|
to people with life-disrupting problems |
Current Needs - Telephones
Introduction
CCM is looking to renew, replace or upgrade our telephone system. We have purchased a second building in Easton: this used to be the 'Queen Vic' pub, and is now called 'Carpenter House'. We plan to move the Wild Goose (our coffee shop) to Carpenter House once the necessary work has been undertaken. At present, we expect this to happen on 22 November 2010.
The second phase of the work at Carpenter House will be to convert the upstairs rooms to storage and offices. Once this is done, we will move some or all of our desks from City Road to arpenter House. This will probably happen in January 2011.
Overview of the Current System
The current system was provided by BT.
We have two distinct parts to the phone system. The first part is simple: there is one number (0117 924 0799 - note it is '924' and not '942'!) and one line. It provides the broadband for our Internet connection, and the fax number. The line is connected to the main office printer, which also functions as a fax machine.
The second part is less simple. We have two physical lines coming in (so a maximum of two people can talk on the phone at any one time), and two numbers: one for the office (0117 942 3088), and one for the shop (0117 942 3092).
The phone in the shop receives calls directly (on the 3092 number), and also as an extension from the office (on the 3088 number).
Calls to the office ring on the phones on the second floor, and also on the LITE phone if the 'night' service is switched on. Once picked up, they can be passed on to any extension.
If a call is not picked up, it goes to an answerphone system. There is a system answerphone if nobody picks up, and also an individual answerphone for each extension. The current answerphone system is not easy to use, and is easy to switch off by mistake.
The current extensions are:
- Office Manager
- Paul (General Manager)
- Andy (Training and Development Manager)
- LITE Training Room
- Coffee Shop
- Basement
The main office number is well publicised, and we would need a very good reason to change that. The other two numbers are not published, and can be changed without difficulty.
At present, we do not have the facility to return calls when the caller fails to leave their number. At the very least, we would like a '1471' facility to provide the number of the last caller, but ideally we should be able to find the number of a previous caller several days later.
The New System
We need at least the current level of functionality, but it does not have to be delivered in the same way. For example, we need to be provide a means by which people can dial directly to the coffee shop, but this does not have to be done using a different number: if we had the facility to dial extensions directly, the coffee shop would be just one more extension the public could dial.
The revised phone system should include:
- Manuals for configuration!
- A '1471' last number redial facility
- The ability to find the number of a caller several days later
- More phones (see below)
- Replace the phone in the LITE Training Room with a cordless phone in the main office (we can do this ourselves)
- Configure the system to provide a proper 'night service' facility which switches incoming voice calls straight into the answerphone (this is also needed during the day when we have meetings in the office)
- This updated 'night service' facility will no longer need to make any difference to whether the Training Room phone rings, as the phone will now be kept in the main office and taken down to the room as and when it is required
- The broadband connection to Carpenter House should have a fixed IP address
In addition:
- We would like to enable people to directly dial extensions from outside - please quote for this as an added extra, if it is not part of the default configuration
The new phone system should include fixed line phones for:
- Sian (Office Manager)
- Paul (General Manager)
- Stuart (LITE Project Manager)
- Alan (Coffee Shop Manager)
- Jonathan (Fundraising Manager)
- Steve (Volunteer Manager)
- Lisa (Assistant Coffee Shop Manager)
- Chris (Assistant Coffee Shop Manager)
- Volunteer Room
- Coffee Shop
- City Road office
- City Road training room cordless phone
It would be wise to configure the system to allow for a modest level of expansion - possibly a maximum of 16 lines.
We would also be interested in talking about mobile phones for some staff in due course. We have several mobile contracts which could be brought into the main telephone contract when they come up for renewal, if this makes economic sense.
Once we have a secure room (the 'Volunteer Room') available in Carpenter House, it would be helpful to have a computer and telephone there. So the initial work will probably be to install two phones in Carpenter House: one in the Volunteer Room, and one in the Coffee Shop.
Carpenter House must function as another set of rooms in the existing building: people must be able to phone CCM without knowing which building a member of staff is working from. We must be able to move people between buildings and configure the phone system accordingly without the involvement of an external engineer visiting from the telephone company.
Carpenter House will require:
- A broadband connection
- A number (currently unspecified) of phones acting as extensions to the existing voice line.
The current proposal is that the phones in Carpenter House will be IP phones connected by Cat5 cabling, which will also provide the connections for the computers. But we are open to other suggestions.
When the Wild Goose moves from City Road to Carpenter House, either the number for the coffee shop must move with it, or we need to get a new number or direct dial facility to enable volunteers to ring straight through to the shop.
The other complication is that we expect to be provided with a room in the church next door, which we will connect with the offices in Carpenter House. We will have desks and phones in this new room, which will probably be available to us before the rest of the offices at Carpenter House.