Meet Your Colleagues: Voice Systems Engineers

Voice Systems Engineers, from left: Doug Johnson, Julia Harrison, Tony Jess, Syndi Haywood  (Associate Director of Voice Systems and Business Administration), and Brent Ridgeway.  Not pictured: Desirae Allen and Vijay Kammili.

Behind every workplace technology is a team of unsung engineers making it seamless, day in and out – like the Voice Systems Engineers in UIT’s Unified Communications.

"A lot or work goes into making various systems work and function the way that people want them to," said Syndi Haywood, associate director of Voice Systems and Business Administration.

Voice Systems Engineers Desirae Allen, Julia Harrison, Tony Jess, Doug Johnson, Vijay Kammili and Brent Ridgeway are responsible for bringing up, monitoring and routing all voice-related back-end systems for campus, hospitals and clinics. While the team primarily operates out of the 585 Komas building, when an off-campus building like the Farmington Health Center is under construction, they’re sometimes dispatched to rack equipment and install voice systems on site.

The team supports four voice platforms: Avaya, Skype for Business (operations), and the Centrex and Coral legacy systems. Above and beyond what's traditionally expected in voice service, they're also able to customize certain voice features on demand.

In addition to making sure phones are set up with five-/ten-digit dialing and long distance service, they’ve recently converted the University's Call Centers into multi-channel Contact Center Suites with voice, email, text and live chat capabilities. Haywood said that the Department of Radiology, for example, regularly uses the chat feature to order X-Rays from Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Other major projects underway include a new SMS patient appointment reminder system and optimizing the features and functionality of the University's call recording system.

 

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