There are some essential processes and elements that are required to make a UC environment work, in order to deliver the capabilities expected by an organization

• A dial plan to route call flows in the system and to external interfaces (e.g. PSTN)
• Integration of multiple UC applications to provide the required services
• Initial provisioning of the UC applications and devices to implement the chosen design
• Development of the business processes and procedure to deliver services to users
• Ongoing Moves, Adds, Changes, and Disposal of services (MACDs)
• Migration of an existing environment to UC demands careful consideration with regard to how existing business processes and systems will integrate into the new solution.

As the list above outlines, there is a wide range of requirements and complexities involved in deploying and operating an effective UC environment. This is where UC management tools that provide automation and simplification of these tasks are key to a cost-effective UC environment.

• Basic Level Provisioning / Fulfillment
  Standard provisioning applications can support UC implementations by providing automated processes for deployments, and limited operational functionality for basic administration tasks, such as additions or changes. These provisioning / fulfillment tools help speed up basic administration of subscriber moves, adds, and changes. The overall aim is to lower day-to-day operational costs by reducing the need for skilled resources to operate voice and messaging applications. This is done by simplifying the delegation of UC services and managing workflows. This automation also reduces errors allowing focus on higher value activities.
• End-to-End Provisioning / Fulfillment
  A deeper level of UC provisioning or fulfillment provides integrated management and full automation over the complete lifecycle of a UC platform. The covers management of the design phase, through deployment, through operational day-to-day MACD delegation and management, as well as on-going upgrade and maintenance.

Included in these management systems is the ability to introduce advanced automation to the administration of the dial plan and the entire UC infrastructure suite of applications and devices. This can range from workflows for the creation and mapping of network elements through to the deployment and management of users with their devices and services. This is all supported with a flexible access control mechanism to ensure different user types can access and work with the system according to their privileges and capabilities. The end result is an agile and flexible UC platform that can quickly respond to change.

The main advantage of end-to-end UC provisioning and UC fulfillment is that it truly offers an overall management experience with extensive and flexible automation and simplification. This drives the ability to deliver the extensive benefits and lower costs of management throughout the UC platform lifecycle, and it makes UC work.

Read more: An Enterprise Guide to UC Management

UC provisioning automation is the art of creating automated processes (such as zero-touch workflows) to streamline the way that users are onboarded and offboarded to your UC platform, the way that new UC tools or services are rolled out, and the way that upgrades and scaling projects are handled.

UC provisioning automation is especially important for large organizations that have thousands of employees, and for companies that rely on employee productivity and collaboration tools to support their knowledge workers.

For these organizations, the impact of not having UC provisioning automation is huge.

• It’s difficult to troubleshoot, pinpoint, and fix problems when they occur
• It’s time-consuming and error-prone to make changes across multiple technology platforms
• It’s hard to delegate administrative tasks, or offer self-service capabilities

Benefits of UC provisioning automation:

1. Introduce impressive cost savings – Introduce automation to free your IT team to work on more complex business issues
2. Improve the efficiency of your UC estate – Adopt new technologies quickly, rollout patches and upgrades at the touch of a button
3. Remove the risk of manual error – Deploy zero-touch processes to eradicate MACDs
4. Optimize the end user experience – Provide devolved administration and end user self-service to improve staff productivity and satisfaction