District Town St. Wendel

Modern Municipal Services with innovaphone Solution

The district town of St. Wendel, located just north of Saarbrücken in the West of Germany, has a population of more than 25,000. The city administration of the district town has approximately 350 employees and has been transformed into a modern service center in recent years. At the same time, the communications infrastructure was modernized and converted from an outdated, classic telecommunications system by means of smooth migration to a modern, future-proof communications solution from innovaphone.

Smooth Migration during Ongoing Operations & without Interruption

At the top of the specifications list for replacing the old Siemens HiPath PBX, once the spare parts had been discontinued, was the requirement that migration to a new system should take place during ongoing operations and without downtime. In addition, the numerous external properties such as schools, cemeteries, halls, village community centers, underground car parks, local councillors, etc. should be integrated into a central communication system with a standardized numbering plan. In cooperation with NTA Saar GmbH, the system provider responsible for the migration process, the decision was made in favour of a solution from the Sindelfingen-based manufacturer innovaphone. It was the convincing location concept and the simple integration for those working from home that were the deciding factors and tipped the scale in favour of the innovaphone solution.

High Flexibility with Working Remotely

Particularly during the pandemic, another advantage of the innovaphone PBX with myApps became apparent: From one day to the next, a large number of employees had to start working from home. This was simple and easy with the innovaphone solution. The range of features and the usability of myApps are always identical, regardless of the location and device - whether the user is on a smartphone, notebook or home PC - therefore employees did not have to change their habits despite having to change location and they could maintain their accustomed work processes. Marc Rauber, Head of Information Technology and Procurement and project manager at the district town of St. Wendel underlined the fact that, “Regardless of whether colleagues are working from home, on a training course or at an external meeting – they can manage their own call forwards and can always be reached.” The innovaphone Reverse Proxy, which is integrated in the innovaphone PBX by default and serves as a central instance for all incoming connections from the Internet, ensures the highest possible connection security, even when working from home. External attacks are thus recognized and warded off at an early stage.

Integrating Primary Schools into the PBX of the District Town

Step by step, the numerous properties in this district town are switching from the old system to the new, centralized innovaphone PBX, during ongoing operation and without any connection failures. The four primary schools were each given a separate innovaphone VoIP gateway, which was installed at each of their locations for the innovaphone PBX, so that the schools are self-sufficient and can continue to communicate even if the central PBX fails. This “bypass solution” using emergency connections for the primary schools ensures maximum reliability for this sensitive area.

Quality Service for the Citizens Thanks to myApps

The modern myApps work and communication environment applications simplify the day-to-day work of employees. The innovaphone Switchboard App meets the high standards of service quality required for citizens as it is a modern operator desk that is used to process and forward incoming calls quickly and effectively. In the interests of sustainability, a number of desktop devices were replaced simply by installing the innovaphone Softphone App in combination with headsets or business mobile phones. There are two options for sending and receiving faxes, which are still frequently used by the town administration: Faxes can be sent and received easily and conveniently directly in the personal e-mail inbox via the innovaphone Fax App. However, depending on the location and requirements profile, it is still possible to integrate analogue fax machines via innovaphone analog adapters.

Following the successful migration to the innovaphone solution, Marc Rauber drew a very positive conclusion: “Thanks to the new possibilities offered by the innovaphone PBX, we are much more flexible both in the office and when working from home. Our employees particularly appreciate the clear and unified structure under Windows and IOS. We were particularly happy to experience the smooth changeover of the system during ongoing operations without any downtime, it was remarkable.”