144CASE STUDY I-3The VoIP Adoption at Butler Universit.docx

144
CASE STUDY I-3
The VoIP Adoption at Butler University
As CIO Kincaid looked back over the past 12 months, he
took pride in the fact that Butler University had taken a major
step forward with a network capability for the twenty-first
century—the convergence of its data and voice networks. Yet
the choices that had been made in the past year were not for
the “faint of heart”: his IT organization had taken on a lot
more in-house responsibility for voice communications than
in the past at a time in which network security risks were
heightened concerns. This also meant 24/7 visibility for the
telephony staff people who for the first time were working
alongside their data network counterparts.
Kincaid wondered: Did we make the right decisions?
Have we taken on too much?
IT at Butler University
Butler University is a private liberal arts college in
Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1855 by attorney Ovid
Butler, the university was comprised of five colleges and
20 buildings on 290 acres, and a student enrollment of
4,400 students in 2005, the year it celebrated its 150th
anniversary. More than half of the enrolled students lived
on campus and depended on the university for network and
telephone services.

Butler’s Information Resources (IR) department
(see Exhibit 1) consists of 40 staff members that service
the technology needs of not only its students, but also
approximately 900 faculty and staff members. The CIO,
Scott Kincaid, reports to the president of the university;
formerly a CIO at a major financial services firm,
Kincaid was the first IT leader at Butler to be given the
CIO designation. Reporting to Kincaid are four directors
responsible for the university’s IT services: Network and
Systems, Administrative Computing, Web Applications
Development, and Instructional Technology. Part-time
student workers are employed in all four of these areas,
with an especially heavy dependence on students for help
desk and instructional lab support services.
Campuswide, the IT organization was responsible for
supporting over 125 servers, over 1,400 university-owned
desktops, and approximately 7,000 network connections.
Since 2001, the university’s administrative systems have
included PeopleSoft1 ERP modules for Human Resources,
Finance, Campus
Solution
s (student administration), and
Enterprise Portal.
Prior to 2005, Butler had utilized SBC’s2 Centrex serv-
ice to provide 3,000 phone stations, with most faculty and
staff having basic single-line analog phones. The Centrex

system was an outsourced solution: essentially, all call
switching was handled by a local telephone provider (SBC),
rather than by a university-owned system, and Butler paid for
the services on a monthly basis. Over the past decade, the
SBC Centrex system had been very reliable, but it lacked
more modern functions, such as intelligent call queuing.
Voice mail was provided by a Centigram 640 system that
provided a single voice mailbox to each dorm room, which
meant that students had to share both their phone number and
voice-mail box with their roommates.
The outsourcing arrangement enabled the university to
avoid the costs of ownership and the day-to-day management
of the communications equipment that would be required if it
had implemented its own private branch exchange (PBX).
While very reliable, the Centrex system was based on
features over a decade old, and was not easily customizable.
It had therefore become an impediment to implementing
customer call center service features, such as advanced call
routings. As departments grew and personnel changed,
moving phones and phone lines was a labor-intensive
process. SBC’s billing system was antiquated, prone to error,
and required constant reconciliation efforts by Butler’s
telecom coordinator.

Since Centrex was only partially meeting Butler’s
needs, Information Resources had begun researching the
telephony landscape in early 2004. Many vendors and
many trade magazines were predicting that an in-house
PBX would be more cost-effective than the outsourced
Centrex system for telephone services. Butler could
acquire and control its own system and then customize it
accordingly. Even more intriguing was a newer alternative
that would bring voice communications onto the same
Copyright © 2007 by Carol V. Brown, Associate Professor of IS
at
the Kelley School of Indiana University–Bloomington and Scott
A. Kincaid,
CIO, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana, with research
assistance by
Tony Easterlin and John Sacco, MSIS students at Indiana
University.
1PeopleSoft was acquired by Oracle in January 2005.
2SBC was formed through the mergers of Ameritech,
Southwestern Bell,
and Pacific Telesis. SBC purchased AT&T Corp in 2005 and
took the
name AT&T inc. They then merged with Bellsouth in 2006 and

consoli-
dated ownership of Cingular, all under the AT&T name.
Systems
Administrator
Telecom
Coordinator
Sr. Systems
Administrator
Network
Engineer
Web Developer
Level 3
Web Developer
Level 2
Web Developer
Level 1

Students
Web Developers
Systems Support
Project Coord
Systems Support
Project Coord
Systems Support
Consultant
Systems Support
Consultant
Systems Support
Technician
Systems Support
Analyst-MAC
Systems
Analyst

Systems Support
Technician
Support Service
Help Desk, Lab Assistants
and Operators
Help Desk
Specialist
Help Desk
Specialist
Office Project
Administrator
Administrative
Secretary
Director
Web
Applications

Joe Indiano
Director
Network and Systems
Director
Administrative
Computing
Scott Kincaid
Chief Information
Officer
Director
Instructional
Technology
Sr. Systems
Analyst
Sr. Systems
Analyst

Sr. Systems
Analyst
Systems
Analyst
Systems
Analyst
Sr. Systems
Analyst
Student Assistants
Tech Team
Manager, Client
Services
Database
Administration
Sr. Systems
Analyst
Database

Administration
System Analyst/
Security Admin.
Instructional
Tech Specialist
Instructional
Media Services
Supervisor
Instructional Sys
Support Analyst
Instructional
Tech Trainer
Media Services
Specialist
Students
Media Serv.

