1. ShoreTel 13 Overview
This roadmap presentation is for information purposes only. Roadmap information should
not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. ShoreTel is under no legal obligation to
deliver any future products, features, or functionality within any specified time frame, if at
all. Release dates and content are subject to change at ShoreTel’s sole discretion.
ShoreTel Communicator for Windows can establish a video session with Lifesize room systems, in a point to point fashion using SIP/H.264. By calling into a Lifesize device with an embedded MCU, it can also participate in a multi-party video session. The media path is peer-to-peer for both video and audio streams. Lifesize certified via Innovation Network. More vendors supported in the future via the Innovation Network
With ShoreTel 13, Instant Messaging (IM) becomes a standard feature for all users on the ShoreTel system by way of the Communicator desktop UC client. IM is currently supported on ShoreTel Communicator for Windows. All users will have access to the Contact Viewer within Communicator. The Contact Viewer allows adding your favorite IM contact but also your favorite phone numbers. To utilize IM, you will need to deploy an IM server on the back-end (either ShoreTel Instant Messaging Service or Microsoft Lync).
A new user does not have to enter credential nor server information in the installation wizard process, eliminating one step.
“ General” and “Quickdialer” pages are combined into one page. “External Assignment”, “Find Me” and “Additional phones” pages are combined into a single option, “call routing”. A new Option page is added called “My Phones” in which user enters his different phone numbers once and defines a label for each. For instance, they will add their cell number and define it as “My cool mobile phone”. Then, the user can select “My cool mobile phone” in the Call Routing option page without having to retype the number.
The new form, compliant with Outlook 32 and 64 bit, is leveraging the Outlook 2007/2010 API. It looks up to date and is better integrated into Outlook.
Prior to ShoreTel 13, Communicator downloads all Directory records. This is not optimized for larger organizations. With the new release, the Directory panel downloads only a fixed number of records and gets more when the user requests it. This method reduces the PC memory usage.
Communicator was importing all contacts in the PC memory each time it started, by default, resulting in an increase in memory usage. With ShoreTel 13, the very first time ShoreTel Communicator starts, it uploads user personal contacts from Outlook to the ShoreTel system. Consequently, ShoreTel Communicator is not using local memory to store contact information, resulting in faster start times. These personal contacts then become accessible to Communicator and to ShoreTel phones.
Separate .msi file to install TAPI client Application Reduces size of ShoreTel Communicator installer Eliminate needs to install multi-line TAPI server with WTS/Citrix
In ShoreTel 13, the Client Application Server (CAS) API is being exposed publicly for the first time. This new API includes HTTP-based Javascript Object Notation (JSON) messages for controlling a user’s telephony, contact search, call history, voice mail and configuration of call handling modes and other parameters. Using this API, developers can build applications that leverage the rich functionality of the ShoreTel system on behalf of a user. Note that changes in the CAS API request, response and event messages as currently documented may occur in future releases.
In ShoreTel 12, scheduling changes made from Outlook Web Access or from a mobile phone do NOT get propagated to the ShoreTel system. For instance, if you schedule a ShoreTel Conference via an Outlook appointment on your PC then move that appointment to a new time using your calendar tool on your smartphone, the change is not saved on the ShoreTel system. To address this caveat, an Exchange Server connector is available. It allows the system to poll the Exchange server for updates to existing conferences. Conference data that has changed in Microsoft Exchange Calendar is updated in the ShoreTel Web conference page.
ShoreTel 13 allows participants to join without the presence of the host. For such conferences, participants joining within five minutes of the schedule time before the host joins receive a prompt that the conference has not started and are place in a wait state until the conference starts. The conference starts when the host joins at the scheduled time. The scheduled end of a conference session is also enforced when the host does not join the conference. Participants in a conference will be prompted five minutes before the conference is scheduled to end that the conference will end. The conference is automatically terminated at the scheduled time. If the host joins at any during the conference, scheduling is not enforced. Recurring meetings can now be handled by ShoreTel Conferencing.
User can download both audio and application share recording to their PC. The download file is a zip file containing a .wav file and a .swf file (Flash).
The new Java Plug-in resembles the ShoreTel Presenter for Windows. It looks slimmer and simpler and offers the pause/play and pointer functionalities.
Prior to ShoreTel 13, links to the Web Viewer (UI that manages ongoing conferences) were integrated in every conferencing user interface, including the Web Conferencing Portal, the conference invites, and Outlook Add-on, even when no Web Conferencing licenses were installed on the ShoreTel system. With ShoreTel 13, links to the Web Viewer are no longer displayed in the different conferencing user interfaces on a system with no Web Conferencing licenses. This change enhances the audio-only user experience.
The ShoreTel Audio Conferencing services support an additional codec: G.729. The SA-100 supports up to 50 G.729 calls.