Choosing the right mobile/desktop app

[Shahzad_Ismail]

This guide aims to assist you in selecting the most suitable app solution for your phone service.

With the addition of the Sinch Calling with Webex packages, you now have a number of options for selecting the right app solution to use with your phone service:

•  Voyant Connect
•  officeXtend
•  Sinch Calling with Webex
•  Mixed Environments.

This guide will help you choose which solution is right for your business.

 

Voyant Connect

Despite the popularity among many customers, Voyant Connect is no longer supported and will be fully decommissioned by October 2023. Consequently, you must decide between transitioning to officeXtend or a Sinch Calling with Webex package. 

 

officeXtend

officeXtend is our currently supported mobile and desktop app solution, offering key features such as:

• Ability to place and receive calls
• Dialpad
• Enterprise contact list and local contact integration on iOS/Android
• Call history with callback
• Single and multi-party chat messaging with SMS/MMS capabilities (brand and campaign registration required prior to use)
• Easy to use mid-call controls like hold/resume, mute, speaker, blind and attended transfers, conference (merge), in-call DTMF dialpad for use with IVRs and voicemail systems
• Quick access to your call control options like do not disturb, voicemail settings, call forwarding, simultaneous ring settings, call center queues, full PBX directory lists, visual voicemail and more.

Transitioning from Voyant Connect to officeXtend is straightforward.  

1. Simply download the appropriate app and following these instructions
2. Log out of Voyant Connect
3. Log into officeXtend using the same username and password you used with Voyant Connect.
   
   

Please note that officeXtend does not support the following features that were supported in Voyant Connect:

• Presence and availability settings
• Desktop sharing
• Contact grouping
• Managing your own contact lists on desktop

If these features are essential for you and you don't need the SMS/MMS feature (not offered in the Sinch Calling with Webex packages), a Sinch Calling with Webex solution may be a better fit.

Sinch Calling with Webex

Sinch Calling with Webex packages offer a full collaboration suite with the same calling services you have today. These packages are an upgrade over officeXtend or Voyant Connect. This means you will need to contact us to begin this upgrade process.

We have some incentives. We can offer the Sinch Calling with Webex Basic seat for the same cost as your current Premium seat! Additionally, the Sinch Calling with Webex Standard can be offered at an attractive cost increase that may make this your go-to package.

The Sinch Calling with Webex Premium package is of course a higher cost package. But with it, comes all the presentation tools you need to host everything from town halls to shareholder meetings and anything in between.

Each package includes all the calling features of your current Premium seat as well. Below are listed some notable features of each package.

The officeXtend option is also shown below for comparison:

Ideal for:	officeXtend Calling and light messaging	Webex Basic Chat and ad-hoc meetings	Webex Standard Managers/Power Users	Webex Premium Presenters
All Premium seat calling features with in/out calling	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Supported operating systems	Windows, MAC, iOS, Android	Windows, MAC, iOS, Android	Windows, MAC, iOS, Android	Windows, MAC, iOS, Android
Dialpad, hold, resume, transfer, mute, etc	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Enterprise contacts	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Instant Messaging	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SMS/MMS capable	Yes
Call settings controls (CFWD, call center, etc)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Visual voicemail	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Meeting durations		<40   mins	24 hours	Unlimited
Meeting capacity		100	100	1000
Personal meeting room (PMR)		Yes	Yes	Yes
Message storage		2GB	5GB	10GB
Schedule meetings for PMR and Webex scheduler		Yes	Yes	Yes
Web guest experience		Yes	Yes	Yes
Video, desktop and application sharing		Yes	Yes	Yes
Persistent chat groups (spaces)		Yes	Yes	Yes
Presence and availability status		Yes	Yes	Yes
Meeting Recording		Local	Local	Cloud
Outlook/Google calendar integration			Yes	Yes
Call-in numbers for meetings			Yes	Yes
Personal insights			Yes	Yes
Moderator controls				Yes
Remote desktop control				Yes
Webex Assistant				Yes
Recording and real time transcriptions				Yes

Mixed Environments

It is possible to use both Sinch Calling with Webex and officeXtend (if you need the SMS/MMS capability). but it comes with some caveats.

Desktop apps

For the desktop app, you cannot run both apps at the same time. You MUST fully exit Webex if you are intending to use officeXtend, or fully exit officeXtend when you need to use Webex.

Running both desktop apps at the same time will result in the following:

• Only one of the apps will ring on incoming calls, and it will be random as to which one rings.
• Placing outbound calls will frequently fail.

For desktop, it's generally recommended to just use the Webex desktop app and do any SMS/MMS messaging from the officeXtend mobile app (see below). Otherwise you will be exiting and restarting the apps all day just to check text messages.

Mobile apps

For the mobile apps, you can be logged into both the Webex App and officeXtend at the same time. However, if you are logged in on the same phone at the same time, it may appear random as to which app was able to be the one to alert you on the incoming call. If you reject that call, the other app will then start ringing.

The recommendation here is to use the Webex App as your primary soft phone app and use the local DND operation in the officeXtend app as outlined in the user guide. The local DND setting will reject any calls to officeXtend which would then allow the Webex app to ring instead.

In this way, the officeXtend mobile app could be used just for the SMS/MMS features with the Webex App being your primary for handling all your calling and other messaging needs.

Messaging compatibility between the apps

The messaging back-ends for the officeXtend and Webex solutions are completely different and are not compatible. This is another reason that if you plan to be in a mixed solution, you should adopt a Sinch Calling with Webex package as the base for everyone, then use officeXtend only for the users that need SMS/MMS as recommended above.

 

Conclusion

If you need a simple calling solution with external messaging (SMS/MMS) and don’t have a need for collaboration or video calling, then officeXtend will be a better fit. If you are looking for a full featured calling solution with video, collaboration, presence, etc then upgrade to one of the Sinch Calling with Webex packages. 

We hope that with the information above, you'll be better armed to make the right choice of app solution for your business as we transition away from Voyant Connect.