Media Services
Specialist
Systems
Analyst
Help Desk
Program Coord
EXHIBIT 1 IT Organization Chart at Butler University with
Key Players in Deployment of New System Highlighted
145
network as data communications: a VoIP3 network solu-
tion. Like the other alternatives, a VoIP solution appeared
to be neither simple nor cheap.
A new in-house PBX would improve the treatment
of callers with its Automatic Call Distribution capability,
which put callers in a queue if all available staff were busy.
Multiline telephone sets, an online caller directory capabil-
ity, and better management reports would help to improve

telecommunications services throughout the university and
provide quicker access to personnel. For students, private
voice mailboxes could be assigned with each student hav-
ing their own phone number. Many organizations own and
manage an in-house PBX system utilizing traditional voice
circuits, but newer VoIP solutions was an interesting trend
in the communications industry. The potential cost savings
from placing voice traffic on the data network—VoIP—
caught the eye of Butler’s technology group. However,
VoIP was a relatively new technology, and embarking on a
marketplace solution that was this new would mean that
there wasn’t yet a “clear path to success.”
Only twelve to thirteen percent of the market had
VoIP installed in 2004. Even though the telecommu-
nications landscape was changing with an emerging
trend of increasing IP lines, the current statistics were
still daunting and left us wondering if this was a good
path to take. Needless to say, we became intrigued.
—Scott Kincaid, CIO
The limited adoption rates weren’t the only risks Butler had to
consider. By converging traditional data networks and voice
networks into one, the reliability of the voice services on cam-

pus would likely be less than what the campus had experi-
enced for telephone services in the past: The VoIP phone sets
would depend on network operations that weren’t used by tra-
ditional analog phones. The Butler data network was known to
be prone to occasional outages due to equipment failure,
insufficient capacity at times, or odd behavior from rogue
student-owned computers. Several constituents were con-
cerned about the potential voice quality of IP-based telephony.
Coincidentally, in January 2004, the Information
Resources group at Butler had obtained formal approval to
begin a three-year program to upgrade all of the network
switches, routers, and hubs, a major endeavor. The network
upgrade funding would come from two sources: two-thirds
would be supplied by university gifts and the remaining
third would come from the annual IR operations budget
spread over three years. So Butler was on a path to improve
the network, but it was not in place now.
The thought of a data network being capable of
accommodating high-quality, business-class phone calls
was a real source of apprehension. This meant that perhaps
the biggest risk that a VoIP PBX solution posed was intro-
ducing a less proven technology to its users and gaining
their buy-in to this emerging solution. Gaining buy-in

would entail accepting the adoption of a new method of
communication and new performance risks. Everyone was
also worried about virus attacks that commonly affected
data networks, but not traditional voice lines.
People were concerned we’d drag down our voice
systems to the quality of data network. Our goal,
however, was to bring the data network up to the
quality of our traditional voice network.
—Joe Indiano, Director Network and Systems
Matching Butler’s Needs with the Network
Alternatives
In order to look at the alternatives, the Telephony Evaluation
Team was formed in March 2004 (Exhibit 2). The team was
led by Joe Indiano, IR’s director of network and systems.
The team included the telecom coordinator, a data network
engineer, the university’s Facilities Management telecom
technician, and the CIO, Scott Kincaid.
Given that this evaluation was a new project to
Butler, but had been done by many other organizations, Joe
Indiano made the recommendation to engage an experi-

enced consulting firm to coordinate a formal needs analy-
sis, including end-user surveys. To find a qualified outside
firm without spending months of analysis on that alone,
Butler utilized the expertise of a professional trade group
(ACUTA4) of which it was a member. Through the
ACUTA listserv, they asked peers for recommendations
regarding consultants who had helped other similar organ-
izations with telephony system evaluations. This quickly
identified two primary candidates, who Butler contacted
and interviewed.
Butler decided to engage Dietrich Lockard Group,
an independent telecommunications consulting firm based
in St. Louis, Missouri, to help determine if the investment
in a new phone system could improve communication and
advance Butler’s mission.
To engage the university community in the telephony
needs analysis, a formal User Advisory Group was created
to work alongside the consulting firm. This committee
included end users of the phone system: administrative staff
146 Part I • Information Technology
4 ACUTA: Association for Communications Technology

Professionals in
Higher Education.
3Voice over Internet Protocol allows for transmission of voice
traffic over
an Internet protocol network that is either public (the Internet,
for example)
or private.
Case Study I-3 • The VoIP Adoption at Butler University 147
Director,
Netwk &
Sys
Telecom
Coordinator
CIO
Butler participants Outside participants

