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July 22 2021

Argantic helps customers connect to Teams Voice

Connecting customers to the voice network has traditionally been a prohibitive cost. However, Argantic is now helping customers connect to Teams Voice. All they now need to pay is the phone system license, SIP and call costs.

The Microsoft Teams Voice Calling solution is a cloud-based phone system and an add-on for Microsoft Office 365. It’s the perfect ‘work from anywhere’ solution that offers the convenience of making and receiving landline, mobile and international calls, from any device and any location. No need for PABX’s and traditional desk phones.

Argantic director Garry Ackerman says they are helping customers modernise their businesses. “Any business with a traditional voice solution (PBX) must be looking at a modern unified communications system. This includes those who already use Teams but have a separate voice calling platform.”

“Microsoft Teams Voice Calls using Direct Routing enables you to make landline, mobile or international calls from your mobile or PC from anywhere in the world with a local outgoing number. The solution offers most calling features including auto attendant, call queueing, consultative transfers, music on hold, call park and cloud voicemail,” he explains.

With no infrastructure investment required, Microsoft Teams Voice is an obvious choice. It offers flexibility, scalability and endless functionality. More importantly, it used existing Office 365 login accounts and seamlessly integrates with Teams.

The offer includes initial setup of Office365 and Microsoft Teams, incoming and outgoing call flow setup, cloud voice gateway and assistance with Switch Telecom sign-ups. Customers merely need to pay for outgoing calls and a basic line rental of around R100 per month.

July 22 2021

Transforming how education is delivered

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Argantic is transforming how education is delivered in schools and tertiary institutions with the introduction of Microsoft’s Surface Go 2. These devices are intuitive, high-performance tools that give educators and students the power and freedom to work securely, anywhere, anytime.

Surface Go 2 is designed to bring teachers and students together, wherever they are and however they work best. Surface enables educators to redesign the classroom with devices that meet the needs of everyone.

It is easy to deploy, manage from anywhere and to stay secure. Surface gives faculty, staff and students the freedom to teach and learn anywhere with zero-touch deployment, one-click device management and protection from Microsoft.

Argantic CEO Garry Ackerman says students will be inspired with Surface Go 2. “It’s lightweight, stylish and has the perfect balance between performance and battery life. It offers all the requirements students need to keep connected to their classrooms.”

“This includes a stylish keyboard, speakers, mics and camera. It is lightweight and portable, Surface devices are lighter than most textbooks and fit easily in a backpack. More importantly, it has enough battery power to last through a day of schoolwork,” he explains.

Surface facilitates real connections between students, from secure digital classrooms to collaborating together on complex projects, with hardware and software designed to bring people together. It offers performance that meets the needs of every level of learning with the latest Intel processors.

Students can experience positive learning outcomes and save time with Surface Pen on-screen inking. They can type comfortably with laptop-class keyboards, and navigate precisely with large trackpads. Additionally, they can now browse, scroll and navigate naturally on brilliant, PixelSense touchscreen displays.

Ackerman says with inbuilt protection from chip to cloud, a Surface portfolio offers complete control and peace of mind. “It’s all thanks to a unique in-house approach, with every layer of security built and maintained by Microsoft.”

An IDC study shows how Microsoft Surface enables faculties to teach in ways never before possible. Teachers find Surface devices with Surface Pen saves them time, improves their curriculum and enables authentic and personalised student-teacher engagement.

The Surface Go 2 is ultrathin, light and versatile, offering the perfect balance of portability and power. It is the smallest, lightest Surface yet, weighing just 544 grams. Specially designed for small hands with big ideas, this ultra-versatile laptop is ideal for young students.

Enable limitless learning for students, teachers roaming the classroom or as a mobile device for Principals and school executives, the Surface Go 2 is a no-compromise laptop in a 10.5″ tablet,” he concludes.

July 15 2021

How to save with Microsoft Azure

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Businesses around the world have adjusted their priorities to enable remote work and are now investing in smart ways to prepare for recovery and future growth. To achieve this, many business leaders have adopted a cloud strategy to help them optimise costs and improve efficiencies.

