Features

• Service Type:

  Consulting, Professional Service

• Business Need:

  Data Analytics, Reporting, Business Intelligence (BI), Point of Sale, Retail Systems, Accounting, Tax Management

• Works With:

  Microsoft .NET Framework Win Forms, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Office Communications Server 2007

• Industry Focus:

  General - Applicable to All

Description

Business Challenge

Goodmans LLP is a leading Canadian law firm that counsels its clients on business law, litigation, and personal legal matters. Several years ago, the firm’s Nortel CS1000 Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone system was approaching the end of its
life cycle. Dick Jensen, Director of Technology for Goodmans,choose Microsoft Office Communications Server(OCS) 2007 R2 in June 2008. “We wanted to move toward a modern phone system that integrates tightly with the desktop and with the applications we work in every day,” says Jensen.

But Jensen quickly discovered an obstacle to using OCS 2007 R2. Like other professional services companies, law firms bill time spent working on individual clients’ behalf, including phone calls. “With OCS 2007 R2, there was no way to automatically
track and bill time spent on the phone,” says Jensen. Lost billable time is a big concern for law firms, missed hours hurt not only a firm’s bottom line but also its reputation for precision and accuracy. No one wants to overlook even a single phone conversation.”

CEBP Solution

In October 2009, Goodmans was approached by Navantis, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that had helped Goodmans with past IT projects. Aware that Goodmans wanted a call-tracking tool, Navantis proposed to develop this functionality into the company’s OCS 2007 R2 communications-enabled business process (CEBP) solution.

Navantis used the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK) to create CallTracker. “The development process was very straightforward,” says Andy Papadopoulos, Managing Partner at Navantis. “The SDK saved us a lot of time and helped fast-track our developers’ understanding of building add-ins for OCS 2007 R2.”

With CallTracker, users placing or receiving calls can assign them to specific customer accounts by using a pull-down menu, even after the call has begun. When the call is to or from a stored contact, CallTracker suggests the account number that was most recently used for that contact. The call-tracking tool also includes a field for entering notes about the call, which lawyers’ assistants can access later to expand or edit. The solution automatically sends the time-tracking information to the firm’s Thomson Reuters Elite accounting software for billing.

Because CallTracker was so much more effective than the PBX-side account codes system Goodmans had been using, the firm was able to accelerate companywide deployment.