MINNEAPOLIS – Feb. 11, 2009 – Holy Name of Jesus, a Catholic parish and school, is communicating more efficiently with staff, parents and parishioners today, after deploying SpanCom 200Flex, a Spanlink Communications pre-packaged unified communications solution. The offering is built on hardware and software solutions from Cisco Systems, and integrates collaboration tools such as email and voicemail for significantly improved reliability and enhanced communication across the entire organization.

Holy Name of Jesus is based in Wayzata, Minn., a western suburb of Minneapolis. With more than 8,500 parishioners and operating a K-6 elementary school, Holy Name of Jesus relies heavily on its communications infrastructure.  Last fall it was becoming apparent that the parish’s phone system was unreliable and outdated, frequently losing programming, dropping voicemails and incorrectly routing calls. Having to deal with continuous and expensive maintenance issues, the organization sought a new solution and after a competitive evaluation process, chose to partner with Spanlink.
“The first time I met with Spanlink, I knew we would be in good hands. Their commitment to our success was apparent from day one,” said Dan Garry, parish administrator, Holy Name of Jesus. “Spanlink understood how important it is for us to be accessible to our parishioners and parents. The team understood that we needed an affordable solution that would be easy for us to manage, and they were willing to work with us to get it up and running quickly.”

The full implementation was completed in a few short days over the school’s winter break to ensure the deployment wouldn’t interfere with class. Once school was back in session Spanlink conducted two thorough training sessions with faculty and staff to familiarize them with the new features and phone system. 

SpanCom 200Flex allows for scalability and includes Cisco Unified Communications Manager, a powerful call processing solution, as well as Cisco Unity, an integrated voice messaging, greeting and interactive voice response solution. In addition, Spanlink has integrated the parish community’s new phone system with Microsoft Exchange which allows staff to receive voicemails in their email. Now, when administrative assistants receive messages from parents regarding their child’s school attendance, they can easily forward the message to the teacher without interrupting class. Additional benefits staff enjoy include an advanced call directory, the ability to silence the phone’s ring during class and the ease of configuring the phone for a different user.

“Schools need reliable communication systems to help them control costs and improve productivity so they can focus more of their resources on staff development and student achievement,” said Scott Christian, CEO, Spanlink. “With Spanlink’s pre-packaged UC solutions customers get cost-effective and comprehensive solutions that are easy to manage and quick to deploy.”