There is a massive uptake in Microsoft Azure infrastructure, it can help businesses improve cash flow, achieve cost savings, increase operational efficiencies and unify security and management. More companies trust and build services on Azure to run their business-critical workloads and support their customers.

With Azure there is no need to provision new hardware, to ensure that users have access to desktops and apps they need to work from anywhere, businesses can spin up and scale virtual desktops quickly with Windows Virtual Desktop.

Windows Virtual Desktop delivers the best Windows 10 and Office 365 virtual desktop experience with support for multi-session. More importantly, one only pays for the infrastructure that you use and save money by turning off machines when they are not in use.

In addition to virtual desktops, employees need access to resources across on-premises and the cloud. With Azure, one can quickly extend and expand your on-premises virtual private network (VPN) solution with Azure VPN Gateway. It can be provisioned quickly and scale up and down easily.

The Azure network is designed to withstand sudden changes in resource utilisation and can easily manage peak utilisation periods.

Avoid costly disruptions

To ensure data and applications are fully protected from business disruptions, many businesses are taking a closer look at their backup and disaster recovery strategy. With just a few clicks, Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery lets customers easily backup their data and applications to the cloud, and quickly deploy cloud-based replication, failover, and recovery processes.

Also, to ensure reliable connectivity, customers are using Azure Virtual WAN with supported partner SD-WAN devices to connect remote branch offices to on-premises and public cloud where applications and data are hosted.

Azure Virtual WAN routes traffic from the closest network location to the branch office over Microsoft’s dedicated global network to its destination, providing fast and reliable connectivity at scale.

Protect against cyberattacks

With the dramatic increase in digital infrastructure to enable remote work, there has been an increase in cybercrime. Azure Security Centre provides a unified view of the security state of all your cloud and on-premises workloads and gives you security recommendations.

Azure Web Application Firewall and Azure DDoS Protection protect your web workloads with zero trust security including verifying identity on every access and ensuring your networks are correctly segmented.

Migrate to the cloud and save money

Businesses are moving to the cloud to reduce capital expenditure, realise cost savings and speed up time to value. With offers including Azure Hybrid Benefit and free extended security updates, Azure is five times cheaper than AWS to migrate Windows Server and SQL Server workloads.

In addition, there are free migration tools to reduce migration costs and accelerate the migration journey. The Azure Migration Program also offers guidance and best practices.

Modernise on-premises infrastructure

Many customers keep certain workloads on-premises to meet regulatory requirements, address latency issues, or maximise existing investments. In this case, customers can take advantage of cloud innovation by modernising their on-premises infrastructure and increase efficiency.

For example, Azure Stack HCI lets customers consolidate on-premises virtualised applications on cloud-connected, hyper-converged infrastructure to access the best price-performance for storage and compute. Azure Stack Hub helps customers build and deploy cloud-native applications on-premises and run their own private, autonomous cloud – connected or disconnected – from Azure.

Optimise costs

Azure offers many ways for customers to optimise their costs. Azure Cost Management + Billing give customers free tools to monitor and analyse cloud spend, set budget and spending alerts, and allocate cloud costs across teams.

Azure Advisor helps businesses optimise cloud resource utilisation with personalised recommendations. Offers such as Azure Spot Virtual Machine combined with Azure Reservations let customers save up to 90 percent over pay-as-you-go pricing on Azure services with pre-paid reservation pricing or utilising unused Azure compute capacity at deep discounts.

Adopt Microsoft Azure more rapidly to enable remote work, optimise costs, increase efficiency and innovate.

July 15 2021

Unlocking business potential with Microsoft Teams

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Despite Microsoft’s constant reminders, many businesses are still struggling to migrate from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. With the end of Skype for Business fast approaching, companies need a safe, secure and effective migration plan. Customers need to move to Microsoft Teams before the end of July 2021.

There has been a major shift to Teams since remote working empowered more people to move to the cloud. Microsoft Teams is the hub for team collaboration in Microsoft 365 that integrates the people, content and tools that any team needs to be more engaged and effective.