Facilities
Mgmt Telecom
Tech
Network
Engineer
Telecom Evaluation Team
Dietrich
Lockard
Group
Berbee
User
Advisory
Group
CFO
Server
Admin Systems

Support
CISCO
SBC
User Dept.
Coordinators
Student
Techs
Help Desk
Time Warner
Telecom
PeopleSoft
developer PR Comm.
Specialist
EXHIBIT 2 Project Participants at Cutover, July 2005
from Admission, Finance, Student Life, Facilities
Management, the libraries, and faculty. In June 2004 the IR

Telephony Evaluation Team, a Dietrich Lockard Group
consultant, and most of the User Advisory Group went to
Chicago to attend the SUPERCOMM telephony confer-
ence. SUPERCOMM hosted leading-edge technology
forums and exhibits and allowed the Butler staff to get a
jump-start on industry trends. The team was able to “win-
dow shop” to get a feel for what products were available
and to help devise an appropriate solution for enhancing
telecommunications on the Butler campus. The trip also
allowed the User Advisory Group and technical staff to
become more acquainted and begin to work as a team. The
Butler participants began to feel more comfortable with the
possibility of acquiring a PBX and implementing newer
VoIP technology as they learned about ways to address
some of the risks.
After returning to campus, Dietrich Lockard Group
consultants conducted surveys, interviews, and focus
groups with staff, faculty, and students. The team found that
many administrative users were displeased with the out-
dated Centrex and Centigram capabilities, although they
lauded the communication system’s high reliability. For
example, all the offices with heavy call volumes had only
basic calling trees to help route calls and lacked manage-

ment reporting; the analog phones could only handle one
call at a time. Moves, additions, and changes to current
phones required a technician to physically visit each phone.
Like many other universities, Butler also lacked any means
to communicate to the entire campus if time-sensitive
emergency information needed to be disseminated.
The student surveys revealed that nearly 92 percent
of students residing on campus had a cellular phone, but
virtually the same number of students used their regular
room phone as well. While almost two-thirds of the
students preferred cell phones, one-third still preferred a
regular telephone. Moreover, 73 percent of the students
indicated that their campus-provided voice mail was
important and they clearly wanted a private voice mail-
box. These results were somewhat of a surprise to the
Telephony Evaluation Team and the User Advisory
Group, given the visible penetration of cell phones on
campus. It meant that cell phones, with their limited
minutes and sometimes spotty coverage, did not meet all

of the needs of the typical residential student.
Conventional wisdom in the cellular age would be that
traditional land line phones are not important.
However, facts don’t always line up with intuition. We
discovered that our peer institutions were continuing
to provide regular phone service in dorm rooms, and
therefore it was a no-brainer to continue to provide it
as well. I would have bet money that the phones could
have been pulled out, so it was a great surprise to me.
From all of the needs analysis discussions, a long list
of needs and potential opportunities had been identified. In
June 2004, based on the analysis of the data collected, a list
of key criteria for a new system was developed, with three
priority groupings: must haves, very important, and nice-
to-haves (see Exhibit 3). Joe Indiano and Dorothy Lockard
(president of the Dietrich Lockard Group) then used these
needs analysis results to help pinpoint the best opportuni-
ties within the context of Butler’s strategic plan, and five
strategic goals were established:
• Improve communications with the students and

within the student community, including the allot-
ment of private voice mailboxes
• Improve the handling of callers to high-volume call
areas on campus
• Leverage newer services such as multiline and self-
labeling telephone devices and online directories as
well as improve training
EXHIBIT 3 Key Criteria for New System (based on focus
groups, surveys, and consultant interviews)
Critical Issues (from master list)
Improved handling of calls to high volume offices M
Performance reporting to manage calling to high volume offices
M
Improved handling of callers to operator position M
Emergency alert campus-wide M
Position for future services/technology & changing expectations

M
Improved training for end-users M
Communication with students using their preferred medium
(e.g., IM) M
VM privacy for students in administratively efficient method I
Indication of message waiting to student I
Ensure donors reach Advancement anywhere, anytime I
Ensure campus police can locate key administrators in an
emergency I
Standard features and functionality that improve efficiency and
are common at many institutions
(at minimal recurring cost)
I
Telephone instruments that reduce need for training and
relabeling I

Long delay in 911 cell call response, not routed to campus
police I
Administratively efficient means of assigning a single phone
number for a student while at Butler I
Enable faculty/staff to make and receive calls using Butler
identity (i.e., Butler athletics recruiters,
advancement, faculty at-home.)
I
Easy to use video conferencing I
Conference calling for up to 6 parties at no extra cost N
Efficient means to integrate VM with E-mail N
Larger conference calls, ad hoc and meet-me N
Cell phone coverage inadequate N
Time saving system administration tools N
M = Must Have, I = Very Important, N = Nice to Have

5Lightweight Directory Access Protocol provides an online,
fully-
indexed telephone directory service developed and freely
distributed by
the Regents of the University of Michigan. [Eudora]
• Provide more immediate access to specific Butler
personnel
• Remain competitive with peer institutions in the
level of services offered, particularly those that
impact students and their families
As part of the business case, cost estimates for vari-
ous alternative telephony systems were determined. These
cost estimates incorporated the investments in hardware,
software, phone equipment, and on going expenditures,
based on projections of what each option would cost given
industry research on pricing and the effort it would take to
support each option ongoing.

