Did you know that in 2017, 55% of U.S. organizations are using Skype for Business already as their PBX and/or for unified communications capabilities – chat, voice, meeting and screen sharing. In fact, by the end of this year, experts foresee upwards of 100 million enterprise Skype for Business (S4B) seats in the market. While some S4B interactions take place internally between coworkers and the like, many are now with customers. In many instances, these conversations need to be recorded and stored for the purposes of compliance, dispute resolution, order verification, measuring service levels and more – just like TDM, VoIP and mobile interactions are already.
Aside from the flexibility, ease of installation and use, S4B also offers the significant benefit of transcending telephone devices, as you can use it across your desktop, laptop, tablet and phone. Instead of a business having multiple recording solutions, they can have just one.
The question is, however, if you are using S4B today or plan to, how are you going to record your chat, video, meeting and/or voice interactions? There is no native Skype for Business call recording application. You have to seek the assistance of one of the very few Microsoft certified call recording vendors.
When choosing a S4B recording application, here are a few key aspects to consider:
1. Which recording technologies does the vendor support – passive IP, active IP, digital, analog, T1/E1/J1, SIPREC, Radio, CTI/SMDR?
2. Which types of storage is supported by the recording vendor – Azure, Amazon, NAS, SAN…?
3. Which version of S4B or the legacy Lync are supported and recordable?
4. Can you record S4B simultaneously with other PBX calls from a traditional or VoIP switch, e.g.?
5. Will you be able to capture S4B interactions within Office 365?
6. Can you record all S4B modalities in an integrated playback fashion – voice, video, chat and desktop screen?
7. Do you have to install any software on your client PC or device?
8. Can you easily integrate quality management software into the S4B recording solution?
9. Which recording capture methods are supported – port mirroring, media relay, and/or Edge server?
10. Does the vendor support cloud, hosted and on-premise?
However you look at it, the S4B era is upon us or is just around the corner. Either way, it’s time you start considering how S4B can fit into your business interaction strategy. And once you’ve done that, you will need to take a close look at the available recording solutions and pick the best one for your needs.
2650 N. Military Trail Suite 150 Boca Raton Florida, USA 33431