CRI Group

VoIP Migration with the innovaphone PBX, Remote Work with the UCC Platform innovaphone myApps & Integration of 3rd Party Software Zendesk with the innovaphone SDK

CRI Group is a European ICT group based in Luxembourg since 1991. The Group operates in 25 countries and provides a full range of services and technologies to its main customers - the European Union institutions, telecommunications providers, financial institutions and government organizations. Three major challenges led the group to restructure their communications with an innovaphone solution: the healthcare crisis, the shutdown of ISDN networks in Luxembourg and Europe, and the integration of Zendesk helpdesk software using the innovaphone SDK.

innovaphone myApps Enables VoIP Migration with the innovaphone PBX and Remote Work Solution

During the health crisis, the managers of the Luxembourg group had to ask their employees to work from home to protect the health of their employees. “Our helpdesk had to implement this new measure, which posed no problem thanks to innovaphone’s One-Number Concept. The agents had no problems accepting calls at home,” explains William Helminger, Contract Manager at CRI Group.

The decision in favor of a future-proof technology was part of a logical strategy for the European group: IP protocol is becoming more common across most European countries as analog and ISDN networks are being switched off, which is an opportunity for modernizing corporate communications. The virtualized VoIP standards-based innovaphone PBX offered clear advantages for the decision-makers at CRI Group, especially lowering the cost of internal and long-distance calls. The new VoIP PBX makes it possible to benefit from the convenience and flexibility of using any broadband connection worldwide, as Internet access is all that is needed to enable communication. Integration to the VoIP system means the company’s employees can be reached via email even when traveling, and they can make calls easily and cost-effectively using a headset or IP phone – and all this can be done via their own business extension number.

Thanks to the UCC tools of the innovaphone myApps solution, the employees at CRI Group benefit from greater mobility and can also conduct video conferences via softphone. “This allows us to stay in touch with colleagues and customers and to exchange files and documents with each other, no matter where we are. Whether we are away on business abroad or in the office, we no longer miss important meetings without having to worry about being physically present,” assures William Helminger.

Integration of the Zendesk Helpdesk Software through the innovaphone PBX System and the innovaphone SDK

CRI Luxembourg has been operating a helpdesk for several years and has now purchased the high-end support software Zendesk. Its gradual integration was crucial for there to be little or no interruption to the services provided, which presented the CRI group with not one but three challenges:

1. The complete switchover of CRI Group’s telephone infrastructure from ISDN to VoIP.
2. Since CRI Group decided to change its telephone service provider as part of item 1, this also meant transferring all of the service’s current toll-free telephone numbers (EU-wide) from the old provider to the new one.
3. Zendesk’s integrated phone application was not compatible with third-party phone service providers, which meant that CRI Group could not fully leverage its new VoIP infrastructure without developing an interface between its new VoIP lines and Zendesk.

Faced with this three-fold challenge, the migration process (challenge 1 and 2) was handed over to the new telephony provider and long-time innovaphone partner RCarré, while doubleIP (a CRI Group company) was tasked with developing a telephone application which could be integrated with Zendesk (challenge 3) using the innovaphone SDK. The migration process, i.e., the transition from ISDN to VoIP, took place step-by-step in order to be able to continue using the old ISDN lines. An innovaphone IP800 VoIP gateway installed between the old ISDN and the new virtualized innovaphone PBX system (IPVA in the RCarré cloud) managed the incoming calls between the old PABX and the SIP trunk so that the CRI group providers could use the Zendesk telephone application.

Numerous Benefits

With the new VoIP telephone system innovaphone PBX, hosted in RCarré’s data center, the CRI Group has a powerful IP system that uses the myApps platform in parallel with its indispensable applications such as softphone, voicemail, call lists, etc. Jean-François Montuir, Telecom Manager at Rcarré, summarized: "The biggest advantage is that you can connect to innovaphone myApps from any platform: If the internet connection fails, the myApps app always makes it possible to use either the telephone or your smartphone via 4G for mobile working. Finally, the innovaphone SDK provided by the innovaphone myApps open platform made it easy to develop an application that allows the third-party helpdesk software Zendesk to be integrated."