Changing from one technology to another is difficult and although Skype and Microsoft Teams have many similarities, it may take some time to get used to. For companies that have been using Skype for Business for a long time, it could be a challenge.

To make the transformation seamless, business leaders should inform the staff about the impending shift to Teams, as soon as possible. They need time to prepare for the changes because people are scared of change.

One needs to identify early adopters, staff who have used Teams before and those who feel more comfortable with using new technology. They could be mentors for others who feel uncomfortable about using Teams for the first time.

The next step is to help everyone understand the features and benefits of the new technology. It is good to share information and documentation about the Teams environment. Also reassure them that the new technology has much better functionality.

Create a list of new features and show staff how those capabilities are going to benefit them. One could even integrate apps into Teams to ensure that staff don’t have to switch between different apps to get work done. They can now easily find, share and edit files in real time – using familiar apps like Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

Next, each business needs to determine what kind of functionality it requires. For example, one may want to connect an existing telephony system to Teams, creating a central hub for communication. Teams Voice opens the doors to cost-effective business communication, offering business calls from anywhere, at any time.

Make and receive calls directly in Teams with advanced features like group calling, cloud voicemail, and call transfers. Teams is for everyone, instantly go from group chat to video call with the touch of a button. Users can now securely connect, access, share and co-author files in real time.

Microsoft has improved the way its other solutions integrate with Teams, from Outlook to Microsoft 365 productivity tools. Remote workers can now collaborate from anywhere, they can stay organised and improve collaboration with all their conversations, files, meetings and apps in a shared workspace.

Every business has unique processes and ways of working, they often require solutions that need to be tailored for them. Our expertise of Teams and other Microsoft technologies enables us to solve the toughest challenges facing customers.

November 17 2020

Public sector entity & skills transfer for Microsoft365.

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Public sector entity & skills transfer for Microsoft365.

As part and parcel of our clients’ digital journey, they wanted to use tools including Microsoft 365 to improve efficiency and collaboration internally and externally. They had issued an RFQ where Argantic was appointed, which led to a business relationship with their SETA.

We asked our client, who is a Sector Education and Training Authority public entity, listed in schedule 3A of the PFMA, what they thought about the investment amount and how “easy it was to understand” to which they stated, based on our appointment:

Pricing was fair and competitive.
Yes, it was easy to understand.

As a long-standing business, established in March 2000, they must perform in accordance with the Skills Development Act (SDA), the Skills Development Levies Act (SDLA), the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), any other relevant legislation and the Constitution. Their SETA, in accordance with prescribed requirements –

develop a Sector Skills Plan within the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) framework by:
- implementing its Sector Skills Plan
- establishing learning programmes;
- approving work-place skills plans and annual training reports;
- allocating grants, in the prescribed manner and in accordance with any prescribed standards and criteria, to employers, skills development providers and workers, and
- by monitoring the quality of occupation-based learning in the Sector;
promote occupation-based learning programmes that include work experience by: –
- identifying workplaces for practical work experience;
- improving the facilitation and assessment of learning; and
- assisting with the conclusion of agreements for learning programmes;
register agreements for learning programmes;
support and form partnerships
when required to do so, as contemplated in section 7(1) of the SDLA, collect and disburse the skills development levies, allocated to it, in terms of sections 8 and 9 of the SDLA, in its Sector

As the public entity client was on their journey to rollout Microsoft 365, Argantic helped them to properly understand and set-up Microsoft 365. When we touched base with our client they said that “the proposed implementation of Microsoft 365, was implemented according to our expectation and we even saved costs in the process.”

This was due to them realising that they could leverage on the features they had procured to replace other services that had the same offering but were decentralised.

One of the added benefits highlighted by our client was that they did not need to procure,

“Endpoint protection
Patch Management
Mobile Device Management
Encryption
Windows OS software
and many more.”

This was due to constant feedback throughout the project, which ensured our client was well-informed and happy with the process.