Based on the cost-benefit estimates, the decision was
made to consider four alternative scenarios:
1. Continuing with the current solution: Centrex serv-
ice outsourced to SBC
2. Continuing with the outsourced Centrex service—
but with a significant investment in upgrades and
new “bolt-on” equipment
3. Acquiring an in-house PBX system, using either tra-
ditional equipment or VoIP
4. Continue with the current solution (Option 1)—but
adding an independent 50-seat VoIP system for a few
selected offices
With Butler’s needs analysis completed, the results
were presented to the university vice presidents in July
2004. Butler management then gave the team the go-ahead
to solicit bids from vendors, but was nervous about the
potential investment.
Request for Proposal to the Selected Vendors

Based on the strategic goals and the key criteria developed
by the User Advisory Group, the Telephony Evaluation
Team and the consultants crafted a detailed request for pro-
posal (RFP). Dietrich Lockard Group identified vendors
that appeared to be well-aligned with the needs of Butler.
Dietrich Lockard Group contacted the six vendors and
identified the best local implementation partners (manu-
facturer resellers) for each of the manufacturers. Four of
the vendors, through the local resellers, submitted bids.
SBC presented Butler with three bids: continue the out-
sourced Centrex service option, add equipment to the serv-
ice, or move to an in-house PBX using Nortel equipment.
Then the User Advisory Group and the Telephony
Evaluation Team began the journey of listening to vendor
presentations, interviewing vendor representatives, evalu-
ating all of the features, making visits to selected vendor
customers, and striving to do an apples-to-apples compari-
son of the various proposals. The number of features and
factors considered was extensive with 400 different data
points provided in the RFP. To summarize the criteria, a
three-level priority scheme (shown in Exhibit 3) would be
used as a weighting scale to help ensure that the selected

alternative would best address Butler’s critical issues.
Butler’s main criteria were total overall cost and
meeting the needs defined in the RFP (as summarized in
Exhibit 3), and most venders could meet Butler’s require-
ments. However, during the comparative analysis, issues
bubbled up as key differentiators. Local support from an
experienced reseller was proving to be imperative if Butler
was going to move all of its telephony in-house.
Experience with new VoIP systems and integrating other
enterprise systems (i.e., PeopleSoft, LDAP5) would be cru-
cial as well. With Macintosh users representing 25 percent
of the faculty population at Butler, the university also
wanted a system that offered equivalent features, such as
video conferencing capabilities, for both Mac and PC
users. An effective and flexible integrated emergency noti-
fication system, which allowed for a simultaneous broad-
cast of text and audio to all campus phones, as well as
other data network security concerns were other key differ-
entiators reflecting their increased priorities in a post-9/11,
Internet era.
In addition, what the manufacturers were planning to
invest in R&D were also considered. Most telephony ven-
dors currently sold both IP-based PBX systems and also tra-

ditional analog systems, with several promoting the ability
to interconnect the two types of systems. But during last-
minute visits to several of the manufacturers’ headquarters,
it became obvious to the Telephony Evaluation Team that
the manufacturers were putting all of their R&D dollars into
IP-based systems. While VoIP was certainly the more risky
approach, the Telephony Evaluation Team came to the
uncomfortable realization that if they invested in a new ana-
log PBX, they might end up with a system that had a limited
life. Suddenly, staying with the SBC Centrex service for a
couple more years looked like a serious option.
Vendor Selection
Butler narrowed the field down to five main candidates
from a list of nine potential options presented to them.
The final alternatives included the following:
• Continue with SBC’s current Centrex service (out-
sourcing option)
• Continue with SBC’s Centrex service, but add a
Nortel 50-seat IP system

• Implement a new system to support VoIP PBX in-
house
- Cisco (represented by Berbee Information
Networks)
- Mitel (represented by MVD Communications)
- Nortel (represented by SBC)
Side-by-side comparisons were made of what each
vendor solution offered in regard to each critical issue, and
what additional capital and/or ongoing support costs
would be incurred to satisfy these requirements.
Following the review of this range of options, and the
scorings of the options, the Telephony Evaluation Team,
working in conjunction with the User Advisory Group,
chose option 3: to acquire its own in-house system and to
acquire a Cisco IPT system, with products and implemen-
tation services provided by a Midwest Cisco partner,
Berbee Information Networks. Joe Indiano and Scott
Kincaid presented this to the Butler senior management,

