Elastix as a communication platform for people with disabilities

on emerging countries

Functionality, quality and low costs are difficult to obtain. Many SMB companies around the world have the dilemma to implement top technological solutions to enhance their businesses, but must overcome the budget challenge. This case study demonstrates how Elastix can be adapted to scenarios where functionality and quality are very important and the project budget is restricted. To show how to solve this equation we looked up for several cases with these characteristics. After exploring many interesting cases, we chose a group of them that caught our attention; mainly because they show how Elastix is being used as a solution to be implemented in

social projects, whether they´re private or governmental. It is rewarding and interesting to develop functionalities that can be used to implement communication projects that integrate people with disabilities into society. It is interesting not only for the technological point of view but for the budget side as well. In this document we will present three projects implemented in three different Latin American cities. In one of them we will see the use of Elastix as an entertainment solution for blind people, while in the other two we will see how Elastix helped create effective platforms that made possible to reinsert people with disabilities to working environments.

Elastix

Elastix is an open source unified communications solution. The licensing model, which promotes the free use and distribution of software, allows lower costs and focus on the budget which sometimes it is not given such importance but it can make the difference between success or failure of a technology platform, such as services . One of the reasons why Elastix has become very popular in many countries, is the ease to carry out implementations of telephony configurations that can extend to advanced configurations and can integrate advanced customized tools. The reason for this ease of integration is the free access to the software code. In this document will look how Elastix integrates with other software tools such as JAWS (for voice synthesis), Asternic Call Center Stats or even custom development.

Cases description

The selected deployments for this case study have been made by expert companies in the telecommunications field. These companies have decided to use Elastix to perform their projects. The companies Atech Comunicaciones and IPtegra, from Colombia, develop their activities with the goal of integrating handicapped people in a working environment, while the company Proximus from Chile offers an entertainment service based on social networks with the purpose of integrating blind people.

Atech Comunicaciones – Medellin on roads

This case was made in the ADA Foundation in Medellin - Colombia. The main objective of the case was to establish a call center platform in which agents were people with some type of mobility difficulties. An essential requirement posed was the inclusion of remote working possibilities, because people with movement limitations often have difficulty going to the office. For this reason the whole implementation of the project was made so the agents could work from home Elastix 2.0 and its Call Center addon were installed, both components of free distribution. At the beginning of the project 30 agents were included, all working remotely on regular computers. Previously existing equipment and infrastructure was used. To optimize the access of remote agents to the main server, IAX2 extensions were

created. The registration of these extensions was done using the ZoIPer softphone which supports IAX extensions. One advantage was the low investment in telephones (the chosen softphone is also freeware), while another advantage was the possibility to maximize the uptime of each agent due to the stability of Elastix. For reporting, a custom development was made according to the customer’s requirements. This development was done in Java Standard Edition using the plug-in Ireport-Designer. After configuring the system, the agents were trained in the use of the console and test campaigns were configured. From the moment the Elastix solution became operational, the tests demonstrated an increment in the number of received calls. We must note that remote monitoring is a bit complicated, but nevertheless all agents were in constant operation.

IPTegra – Call Center with blind agents

This case was made at Sistem Contact Center - SCC, which specializes in the collections area doing an outbound operation. In their upgrade project, a social component was included: the integration of multiple agents with disabilities. Blind or partially sighted people, along with non-handicapped people, performed as agents . SCC was already operating a communications platform and decided migrate to Elastix due to two key objectives: facilitate the administration and support tasks, and the possibility of using the Elastix’s Call Center addon, which offers predictive dialing. In the management and support areas, Elastix makes easier the administrator’s daily tasks. Thus he or she could use the time not spent on unnecessarily difficult administration tasks on other important activities. The installation and set up was the only meticulous and detailed task throughout the implementation process making the resource monitoring and daily management of the communications more efficient. Regarding the Contact Center, Elastix’s Call Center addon, provides predictive dialing facilities and also allows the integration of other tools such as advanced reporting and external consoles. At this point an integration with Asternic Call Center Stats

was made for metrics. The project also allowed the use of JAWS software to convert to audio the text displayed on the screen. For this specific case, the information of the campaigns forms is displayed on the screen and JAWS translates it to voice, making listenable by the blind agent. The improvement of the infrastructure and new tools allowed to keep a base of 80 agents with the possibility of raising the number to 130 when the call center’s activity increases. The customer service rate increment was 300%, this was determined with real metrics. This is because its original infrastructure did not have a solution capable of organizing campaigns efficiently. Out of the base of agents, 16 blind people were included with a permanent base of 4 supervisors for the area. For agents without disability, the use and management of the forms in Elastix’s Call Center was easy and for blind agents the adaptation of these forms allowed them to operate the system effortlessly. These two points were important in the growth performance. The number of concurrent calls is now about 80 and is expected to continue growing.