We asked the following 2 questions to our client;

What did you think about the Technical Capability of Argantic’s Engineers?
Experienced and they involved us throughout the project as part and parcel of skills transfer.
Now that the project has been completed have your expectations been met?
Yes, our expectations were met and even beyond. The advisory team assisted us to realise more value from the services we procured.

Argantic also worked with our public entity client to deliver on time and within budget. We additionally ensured our client was able to strengthen their security during these times where many institutions are affected by cyberattacks.

Our public entity client, post the project completion for Microsoft 365, now has improved collaboration. They easily share documents and other files without the need to worry about their sizes. This includes allowing them to also request external stakeholders to upload large files without having to worry about security and unauthorised access to their environment. Everything is scanned and cleaned before it reaches the end-user.

When we asked our client if our Argantic solution made their “problem” easier to manage or eliminated the issue, they responded,

Yes, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive for Business, Endpoint Manager, Advance Threat Protection and not limited to Exchange online are some of the solutions that were implemented where we have seen them addressing a lot of challenges that required human intervention but now all these are now automated.

In closing Argantic are very proud to have been told by our public entity client that they would recommend us in the future to our “very friendly and knowledgeable Team“. When we asked if there was anything else that made them willing to refer us they said that our team are available to assist clients at any time and respond promptly to queries and other related services.

Well done team on another happy Microsoft 365 client!

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August 25 2020

Up & running in 1 week. A start-up story.

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Up & running in 1 week. A start-up story.

Your business phone number can make or break your business. According to a recent article by The Australian Financial Review, “90% of large organisations say remote meetings will become the norm.” They also highlighted that even though businesses are going back to “normal” remote meetings and work from home will be a real way of working for the immediate future.

This not only applies to large enterprise, but it also affects smaller SME’s.

As a start-up, within to food industry, our client realised that being accessible on all channels is non-negotiable. They know that having a landline number, not only allows for customers to get in touch, it also adds a sense of legitimacy. Who wants to do business with a company who uses a mobile only?

Their challenge was, that as a start-up they did not have the long-standing credit record with the telcos. This meant that opening a business account created challenges when looking to set-up their channels of communication.

The solution to becoming accessible

As a start-up, the team are always out and about with the main aim of growing the business. This meant that the company needed a solution that met their needs as an agile business, with feet on the ground. They needed a setup that would allow for them to make and receive calls while on the move.

In addition to making business calls, they also wanted to be able to collaborate to remain agile in their small business on a limited budget. Small business needs to make sure their investment within the business remains lean.

Looking at our partnership with our customer, we were able to tailor a solution that not only fits the bank and is also scalable with their business. When they grow, we grow.

The tech that makes it worthwhile

Argantic’s Kickstart for Teams Voice Lite (Deployment) option and shared-hosted option, for the Voice Gateway in Azure, made complete sense. The basic setup enables both making and receiving phone calls via Microsoft Teams. This is an app used on both PCs and mobile phones.

As our start-up customer was ‘totally greenfields’ (that is having no technology to speak of) Argantic helped set-up Microsoft licenses and setup Office365 before starting the Teams portion *Office365 is a requirement for Microsoft Teams.

Our customer also with a growth mindset, has been given the ability to add Auto Attendant and Call queueing when their business grows. This will ensure that they never miss a call and are able to scale their business as required.

Affordable MS Teams solutions

Our client invested a once-off investment of R 9,990.00 ex Vat to get set-up. Their monthly commitment, for 4 voice channels, is a mere R 1,100.00 ex Vat per month (including line rental). The only other amount they need to consider is their normal call charges.

This all took place in only 1 week. Meaning our start-up customer was up and running and doing business as usual;

Deployment took 4 days, simultaneously our telecoms partner activated the line and,
new numbers in 3 days of receiving the signed application form.

Using Microsoft Teams Voice Calling makes sense. Chat to us on how we can help your startup continue to grow, while you stay connected with your customers.

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August 25 2020

Standardising remote education on a national scale.

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Standardising remote education on a national scale.

