Tracy Unified School District

School District Improves Communications, Saves Costs with Unified Messaging

The more than 1,600 employees at Tracy Unified School District in northern California rely on e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, and faxes to communicate with each other, vendors, and parents. However, the district wanted a solution that would provide more flexible ways for users to communicate while eliminating high-cost phone lines. It deployed Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging in October 2006 and later added Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1. By replacing its existing unified messaging and outdated voice-mail and Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems, the district expects a one-time savings of U.S.$168,000 in licensing costs and an annual savings of $126,000 in telephony costs. The district also estimates that features such as enhanced Web access and automated management tools will save approximately $195,000 a year in staff time.

Situation

Staff members can read e-mail messages and listen to voice mail within Microsoft Office Outlook, or listen to e-mail from any internal VoIP phone through Microsoft Office Outlook Voice Access.  Cindy Minter Director, Information Services and Educational Technology Tracy Unified School District

Tracy Unified School District serves the needs of 16,500 students in Tracy, a city in northern California. The district includes three high schools, one community school, two middle schools, five kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools, and eight elementary schools. With such a large education system, communication plays an integral role in the district. For example, e-mail and instant messaging are important tools for internal communication among staff and for external communication with vendors, other schools, and parents. Both staff members and students need Web-based access to e-mail and other resources. High school students depend on e mail for communicating with teachers, and staff members need the ability to complete work from home.

“Our employees and students absolutely need and depend on e-mail and voice-mail access,” says Cindy Minter, Director of Information Services and Educational Technology, Tracy Unified School District. Minter manages the district’s IT services, which previously included e-mail services based on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, and a range of outdated voice-mail systems and answering machines at various school sites.

In early 2005, the school district began reviewing its overall messaging infrastructure, in part because its 10-year prepaid phone contract with a vendor was due to expire at the end of 2006. After that time, new fees would amount to an annual cost of more than U.S.$200,000. Many schools in the district were also using outdated Private Branch Exchange (PBX) and voice-mail systems, and some schools had no voice-mail capability. In addition, a third-party solution for unified messaging that was used on a small scale was expensive, costing $140 per mailbox.

The school district already had a limited voice over IP (VoIP) network, and Minter determined that expanding it would help the district reduce telecommunications costs. During the district’s research into various solutions and providers, it learned that Microsoft was developing a Unified Messaging component in the upcoming Exchange Server 2007. “Exchange Server had been our core messaging software since 1999,” explains Sara Windsor, Senior Network Engineer. “It seemed like a natural fit for us to upgrade to Exchange Server 2007.”

From a technical perspective, Windsor says the school district was seeking a messaging solution that would integrate well with its existing infrastructure based on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system and the Active Directory® service. Additionally, the district wanted a solution that could scale to include all school sites and staffs, and could be deployed in a phased approach while maintaining interoperability with the existing Exchange Server 2003 infrastructure.

Solution

Unified Messaging with Exchange Server 2007 is especially valuable for teachers who put in long workdays in the classroom and often had to spend additional time at school to retrieve voice-mail messages left by parents.  Cindy Minter Director of Information Services and Educational Technology Tracy Unified School District

After looking at several messaging environments, Tracy Unified School District chose to implement Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 because it met all of the district’s messaging needs, gave the district the ability to offer its staff unified messaging at no additional cost, and would help the district achieve its long-term VoIP goals. “We also decided on Exchange Server 2007 because its enhanced capabilities and excellent scalability offered us the opportunity to integrate faxing as well as mobile messaging in the future,” says Minter.

In September 2006, the school district deployed the prerelease version of Exchange Server 2007, with the help of Microsoft Services and the VIA Group. The VIA Group helped the district with the Unified Messaging component of the Exchange Server 2007 implementation, integrating the unified messaging server with the district’s Cisco® Unified Communications Manager 5.0 IP PBX system, which directs calls to Exchange Server through VoIP. “VIA was an outstanding partner, and its specific expertise in configuring Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging in conjunction with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager solution was a key component of our success,” says Windsor.

