| Your phone rings and you are right in the
middle of finishing an important budget project that was due yesterday.
Though you consider yourself the master of multitasking, you would really
prefer not to lose your focus at this particular moment. Besides, your
boss has been pacing back and forth in the hallway outside your office for
the past half hour, waiting anxiously for you to complete the job at hand.
The last thing he wants to see is you talking on the phone instead of
feverishly hacking away at your keyboard.
Out of the corner of your eye, you manage to steal a glance at the
source of the ringing but you can feel his eyes set intently upon you as
you try to decide whether to pick up the phone or not. In your attempt to
block it out, you only succeed in obsessing about it instead. Who could it
be? Maybe it is just a telemarketing call or yet another headhunter... If
only you had some way of finding out who was on the other end of that
ringing without actually picking up the phone.
PC Phone might just be the software solution you need. It is a CTI
product that integrates the PC and the telephone and brings the
functionality of both to the desktop. It offers a user-friendly graphical
interface and gives users the power to manage their telephone system from
their PC. Multiple desktop connectivity options are also available to the
user. These options allow the user a flexible choice of media that
includes the Citel Personal Switch, a digital system key pad, headset,
analog device, and hands-free operation via microphone and speakers.
In addition to centralized control at the desktop, PC Phone enables the
phone system to retain its usefulness and offer users the option of using
the handset or headset. The Citel Personal Switch integrates with the
Toshiba DK range of telephone systems as well as the Panasonic KXTD and
DBS range. In addition to providing users with an effective screening
tool, PC Phone also offers other features that give you more control,
organization, and increased efficiency for the entire call management
process.
INSTALLATION
The first step in the hardware installation was to connect the personal
switch. This was a relatively quick and painless process. It consisted of
connecting eight ports: PBX, external power, USB or RS232 serial
connection, phone/modem, optional microphone and external speakers jack,
optional headset, and system phone.
We connected each device to the corresponding port without any
problems. At first, we installed the RS232 serial cable to test
communications through the COM port. Then, we connected the USB cable to
test the greater bandwidth capability and call recording. Unfortunately,
we did encounter several issues with the USB port connection that could
not be worked out for further testing of that feature.
The final step in the setup process was to install the software
application, which was very quick and intuitive. When the installation was
complete, two icons were left on the desktop: a program icon and a
CITELlink icon. The CITELlink icon minimizes to the system tray when
double-clicked and also displays the current call status. Right-clicking
on the icon in the system tray will cause a pop-up menu to appear which
offers users another way to dial a phone number or edit link preferences,
such as dialing options or incoming call properties.
DOCUMENTATION
The documentation for PC Phone included an online help file and a hardware
installation manual. The manual basically provided a diagram which
outlined the way the switch connects to your telephone system and PC. It
also provided a very brief description of how each port should be
connected, though it did lack basic troubleshooting and installation error
details for those connections. Also included was a quick reference guide.
This was very helpful as it listed a keyboard control summary, a button
summary, and a list of steps for common functions, such as transferring
and forwarding calls, sending a page announcement, and making conference
calls.
We found the help file included with the software to be very useful. It
offered detailed information for the advanced feature set, including
integration with Microsoft Outlook. It also included troubleshooting
instructions for testing contact manager integration.
FEATURES
PC Phone includes all the standard phone features and a few extras as
well. In addition to supporting call forwarding and call conferencing, for
example, additional advanced functionality is included in the feature set.
The advanced options are listed below:
- Single click dialing -- frequently called phone numbers can be
assigned to speed dial buttons, making connectivity quicker and more
convenient.
- Caller ID/caller screen pop -- call screening capability that allows
caller information to be displayed both on your phone's LCD screen and
on the display window of the GUI.
- Call scheduling -- schedule important calls and set custom reminders
for each call.
- Conversation recording -- enables you to record any conversation and
save it as a Windows file.
- Personal call log -- provides complete caller information for each
call, including time, date, duration of call, and Internet dialing
through a PBX. An auto out-dial option is also available. This allows
a quicker response to missed calls.
- Database integration -- easily integrates with several common
contact managers such as Outlook and Goldmine.
OPERATIONAL TESTING
First, we tested the import/export phone book feature by creating a
comma-delimited text file that contained first and last names with
corresponding phone numbers. We selected Import from the File menu and
then mapped the fields in our file to the appropriate phone book fields.
