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What's New in ShoreTel 8Posted by ShoreTel on Monday, May 19, 2008 The new, video-enabled, ShoreWare Professional Call Manager is at the center of what's new in ShoreTel 8. The Professional Call Manager leverages the improved look-and-feel and enhanced usability delivered to all levels of the Call Manager and adds new, multimedia capabilities. In addition, ShoreTel 8 also includes improved support for connecting SIP-based end-points to the system, new Voice Switch models that enable customers to right-size their deployments, improved security, better management, and several new telephony features. ShoreWare Personal (and Advanced) Call ManagerThe ShoreWare® Call Manager is given a whole new look in ShoreTel 8. A new, more modern user interface has been created that both improves the visual look of the application, and also improves the usability as well. In this release, ShoreTel introduces a new modular window design that locates supporting features such as visual voicemail, call history, directory, and the speed dial list directly in the Call Manager window. Each feature is accessed via the selection of a TAB located at the bottom of the window instead of requiring a separate window be opened. The user interface has also been reorganized to simplify in-call management. Previously, users were required to take two steps to access common features such as transfer, conference, and hold. They had to first select the call they wanted to act on and then select the desired action at the top of the window. In the new ShoreTel 8 release, in-call management features are now located immediately beside the call information enabling more intuitive feature access. Office Anywhere™ configuration is simplified in the improved Personal Call Manager as well. Users can now access their Office Anywhere settings directly from the Personal Call Manager window without first opening the options window and the application now remembers previous settings enabling rapid changes between frequently used numbers. The Personal Call manager continues to provide inbound call information, a directory, Outlook® Integration, QuickDialing for making calls and easy access to endusers options as before. The application also still supports multiple display modes including the full detailed view, the smaller compact view but now adds two new docking views, on left and right side, in addition to the previously available top and bottom views. The Personal Call Manager now supports the display of phone presence for users when dialing using the QuickDialer. This feature, previously provided via the Advanced Call Manager, is now part of the Personal Call Manager. With this release and the integration of telephony status displays into the Personal Call Manager, the Advanced Call Manager is discontinued. Upon upgrade, all Advanced Call Manager users will be migrated to the Personal Call Manager which now contains the phone presence display and other features previously only available in the Advanced Call Manager. ShoreWare Professional Call ManagerIn ShoreTel 8, a brand new Call Manager option is introduced. The Professional Call Manager brings a consolidated or Unified Communications environment right to the enduser's desktop. The Professional Call Manager includes all the capabilities of the enhanced Personal Call Manager (described above) but adds to this rich video calling, soft phone capabilities, a Contact Viewer, and the ability to integrated with 3rd party presence servers to provide integrated IM and presence.
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