INTEGRATED
APPLICATIONS
APIs Come of Age
Recent presentations we have attended promoting cloud based communications platforms have, as if in cahoots,
tended to have a large slice of their focus on integrating third party applications. As vendors realise they can’t do
everything themselves it’s become the ‘Age of the API’
As a reseller, can you
construct the end to end
service you really want
to? From the connectivity
to the end point your exibility
could be your biggest asset. We’ve
asked providers and partners
what they want from a pick and
choose solution. Does this really
give partners more exibility
and provide more margin
opportunities?
We have seen a great deal
of e ort and focus by platform
vendors such as Gamma and
RingCentral to ensure they
have a wide range of available
integrations with popular
third party applications such
as Microsoft 365, G-Suite and
Salesforce. It seems the API has
become the Swiss Army Knife of
communications.
Peter Gradwell, Founder
and CTO of Gradwell
Communications, says
“Flexibility if the key. e ability
to o er our partners exible
solutions which ensure their
customers can ‘pick n’ mix’ the
solution that will work for them is
of paramount importance to us.
No one size ts all. ere are
a handful of good options that
need to be blended together in
order to mix the right cocktail for
the customer.”
Dave Reynolds,XelionUK
Managing Director, appears
on the same page when he says
today’s business users want
exible solutions that support a
mobile working.
“Xelion has a standardised
user interface app for desktop,
mobile and tablet so users can
use the solution anywhere,
anytime. e platform brings
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together voice, instant messaging,
SMS, video, wallboards and
much more, delivering a single
‘Organised Communications’
service for customers on any
device.
Our latest Xelion 7 has
upgraded reporting packs and
query tools are included to
improve analytics for customers
seeking detailed business
intelligence. For contact centre
operations, upgraded wall boards
now support formulas and KPI
information, still at no additional
cost.C
all recording storage has
been a major pain point within
the hosted voice market. ere
is a clear trend that customers
want to record more calls and
want to keep them for longer.
So Xelion 7 has improved call
recording storage functionality
allowing synchronisation
with third party storage drives
providing e ectively unlimited
call recording storage for little to
no cost.”
Dominic Horton of Spit re
says that for customers with
advanced requirements Spit re
has taken the award winning
3CX PBX and deployed it into
the Spit re network.
“ is addresses the needs for
extended functionality whilst
retaining quality and value.
Whilst 3CX o ers best of breed
functionality such as features
like video-conferencing, multiple
endpoint support and detailed
reporting, it cannot always meet
every niche requirement and
many customers require a more
advance call recording solution.
Spit re has therefore extended the
functionality to o er Advanced
Call recording to support the
most complex of compliance
requirements including MiFIDII
and PCI. All of this functionality
is native to the Spit re 3CX
Cloud platform and available as a
per extension rental add-on.”
Justin Blaine at NTA
considers it important to o er
all of the integrated functions
and features that an on-premise
solution delivers.
“Why by moving to a Hosted
o ering should there be a
compromise in feature-set? Our
platform is developed in-house
therefore we are positioned
perfectly to prioritise what is most
important to our partners and
the needs of their end customers.
We listen to our partners and
encourage them to advise us what
is needed as the market changes,
we will develop generally required
or bespoke features sometimes
within days for an end customer.
When starting to create
our platform back in 2005 we
designed it with the features of a
traditional PBX / key system so
call recording, mobile apps and
contact centre working together
with a full analytics package is
readily available. We also have
fully open API’s which in turn
means that end users that have
custom designed CRM packages
or resellers that want to integrate
our platform directly into their
own portals can easily do this
with minimal expertise and
expense.”
36 | IP Telephony 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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