IPcelerate.com

Customer: Broward County Commission

About the Customer

Broward County is located in Southern Florida and is the second most populated county in the state with over 1.6 million residents. The county boasts 262 public schools, 26 hospitals, 37 libraries and 23 miles of beach frontage. Broward County employs approximately 10,000 people and offers hundreds of services to both the residents and businesses within the county.

Initial Expectations from VoIP

Broward County Commission transitioned to VoIP several years ago in order to save money, increase the reliability of their phone system and streamline processes in adding new phones and relocating employees. The transition to VoIP has met all their expectations and they were able to migrate very smoothly with little to no impact on their employees.

Addressing Primary Business Challenges

With so many employees working throughout over 40 buildings, Broward County had to find an efficient and effective way of managing emergency situations including locating outgoing 911 calls and notifying staff in the event of an emergency or building evacuation. They also needed a way to send pages across all buildings as well as page within specific buildings, depending on the message and situation. After reviewing several different paging options, the County selected IPcelerate’s IPsession server, not only for its flexible and easy-to-use paging solution, but also for its many additional features already embedded into the platform.

IPcelerate Solutions

With the deployment of the IPsession server, Broward County now has an emergency management solution to meet all their needs. The 911 Alert solution sends automatic messages to pre-determined IP phones providing the location of the call so immediate assistance can be deployed. The Paging solution was used to create a pre-determined group of IP phones within each building, allowing the County to notify those employees of an emergency situation and tell them what to do in response. In addition, the County’s Human Services department consistently uses Paging to locate social workers throughout the day, notifying them of appointments and locating them for residents in need of assistance.

In addition to paging, the building and permit divison of Broward County is also using the Dial-out solution to notify people holding construction-related licenses of impending expiration dates. Approximately 3,000 automatic dial-out calls are made each week, resulting in increased productivity within the permit division as they no longer have to make these calls manually. The County is also establishing a confirmation protocol so an employee has to hit “1” on the IP phone’s keypad to acknowledge that they received the page. This will increase accountability throughout the county and ensure important paged messages are received.

Human Services has also implemented IPcelerate’s Time Card solution, in which 200 employees utilize the IP phone to clock in and out each day. This functionality will allow the department to monitor hours worked per employee and manage overtime expenses.

New Telephony Experience

IPcelerate’s solutions have resulted in greater efficiencies and time management for several divisions with Broward County Commission, as well as serving as an effective emergency management solution. While Paging and Dial-Out are the two primary solutions being used, the County is thrilled to have an IP platform that offers so many additional features and allows the County to implement new solutions as needed without incurring additional up-front expense.

Next Steps/Higher Expectations

Going forward, Broward County will be deploying many of the additional features IPsession offers. First on the list is to utilize the IP phone dashboards to display the county logo, as well as evaluate how to use the touch screen functionality IPcelerate’s dashboards offer. They would also like to implement Push-to-Talk as it will allow employees to contact each other in a “walkie-talkie” fashion for quick answers and uninterrupted communication.