We’re very excited to introduce Beam, a suite of reporting and analytics tools for organisations using Microsoft Teams. Whether you’re using Teams for voice via Calling Plans or Direct Routing, Beam will help you gain valuable insights into how your organization is using Teams, offer improvements in the service you provide your callers and increase efficiency in how you work.
WHAT IS BEAM?
Beam is a browser-based collection of four modules. Each module provides statistics and information around a different part of your Microsoft Teams implementation. Dashboards and reports are completely customisable on a per-user basis, ensuring each registered user gets information that is useful to them.
Beam’s four modules are able to report on things like user adoption, call outcomes, agent status, resource availability, queue times, call quality by device, number availability, peak traffic times and more. Because of its wide breadth of reporting capability, Beam is a useful tool for numerous job roles.
Let’s meet the modules:
BEAM REAL TIME
Beam Real Time is all about the calls your organization is handling using Phone System for Teams, whether that’s using Calling Plans or Direct Routing.
Beam Real Time is a toolbox of real time wallboards, historical dashboards and scheduled reports that provide you with insights into the level of service you’re providing to your callers, as well as the experience of your employees.
Employee summaries allow you to gauge individual adoption of Teams:
The vast library of built-in reports can be run on an ad-hoc basis, or scheduled for delivery by email at a recurring interval. Reports combine graphical and tabled stats. If the library doesn’t contain what you’re after, the Report Designer allows you to create your own.
Realtime wallboards provide accurate, up to date information about queue levels and resource availability, allowing you to provide the best possible experience to your callers. Thresholds can be configured for even more granular detail.
BEAM RANGE MANAGER
Beam Range Manager is all about the numbers and DDI ranges you have deployed in Teams. If you’ve ever struggled to find a spare number, this module is for you.
Allocation statistics allow you to quickly see if you’re getting close to maxing out on DDIs. Or, if a range is underutilized, you may be able to cease it and save on rental.
Alarms can be set to automatically email you if you reach a certain allocation threshold. Combine that with the ability to reserve DDIs and you should never struggle to find a number again.
BEAM DEVICE MANAGER
Beam Device Manager allows you to manage your headset estate. It works alongside top headset manufacturers Jabra, Poly and EPOS to provide analytics on usage, call quality and firmware.
You can view call quality by device type and analyse trends. If a certain device type consistently reports poor quality, it can be easily spotted and that device type replaced.
First seen and last seen dates allow you to monitor which users are and aren’t using their headsets, which can inform purchasing decisions.
Headset firmware can be bulk updated by device type, department or location.
BEAM PERFORMANCE ANALYTICS
Beam Performance Analytics provides insights into the adoption of Teams as an entire collaboration package; it does not just focus on the Phone System aspect.
The Overview dashboard lists activity and users per Team, including guest users for the security conscious. Drill through for more granular information on a Team.
The user activity dashboard lets you know how active your users are in the core areas of Teams. Again, drill through for more information about a user, including which devices they’re active on.
One of the things that makes Teams so powerful is the ability to use other Microsoft applications alongside it. The Applications dashboard shows adoption of these applications, allowing you to identify areas where you could work more efficiently.
All dashboards in Beam Performance Analytics can be filtered by date, department and location.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
User Adoption
Understand what your Teams users are doing to make an informed decision about your investment in the technology. Easily download reports that show the amount of voice and video calls, conferences attended, chat messages and collaboration in Teams. If users aren’t using Teams they could be using non-approved apps such as Whatsapp to collaborate instead, the data will help with governance.
The biggest benefit of Blackstar Beam is its flexibility. Pretty much everything is customizable allowing you to view or pull meaningful data and make meaningful decisions that will have a meaningful impact on the experience of your callers and staff.
The second, is the sheer amount of stuff you can report on. We have a saying here at Blackstar: If it’s not in Beam, it’s not worth knowing. Combine this volume of information with Beam’s flexibility and you get a single solution that meets the reporting needs of many different job roles within your organization.
Administrators can create security policies that manage what a Beam user has access to. You can feel comfortable knowing that staff have access to only the information they need. And because Beam is a separate reporting suite, you don’t have to worry about users having access to configurable elements of the system. They can’t break anything!
All of this is above and beyond the analytics and reports you get inclusive in Teams. Further, the reports in Teams cannot be scheduled or automated. We highly recommend Beam for any organization considering using Phone System for Teams where reporting and analytics is one of your requirements.
HOW CAN BLACKSTAR HELP?
Blackstar is experienced in deploying Beam. We approach Beam the way we do all other aspects of our business: as a partnership. Once Beam has been successfully implemented, we won’t just leave you to it. We’ll provide full training for as many users as necessary and help create some standard reports that meet your needs. And we’re always available on the other end of the phone, an email or a Teams message should you need any assistance down the line.
To find out more or to book a demo call us on 0333 123 2 123 or email [email protected]