The SUN in the UK reported that the “demand for home-schooling surges”. With parents opting for “do-it-yourself” education & keeping their kids at home, education groups have found themselves needing to build capacity for learners.

For our education group client, they found themselves needing to support thousands of learners with a standardised solution.

While the world of education normally moves slowly, the sector has been forced to think of other “personal” ways to school our children.

With the new way of work, school and life our education client needed to move quickly to ensure the quality of delivery of the syllabus as well as ensuring ease of connection and collaboration of the teachers, parents and learners.

A standardised education technology solution.

Our national education client had a plethora of technology across their various schools, including Skype for Business. They also had traditional PBX systems and then implemented additionally implemented Microsoft Teams to enable teaching to continue with the learners from home.

Taking into account the size of the institution (a national footprint) and the need to deploy a viable solution, we looked to use the existing hardware.

Working with the internal Skype Team, Argantic set to work on implementing and migrating to Teams Voice Calling. This allowed teachers to use the Microsoft Teams app, with the added benefit of making and receiving calls from anywhere.

The new “digital classrooms” have since enabled parent-teacher collaboration as lessons at the education facilities to shift to a hybrid (real vs digital) solution.

MS Teams Voice Calling as a core telephony solution.

Using the existing gateways for Skype for Business allowed for a quick turnaround of 3 weeks. Argantic cut over to MS Teams Voice Calling, while the client provided the SBC.

The client already had a Microsoft O365 tenant and licenses so did not need to add these services.

In the words of Microsoft, “as we head toward a new school year that will be largely remote or hybrid, educators are faced with new challenges”. By partnering with Argantic (a Microsoft partner), our client has been able to create a safe, healthy learning environment.

Not only are they able to shift between classrooms and online learning, but they have also designed a welcoming and engaging experience that is accessible to all learners.

Chat to our team about MS Teams Calling, your powerful education tool that supports your schools’ online education plans.

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August 25 2020

The new school receptionist. Auto Attendant.

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The new school receptionist. Auto Attendant.

One of our existing school customers contacted us when the lockdown was 1st announced. As the teachers were now working from home, bringing new teaching challenges to the forefront.

In addition, they needed to be able to make (and receive) calls from home, without being able to access their PBX.

With an influx of calls, they also needed to make sure that parents were not left “out in the cold” & not getting through to the right person.

Facilitating better communication with Teams Voice.

Our school customer, in the Western Cape, had a desire to modernise their communication. While helping facilitate better communication between teachers and parents as well as administrators and parents.

We agreed that going with Argantic’s Kickstart for Teams Voice Basic (Deployment) option was the best way forward. Our customer also made use of Argantic’s shared-hosted option for the Voice Gateway in Azure.

The school also decided to port their number from their existing telco provider to our Partner, Switch Telecom. This porting enabled them to retain their existing phone numbers (almost 100).

Ensuring a streamlined parent/teacher/administrator experience.

To make sure that concerned parents were not left in the dark, our customer asked that we include Auto Attendant. This is a voice menu system that allows for transferring callers to the desired extension, without the need for a receptionist.

Argantic also added the call queuing functionality to make sure that any callers coming in did not experience an engaged line adding to further anxiety. This function made sure they were placed on-hold until someone was available to take their call.

As our customer was already using Office365 and MS Teams from our standard service to them so the shift to easier communication was nice and simple.

Affordable and timely technology solution for schools.

From start to finish, the deployment and simultaneous Swith Telecom activation (including new numbers) took less than 1 week!

Deployment of the MS Teams Calling solution 5 days run simultaneously;
New line, switch & activation, & numbers 4 days (post signing the agreement)

As our customer is a school, affordability was big on the agenda. They enjoyed a minimal investment (once-off) of R 19,990. Their monthly commitment (for 10 voice channels) now stands at;

SLA @ R2,500
Telco @ R250

Another happy customer! Able to make calls from home and from any device.

Additionally, through the process of being more accessible and facilitating our customer communication, they are now more aware of how extensible our Teams Voice solution is. Now allowing them to add new features as they become available.

Find out how our team at Argantic can facilitate your communication in a new world.

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