When we selected Phone Book from the View menu, our information was
displayed, listed in order of first name field. From that point, we were
able to click one button to dial a given number or double-click on the
name to edit the personal information for that record. Overall, setting up
and managing the phone book was quick and simple.
Next, we selected Call Scheduler from the View menu and added a couple
phone numbers that we wanted to call at a later time. We set the date and
time that we wanted to make the call and we typed in a personal message to
give us some details about the phone call. Once we clicked the set button,
the scheduled calls list was displayed and we were able to view a complete
list of all the calls we had just entered. When the scheduled time
arrived, we received a reminder pop-up, which also displayed the personal
message we had included. The pop-up reminder included three options: Call
Now, Reschedule, and Forget It. There was also a snooze button that allows
users to forego making an instant decision, and instead be sent another
reminder. Acceptable intervals are anywhere from one minute to one hour.
One feature that we especially liked was the personal call log. We
found it very useful. It displayed important details about incoming and
outgoing calls. These details included the number dialed or being
received, the date and time of the call, total time duration of the call,
and whether or not the call was answered. Having information listed about
the calls that are missed is helpful as it provides a convenient way to
reference phone contacts. It also provides one-step dialing callback
capability. An added benefit to the call log feature is that phone book
records can be imported or exported in either comma-separated text file or
phone book formats. You can view the call log either as a dialog box or
via the main window of the interface. With either view, any number
appearing in the call log can be accessed with a simple mouse click.
Another feature that we found interesting was the availability of
different views. The button view includes four tabbed windows labeled
Lines, Features, Extension Search, and All Buttons. The Lines tab contains
an icon for each line on your telephone system. Each icon displays the
line status for each active line so when a call is received or placed, the
icon changes to reflect that activity. Calls can also quickly be made or
answered by clicking on the corresponding line icon. The Features tab
displays icons that provide one touch access to a feature on your phone.
The icons change to reflect the status as either enabled or disabled. A
separate icon can even be assigned to represent each status. The
Extension/Speed Dial tab contains an icon for each extension included in
your ringing group. Additional icons for external or internal speed dial
numbers can also be added. finally, the All Buttons tab combines the icons
that are available in the Lines and Features windows.
Overall, we found the interface very user-friendly. It never failed to
display exactly what we saw on the LCD screen on our phone system. We
found the menus, which were presented in convenient drop-down style, to be
intuitive and helpful. We liked the fact that we could set global dialing
properties, such as a prefix needed to access an outside line or calling
card information to allow the program to automatically use a calling card
when making long-distance calls. Also, for users who are primarily
keyboard centric, hot keys are available to implement the features of the
switch, such as [CTRL]+[K] to make a call or [CTRL]+[F] to forward a call.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
One area of improvement we would like to mention deals with importing
an address book. We created a text file of comma-separated values (.csv
file) and tried importing it into PC Phone. We were prompted for field
mappings when we selected our file to be imported. Since we kept our file
simple, all we needed to do was map a few phone book fields to the
available fields in our file. We selected first name, last name, and phone
number from the listed phone book fields and mapped them to the
corresponding fields that we had defined in our file.
We clicked OK and viewed our phone book. We were able to search through
our list of contacts and edit the fields. As long as we kept the PC Phone
application open, we were able to work with the mappings we had set. Our
complaint is that when the application was shut down and restarted, the
mappings were not saved. We needed to re-map all the field settings. In
our case it was not a huge inconvenience, but if our address book had
contained more fields, then we would really be complaining right now! An
option to save field mapping would be a valued addition to the
application, in our opinion.
CONCLUSION
Overall, we found this product to be well designed. One of the benefits of
implementing a desktop solution such as PC Phone, as opposed to using a
gateway solution, is that there is no single point of failure. In other
words, if one personal switch fails, then it will only affect one desktop
and not an entire group of users, as would happen if a server-based
solution were used. This is an important consideration for companies of
any size.
In conclusion, we found the Citel PC Phone to be a very useful product.
We would definitely recommend it as a sufficient desktop CTI solution if
something easy to configure and support on a small scale were needed. One
of the benefits of choosing a product such as PC Phone is that there are
no major changes required for a successful implementation. It can easily
be incorporated into a company's existing phone system while retaining the
use and functionality of the original system.
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