.”With the conferencing capabilities in Office Communications Server, the district can also save travel time and expenses on meetings that teachers and administrators attend regularly. For example, delivering the superintendent’s annual school kick-off presentation through web conferencing could save an average of 40 minutes of travel time per teacher. This adds up significantly when multiplied by 1,250 teachers. The district also hopes to save $3,750 in mileage costs for just one meeting, and it expects to achieve similar savings on a smaller scale throughout the year by replacing an average of 25 face-to-face meetings with web or video conferences attended by smaller groups of teachers.

Improved District-Wide CommunicationsBy implementing a unified communications solution, Jackson-Madison offers employees a centralized solution that includes VoIP, instant messaging, presence, video and web

conferencing, and desktop sharing, among other capabilities. Faculty and staff now also have voice mail and email available through a unified inbox that they can access from a phone or a computer. They can also easily locate and view presence information for colleagues across the district. “We were so segmented,” explains Jones. “With the integration of Office Communications Server, we have an enterprise system that will really help us bring the district together.”

Expanded Professional Development OpportunitiesUsing the web and video conferencing capabilities in Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Jackson-Madison can offer more opportunities for professional development and more targeted sessions for specific groups, such as first-year teachers. It can also support presenting sessions to large groups in multiple locations to introduce new general initiatives or technology.

Professional development is a critical need for the district, but the time and cost to hold events in a single, physical location have required that sessions be directed to the broadest group of employees possible. As a result, more experienced teachers did not benefit as much from sessions—instead, they often heard the same information they had already heard several times. “With the conferencing capabilities, we can offer professional development sessions that teachers can attend online,” explains Jones. “And they can communicate in real time with the presenter to ask or

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answer questions as if they were in the same room.”

Increased Educational Opportunities“We have a huge potential for distance learning with Office Communications Server,” says Jones. “And apart from cameras, we would have no additional costs from a hardware or software perspective to provide it.” For example, only one of the area’s high schools has a physics teacher. With a distance learning program in place, the teacher could hold class for students across the district at the same time, helping to save time and money.

With a Microsoft Unified Communications solution in place, teachers and administrators can focus on ways to provide the best possible education for students. By increasing the communications network, teachers have more opportunities to reach out to each other for ideas and support, and they have a better chance of reaching even the most remote students.Microsoft Office SystemThe Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to: www.microsoft.com/office

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Enabling Technologies products and services, call (800) 923-4310 or visit the website at: www.enablingtechcorp.com

For more information about Jackson-Madison County School System products and services, call (731) 664-2500 or visit the website at:www.jmcss.org

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published August 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Office−Microsoft Office Communications

Server 2007 R2−Microsoft Office Communicator

2007 R2

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio−Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

Enterprise Edition

Partners Enabling Technologies