and after careful consideration, obtained the go-ahead to
proceed. Butler informed Berbee and Cisco they had won
the bid on the day before the Christmas holidays began.
Contrary to what was seen in the popular press, the
team’s analysis did not show that an in-house IP-based sys-
tem would be cheaper than the old Centrex solution.
However, most of the needs identified by staff, faculty, and
students would be addressed with only a minimal increase
in costs. For example, each high-volume call area on cam-
pus would now have Automatic Call Distribution capabili-
ties. Butler would be gaining a system to issue campuswide
emergency alerts via the new IP-based phones. Additionally,
each student who previously shared a line in a residence hall
room would now have their own unique phone number and
private voice mailbox, which also moved with them as they
changed rooms from year to year. (Changes to room assign-
ments would be entered into PeopleSoft and an automated
interface would carry the change into the telephony system.)
When students received voice mail, they would also receive
an e-mail notifying them of the message.
The strategic objective was to support IR’s mission
of providing good services and communication between
students and faculty. Cisco’s system fulfilled the identified

needs for voice communication, but Butler was concerned
about more than just equipment specs and cost.
During the sales cycle, vendors usually promise all
types of grand improvements and outcomes. But the
written contracts they provide promise only to deliver
specific pieces of hardware and software, with very
limited warranties, and customers often spend most
of their time negotiating on price. In this project, we
were able to successfully negotiate for the original
RFP and the vendor’s proposal to Butler to become
part of the final contract. This kept everyone focused
on delivering a fully integrated system, instead of just
focusing on the hardware, and held the vendor
accountable to the claims in their proposal.”
—Dorothy Lockard, President,
Dietrich Lockard Group.
Furthermore, what Butler was ultimately implementing
was an integrated set of software applications that operate
on the IP network, not just a “black box” phone system.
The understanding of the IP protocol and how it would fit
into Butler was, in the end, second to how the multiple

components of the system were to work together in a
secure and quality fashion. Additionally, identifying who
within Butler owned each piece, how the data would flow
from point-to-point, and where data was being replicated
were all important questions that needed to be answered
for this application system. Creating seamless integration
with other systems such as PeopleSoft, the housing sys-
tem, and Butler’s LDAP directory was one of the values of
the newer software-based systems. Essentially, there were
multiple interfaces to existing systems, more options, and a
vast array of decisions to make about how all of these fea-
tures were going to work in unison.
Thus, when choosing the primary vendor, the imple-
mentation support provided by a Cisco partner was
extremely important.
Since this was really an application system, we were
more concerned with who was going to help us
deploy the system. Of course, the manufacturer is
important as we are using their equipment, but even
more important is someone with large-scale applica-
tion implementation experience.

The new Cisco system configuration included the
following investments:
• Cisco Call Manager with multiple forms of redun-
dancy
• 1200 IPT stations for faculty and staff
• 1800 Analog ports via VG248 gateways for student
phones
• Cisco Unity Voice mail with mailboxes for each student
• Cisco IPCC Express for six call centers
• Cisco Emergency Responder for campuswide E911
capability
• Berbee InformaCast alert system
• ISI Infortel call accounting
The IR team considered leasing the new telephony
system, but after analysis chose to purchase and finance it

in-house by redeploying the monthly fees they had been
paying for the Centrex solution.
Butler’s business model for its original data network
replacement investment was a three-year funding plan.
However, given the change from an outsourced telephony
solution to an in-house solution that depended on the data
network, there would have been a lot of risks if Butler con-
tinued on the three-year implementation plan for the data
network. Instead, Butler decided to compress its three-year
network replacement project into one year, using the bulk
of their allotted funds at the beginning of the project to
reduce the total implementation time.
After the new telephony system was chosen, Butler had
to select a vendor to supply local voice circuits. Another RFP
had to be initiated for the circuits, and the decision was made
to change to a new voice carrier, Time Warner Telecom. The
university negotiated the installation of two independent
communication links to the campus, and Berbee helped split
the new telephony servers between two campus locations—a
capability not possible with traditional PBX systems. A total
of 17 Windows servers ranging from Call Managers, to an
E911 Emergency Responder, to a Call Accounting Database
server, were implemented between the two onsite locations to

provide backup and disaster recovery capabilities. The
Berbee InformaCast software would make it possible for
university-wide alerts to be made in audio and/or text,
simultaneously or by zone, within seconds, to all IP phones.
The new focus became deploying a single network
that would continue to provide reliable service for voice as
well as provide more reliable services for traditional com-
puter applications. Butler already had the necessary fiber
backbone in place but needed to replace selected old wiring
with new Ethernet cable. Improvements in the new con-
verged network, such as installing an uninterruptible power
supply (UPS6) in all network closets and replacing old
wiring, would now benefit the new telephony system as well
as aid in the support of the traditional data network services.
Contract work began during the holiday break, and
the contracts were signed in mid-January 2005.
Additionally, the department accelerated the pace on the
network replacement project and began to implement new
routers and switches across campus. To mitigate the relia-
bility risks of the new system, the new network design
included more segmentation, protections such as intrusion
detection, and quality of service (QoS7) levels. With
functions such as QoS levels—new for Butler—the network