Proximus – Social networks for blind people

In 2007 Proximus started a project to establish a social network for blind people oriented to a digital voice platform with a capacity of 4 E1 interfaces. In 2009 they decided to internationalize that social network through a solution capable of developing the application in a platform that is economic, robust and 100% compatible with VoIP. Elastix’s dynamism was the main reason for their choice. Among the requirements, it was established that the implementation should use open source software and would be able to handle a total of 2 million of minutes per month on the 120 IVR channels. Another major requirement was to support both the digital (PSTN) and IP traffics simultaneously. Due to the capabilities of users, the audio must maintain a high level of quality.

The implemented platform allows blind people to have conferences, which also has a personal voicemail, which empowers the user experience. The administrators of the platform are blind people too, so there was some customized development work made to allow the management of the voice communications network based on caller IDs. Making them able to identify, add, block or remove users. The number of concurrent calls is about 100, it is projected to reach 200 by the end of this year and with an approximate of 4500 registered users! Resulting from the implementation, the satisfaction level was very high, allowing a significant growth of this social network. Technically the solution maintains an impressive stability with nearly 100% uptime, processing 2 million minutes of calls per month.

Conclusions

The common factor in these cases is the difficulty in the funding of social projects. Establishing an investors or customers base based on work done by people with special needs is complicated because of the lack of real statistics. Another common factor is the adaptation of any platform to the requirements of people with special needs to be integrated to a stable working environment, or to maximize the confidence (such as in the Proximus case).

In all these cases, Elastix was able to solve these issues mainly for two reasons:

The possibility of making a low-cost implementation

Flexibility to adapt to the requirements of end users

Among the main achievements that were obtained are the following:

Suitable Budget

The Elastix choice allowed achieving the initial goal of the three cases, which was the development of a pilot project that ended in a real entrepreneurship that could be implemented according to the cost and technical feasibility. In the case of having used a proprietary solution instead of Elastix, the estimated costs related to the communications, would have been much larger, at least twice.

Easily integrated Elastix was established as an ideal platform for the design of the functionalities to implement, including specific development and integration of new tools, all aimed to make the technological solutions adapt to the end user and not vice versa. The following table shows some details of the integration that was performed on the projects described above with other tools or with custom programs developed.

Atech IPTegra Proximus

Custom development Yes No Yes

Programming language used for custom

development

Java + Ireport-Designer

N.A. PHP

External tools integration 1 No Yes No

Integrated external tools N.A. Asternic Call Center Stats,

JAWS N.A.

For Proximus, the project involved new features, many of them adapted to the recurrent needs of users.

1 Excluding softphones or small tools that do not represent a technological challenge of great magnitude.

Neither is considered the Elastix call center addon

Growth capacity Elastix’s licensing does not put obstacles to growth. The only limitation that could exist is the resources of the hardware platform. This is certainly a very important advantage for any ambitious project. For IPTegra, it was reported a 300% growth from its initial implementation. The growth was dealt with simply by improving the hardware capacity of the server.

Atech IPTegra Proximus

Growth Rate N.A. 300% growth 200% growth till

the end of the year

Social objectives obtained through the projects studied

Beyond the intrinsic advantages of the product, Elastix was the tool that allowed the projects examined here reach their social goals, specifically: Improvement in the quality of life.- In both Call Center projects and in the Social Network project, the quality of life for users and agents really improved. Especially in this case for the integration to the working environment of people with difficult access to employment and the integration of people who have been segregated from society. Inclusion of persons with disabilities in the work environment.- The Medellin on Roads and SCC projects caused the establishment of a permanent entrepreneurship with motivated and qualified people. High performance at work.- The inclusion to the working environment was a motivating factor to establish or increase performance in the Call Center cases, where the end customer perception depends on high standards of service. On both cases the ease of use of the call center application has been crucial for quick learning and correct use. Portfolio Growth.- In the Medellin on Roads case, the high efficiency level allowed the establishment of new portfolios and new clients for the Call Center.

Comments of the implemented companies

“Our social network is having the desired effect, with a sustained growth in both the user database and the monthly minutes processed. Technically, the solution demonstrated a dramatic stability at almost 100% of activity time and 2 million minutes processed per month without any problems. The solution provided by PaloSanto Solutions is constantly adapting to newer and more difficult user requirements, such as blind people who are guided only by sounds”.

Leopold de Bonhome, Proximus S.A. Manager

“The most beautiful aspect of this project is the satisfaction of using technology to help a group neglected by our society. To see a person who is happy because he feels useful, and he can be part of a working environment, that is priceless. This project gives hope to those who have never had an opportunity”.

Ludwig Ramirez, systems and network consultant, who was in charge of the technical implementation of this project through the company IPTegra

“We have found a qualified workforce, professionalism, commitment and enthusiasm to deliver a good job, through technology that gives us a distribution like Elastix, which allowed us to complete this project with full satisfaction”

Atech Comunicaciones, integrator

Reference Information

Video showing the Elastix and JAWS integration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4eX94NoXoM

Medellin on roads project website: http://www.medellinsobreruedas.co