New Panasonic KX-NS700 phone system for a school in Solihull
We were approached by an infants school in the Solihull area to quote for a new telephone system to replace their old Panasonic system which no longer met all their requirements.
The school’s requirements
The old system only had extensions in the school’s offices, the kitchen and one other point. This meant that whenever a teacher needed to contact the main office, or vice-versa, someone had to take a walk across the school, which was very time wasting and inconvenient. With a no mobile phone policy in operation communication within the school was very difficult.
The school was also paying far too much for their phone lines as they had six separate PSTN lines, two for the main admin office, one for the business manager and three other lines for satellite buildings housed within the school grounds, all with seperate numbers. This arrangement was not at all cost effective and was failing to make efficient use of the six lines.
The head teacher and managers also required a paging arrangement that enabled them to make a simultaneous paging announcement to all twelve classroom, as well as other rooms such as support offices, in the event that an important message needed to be conveyed to the whole site.
An extension phone in one of the school’s satellite offices.
Our solution
We were pleased to hear that our quote had been chosen out of several others that had been submitted. Our solution was to install a Panasonic KX-NS700 telephone system with two KX-NT680 IP handsets in the main admin office, a wall mounted Panasonic KX-NT551 IP handset in each of the 12 classrooms, four KX-NT551 handsets for the kitchen and offices plus four more across the three satellite locations. As each of the 22 phones have an integral speaker a paging announcement can easily be heard at each location.
We provided six SIP trunks to replace the six existing PSTN lines and ported their existing numbers across which reduced the school’s monthly phone bills to approximately a quarter of what they had been paying previously. All extension phones can utilise all the SIP trunks meaning less engaged calls or waiting for a free line to dial out.
As well as retaining all the existing phone numbers as DDI (Direct Dialling Inward) numbers we also added an auto-attendant facility to the school’s main number which means parents and other callers only need to know one number, irrespective as to which department they require, and also saves time for the admin staff. Extensions in the main building can now make an internal call to the three satellite units, rather than an external call, as well as being able to transfer calls.
Other useful features were added such as a dedicated voicemail for parents to report a child’s absence, separate voicemail for each department, call logging and call queuing. As the NS700 system is so versatile it will also be easy to add any additional features that the school may require in the future at minimal cost.