would be able to logically separate traffic on the converged
network to protect voice transmissions from other traffic,
including malicious activity. New monitoring tools would
be incorporated in the VoIP system as well to observe where
calls were originating and going, and to measure the quality
of calls placed through the university. This would help the
IR group pinpoint where problems were occurring and help
them manage the network in order to provide a level of
quality for voice communications similar to what was
traditionally provided via old-style analog lines.
Implementing the VoIP System
The number of people formally involved in the project
quickly began to increase. Berbee assigned a full-time
project manager to the Butler project in January 2005. The
director of network and systems, Joe Indiano, would serve
as Butler project coordinator and play a key role by ensur-
ing integration with other existing systems. The CIO
would serve as project sponsor and had the role to elimi-
nate roadblocks within the organization and to facilitate
communication between key stakeholders in the university,
such as the deans and other vice presidents. The CIO
would also need to communicate the strategic vision of the

project and address any concerns that staff, faculty, and
student users had with regard to the new system.
The newly formed IP Implementation Team included
other key IR personnel as well—telephony staff, network
engineers, PeopleSoft developers, and help desk staff, as
well as Butler’s Facilities Management staff to help with
the logistics of the installation. A majority of the IP
Implementation Team members were from the implementa-
tion partner, Berbee Information Networks with Cisco staff
helping as needed. Additionally, Berbee Information
Networks’s security practice was engaged to ensure that the
new network design would allow data and voice traffic to
coexist but with telephony servers that were protected from
student desktops and outside security threats. While not
anticipated at the beginning of the project, it was also
decided to keep the Dietrich Lockard Group consultant on
the team to ensure that Berbee and Cisco implemented a
system with all the items defined by the RFP and vendor
contracts. Lastly, some 18 students were used to help with
the testing and rollout.
Through this implementation, not only were data
and voice network technologies converging, but also the
former data and telecommunications personnel that had

previously worked in separate units were merging:
You have to keep in mind that convergence within
the project not only refers to the convergence of
technologies but also the integration of processes
and people as well. When you have voice and data
6 Uninterruptible Power Supply provides a backup power supply
for a
cable voice adapter and the telephone attached to it. [Cisco]
7 Quality of service is the set of techniques to manage network
resources.
[Cisco]
traffic merging, the respective personnel also merge.
Data people approach projects differently than
telephony people and use different terminology. So
managing this merging of the staff and disciplines
was essential. Along with the size of the implemen-
tation team, there were a lot of people to coordinate
to pull this off.

Butler’s “Infinitely Personal” Communication Plan
A communications coordinator was added to the team to help
establish the message that the university would send to all
users to help ensure acceptance of the new system. Managing
the fear factor of a major system overhaul was viewed as crit-
ical, because Butler’s users had experienced data network
failures before. One of the techniques used for this was to
redefine “IP” to stand for “infinitely personal.” This set the
tone for the teams to focus on the ways the network changes
were empowering people to communicate more freely, not on
the fact the calls were being transported via IP data packets.
We chose an IP system not because it was VoIP, but
because, overall, it could provide the best set of serv-
ices to meet our needs.
Reassuring users that a personal approach was being
taken helped communicate that this was a decision to help

everyone, not just to improve the technology of the univer-
sity. The IP—infinitely personal—communications plan
sought to educate users by first raising awareness and then
holding training forums (see Exhibit 4A). Communicating
What Who/Target Purpose When Type/Method(s)
New Phone and Voice
Mail System Teaser
Bluemail and
my.butler users
Raise awareness May 31–June
27
On Bluemail, IR labs and
my.butler homepages
New Phone and Voice
Mail System Teaser
All Campus Raise awareness that a new
phone system is coming

May 26 Email
Sign up for training
and when and where
Fac/Staff on
campus now
Get people to go to training May 27 Email
Training Dates and
times on web
All Campus Make training information
available at all times in a
central location
May 27 butler.edu/ir/
documentation/
telecom.html
New Phone and Voice
Mail System & Training
Fac/Staff on

campus now
Raise awareness and get
people to training
June 1 All campus Voice mail
Ask for support Scott to Cabinet Ask VPs/Deans to encourage
their staffs to attend training.
June 1 Email
Coordinator verification
of phones in their areas
Coordinators Ask coordinators to verify the
phones in their areas.
June 3 Email
Early notification of cut
dates.
Pilot team and
coordinators

Give early notice of
anticipated dates for
phone system cut to groups.
June 6 Email
Emergency Broadcast
System info
Greek house
corps and
presidents
Make Greek organizations
aware of the opportunity
to receive emergency
information from Butler
June 7 Email
Messages to
communicate in
training

Students in
training
Communicate important
system information in
person
June 13 in
training class
Verbal and Print
Last reminder about
training
All campus Final reminder about going
to training
June 15 All Campus Voice Mail
Phone delivery Fac/Staff Announce phone delivery
and training reminder
June 15 Fac/Staff Alert

EXHIBIT 4A Communication Plan: Sample Page
New Phone System Project Communication Plan
important system information to users in person via
departmental staff and management reminders for attend-
ing training sessions were emphasized. Although much of
the communication was done via e-mail, other media
included all-campus voice mails and printed materials
distributed throughout the campus.
Messages sent out to the university community
included why a new system was being implemented,
where and when training would occur, how to transition
from the old voice mail to the newer version, who to call
with problems, the date and time of cutover, and how to
return old phones after users began using their new
equipment (see Exhibit 4B).
Pilot Program

Before a full-scale dissemination of the new VoIP phones,
a pilot program was implemented to help test features and
gain user feedback. In April 2005, approximately six
weeks before the system was to “go live,” 40 phones were
issued to high-volume phone users, such as department
coordinators and high-level secretarial staff. Over roughly
three weeks, the users helped to test the various features of
the new system and to fine-tune any other aspects that pilot
users had noted. The overall goal of the pilot program was
to gain buy-in from the user community. Ideally, pilot
users would not only share their enthusiasm for the new
system with their coworkers, but would also become a co-
ordinator and trainer within their department.
IR needed input from the people who would be using
the phones the most. They wanted someone from
Admission involved because of our large call vol-
ume. Since I manage the team that handles incoming
calls, it made sense for me to volunteer to be a phone
coordinator.
—Susie Bremen, Senior Associate Director of
Admission

The pilot program began with an information ses-
sion, followed by a series of training sessions that took
place in three labs and were run by a firm that Berbee
had contracted with for the training. Members from the
implementation team and consultants from Dietrich
Lockard and Berbee were on hand to facilitate informa-
tion sharing and initial training. Pilot users were pro-
vided with the opportunity to try various features of the
new phone and interact with the new capabilities through
role-playing.
They made the training fun. They had gift bags and
giveaways, and encouraged questions and discussion
from the very beginning. They started out with a
EXHIBIT 4B Example of Communication Message to Staff
PowerPoint presentation to explain terminology,
benefits, and how the new technology was going to
improve our departments. The training sessions
became very interactive. . . . The IR team sent out

information regularly—leaflets with timelines, cards
with contacts, and worksheets to complete after test-
ing various features available with the new phones.
We tested such features as “parking” calls, forward-
ing calls, and setting up conference calls, and we
completed Phone Feedback Forms after experiment-
ing with newly-learned features.
Admission
The pilot program helped to create a type of “phone
envy” among some users; some of those without IP phones
had a chance to see how they were used and became
intrigued with the new features of the technology. By
bringing the technology closer to the users, it also brought
home the message of being “infinitely personal.”
While many users were excited about the new
phones and their functionality, others did not fully under-
stand how the IP phone would actually work and were
apprehensive about the change:
It was a smooth transition for me [but] it was hard
for a lot of people to comprehend; they didn’t under-

stand the concept of running the phone through a
computer connection instead of a telephone jack.
—Kristine Butz, Associate Director
of Financial Aid
I already had exposure to call routing and advanced
phone systems. There is a learning curve. Some peo-
ple were apprehensive because the phone was com-
plicated, and they were also afraid that the system
would crash and service would not be available.
—Kathy Harter, Senior Assistant Director of
Operations
Managers of high call-volume offices were aware
that the capabilities of the new system would greatly
improve their department’s call center processes, as the
functionality allowed for detailed reporting and could help
department managers analyze and benchmark their call
center employees. But these capabilities also contributed
to additional concerns by users:
Some of the functionality was actually scaring some
users; they feared they would be monitored because

we would have the capability to evaluate call volume
and length. It gave some users the notion that “Big
Brother” would be watching.
Admission
The Cutover to the New System
With the pilot behind them, the implementation team felt
confident in their ability to move forward with the full roll-
out planned for June 2005. Butler’s move from traditional
telephony to an IP-based system meant they didn’t have to
do a traditional cutover where the old phones are pulled
and new ones installed at the exact same time. Instead, the
new IP-based phones were distributed to all users during
the weeks before the cutover, training sessions were
arranged for all faculty and staff, and yet the old analog
phones were still available. Even users at the new call cen-
ters were able to make and receive internal calls on their
new IP phones while the old Centrex phones handled all
external calls prior to the cutover.
However, a variety of technical problems threatened

to derail the roll-out plan—and later became known as a
“Week from Hell”:
• The supposedly simple “plug and play” process of
connecting the new IP-based phones failed due to a
software bug; all multiline phones had to, unexpect-
edly, be manually registered one-by-one using their
unique machine address code (MAC).
• The new telephony servers were rebooting haphaz-
ardly, and the vendor decided to replace and rebuild
every single unit.
• After a two-month effort, 2,000 extra phone numbers,
which Butler needed to provide private numbers and
voice-mail boxes, were found to be missing—and SBC
claimed it would take 45 days to resolve the issue.
• Both the Food Service and Bookstore offices, which
are independent non-Butler companies but located
on campus, were found to have no Ethernet wiring in
their areas.
To further complicate matters, the SBC service rep-
resentative whom Butler had come to rely upon for the past

four years suddenly resigned, and the IR telecom coordina-
tor’s husband was robbed at gunpoint, bound and gagged
with duct tape!
Our week from hell was a huge setback . . . but I didn’t
want this project to be delayed, and neither did any of
the team.
1/04 2/04 3/04
Began systematic plan to
replace data network over
three years
IR Telephony
Evaluation Team
formed
User Advisory

Group formed
User Advisory Group & IR
Telephony Evaluation
Team attended
SUPERCOMM telephony
conference in Chicago Issued formal RFP and had
meetings with various
vendors
Vendors scored on features,
vendors, and implementation
partners; Evaluation of finances
and options with CFO
Implementation planning
begins with Berbee;
System build begins;
Hardware ordered and
installation begins
User pilot
conducted with
40 phones over

3 weeks
Delivery of phone
sets; Decided to delay
implementation
cutover date
Miscellaneous clean-up
as well as 2nd training
session for faculty and
staff
Hired Dietrich Lockard
Group to assist in needs
analysis including student
surveys
Needs Analysis complete;
results presented to
management and RFP
started
Vendor presentations
along with customer site
visits for Mitel, Nortel,

Cisco
Decide to go with Cisco
and Berbee and start
developing contract based
on RFP
Contracts signed; Revised
network infrastructure
replacement plan; Berbee
assigns Project Manager;
IP Implementation Team
formed
Completed network replacement and
wiring upgrades; Training sessions
offered to faculty and staff; Week from
hell occurs June 13th–20th
July 11th actual
cutover to new
system
4/04 5/04 6/04 7/04 8/04 9/04 10/04 11/04 12/04 1/05 2/05 3/05
4/05 5/05 6/05 7/05 8/05 9/05

EXHIBIT 5 Project Milestones: January 2004–August 2005
One of the options allowed for in the Berbee contract
was for Butler to alter the implementation plan to allow for a
split roll-out: phase one of the roll-out could be done in the
summer to make sure things went according to plan, and
then the phase two users would be implemented during the
Thanksgiving holiday break. However, the team decided to
push through and not let the unexpected setbacks create
more damage than necessary, and the decision was made to
delay the cutover date by just two weeks.
We decided not to split the roll-out since everyone
was motivated to do it all at once. We didn’t want to
kill that spirit. Also, we felt that creating more work
during Thanksgiving time would place even more of
a burden on our team members and the vendors.
On July 11 the system went live! SBC migrated all
Butler’s phone numbers to Time Warner Telecom, who
then routed all calls to the new system, and Centrex was
turned off. Calls got through to the right places and the

new call center software managed the calls. Only a few
lines and features were missed, so the planning, testing
and roll-out was clearly valuable. However, none of the
departmental burglar alarms worked! The alarm panels
depended on analog phone lines to communicate with
the campus police department and were now being con-
nected via a Cisco analog-to-VoIP gateway device.
However, the alarm panels, based on 1970’s technology,
would not work even with the analog-to-VoIP gateway;
apparently Butler had not tested the devices before
implementation. So Butler found some unused Centrex
lines, and the alarms were reconnected using traditional
analog circuits.
Otherwise, the newly converged, in-house voice-
and-data system was fully functional. No one reported any
problems with the voice quality.
Having been a part of various large system changes
in the past, I have seen my fair share of “blips” and
overall catastrophes and I was pleasantly surprised
that I have seen no such issues from this transition, at
least not yet.”

—Kathy Parsons, University Budget Director
Post-Implementation Reality
Altogether, the new system took approximately one year
from the initial planning process to the final implementa-
tion (see Exhibit 5) and included a $1.5 million investment
by Butler. The new system gave Butler a robust “soft-
PBX” capability based on a series of integrated servers
linked to PeopleSoft, LDAP, and the network. This also
resulted in six full-featured call centers allowing students
and outside callers to get better help regarding such items
as student accounts, admissions, financial aid, and box
office tickets. When departments moved to different
offices, they could simply take their IP phone with them
and the number was automatically redirected, without IR
intervention. Additionally, faculty and staff were able to
utilize a directory of campus phone numbers (available on
the telephone’s display area) that was updated daily by the
PeopleSoft system.

However, the new IP system was not cheaper and, in
fact, was actually somewhat more expensive as IR had to
add a full-time staff member to manage the new system.
The new system involved many more components than
existed with the outsourced Centrex system. In addition,
the IR group at Butler now has the responsibility of
maintaining networks not just for data, but also voice.
Soon after the euphoria of a successful initial imple-
mentation ended, CIO Kincaid was wondering, “Did we
make the right choices?” In their quest to improve commu-
nications, should Butler have taken on the responsibility of
managing an integrated voice and data network, given the
current security threats to computer networks?

144CASE STUDY I-3The VoIP Adoption at Butler Universit.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to 144CASE STUDY I-3The VoIP Adoption at Butler Universit.docx

Similar to 144CASE STUDY I-3The VoIP Adoption at Butler Universit.docx (20)

More from aulasnilda

More from aulasnilda (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

144CASE STUDY I-3The VoIP Adoption at Butler Universit.docx