The Exchange Server mailbox server stores voice-mail and e-mail messages in the same mailbox store, so the school district doesn’t need separate systems for these tasks. Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging makes it possible for people to look up internal contacts and check for messages through natural language voice recognition in Microsoft Office Outlook® Voice Access. In addition, the unified messaging server’s ability to convert text to speech means that callers can have e-mail, calendar, personal contacts, and other information read to them via a regular touch-tone phone anywhere in the world.

In March 2007, the school district spent a weekend deploying a prerelease version of Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to take advantage of its enhanced user experience in Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access and improved IT management tools. The district now manages approximately 14,000 mailboxes on a single mailbox server computer. It has rolled out unified messaging capability to nearly 1,000 staff members and expects to increase that number to about 1,200 users by June 2008. For messaging security, the district deployed Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server SP1 on its Edge Transport and mailbox server computers along with a third-party antispam product.

The school district implemented the solution without external consulting services. The deployment went well in part because of careful planning by the district and support from Microsoft. “There have been a couple bumps in the road, but by and large it has gone remarkably smoothly,” Windsor says. “We’ve been really, really pleased.”

With the deployment of Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1, the school district regained some of the Office Outlook Web Access functionality that was included in Exchange Server 2003 but not in Exchange Server 2007—popular features like monthly calendar views and access to public folders. As well, Exchange Server 2007 SP1 includes more automated tools to support common e-mail management tasks such as creating multiple mailboxes simultaneously.

To implement software-powered voice over IP and gain improvements in presence awareness and instant messaging, the district will upgrade from Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 to Office Communications Server 2007 by the end of the 2007–2008 school year. The district is also in the process of deploying Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, which includes the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 messaging and collaboration client. Other planned upgrades for collaboration include Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007.

Benefits

The Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer tool has brought misconfigurations and potential problems to my attention long before they turned into severe problems.  Sara Windsor Senior Network Engineer Tracy Unified School District

Employees in the Tracy Unified School District have more streamlined and flexible communication options with Exchange Server 2007 SP1. The new solution will help the district save licensing and telephony costs. In addition, the district expects to increase staff productivity, provide more efficient IT administration, and improve security. “We have been moving toward ‘anytime, anywhere access’ for all district resources, including files through Office SharePoint Server 2007 and e-mail and voice mail through Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging,” Windsor says. “It has been an exciting migration overall, and it has provided greater access and collaborative abilities with Outlook Web Access.”

Easier Ways to Communicate and Find Information

District employees can now receive voice-mail messages in their Exchange Server inboxes, saving time and enhancing productivity. “Staff members can read e-mail messages and listen to voice mail within Microsoft Office Outlook, or listen to e-mail from any internal VoIP phone through Microsoft Office Outlook Voice Access,” Minter says. “Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging makes communication much more flexible.”

The ability of district staff members to easily access messages from outside the office has also helped boost employee satisfaction. “Unified Messaging with Exchange Server 2007 is especially valuable for teachers who put in long workdays in the classroom and often had to spend additional time at school to retrieve voice-mail messages left by parents,” Minter says. Instead of staying at school to listen to the messages, they can now access their voice mail through Outlook Web Access, saving time and making them more productive.

District employees can also take advantage of an enhanced version of Outlook Web Access, which now more closely matches the user interface of the Office Outlook 2007 client. With Exchange Server 2007 SP1, the district's many users of Outlook Web Access now can see public folders to access shared resources (critical for scheduling meetings rooms), have monthly calendar views, and access personal distribution lists.

“If you are home or traveling or at another school, you can go to any computer and using a Web browser get all your Exchange Server 2007 functionality,” Windsor says. “From these productivity improvements, the district expects to save more than $125,000 annually in staff time.”

Savings in Licensing and Telephony Costs

In combination with our firewall and Forefront Security for Exchange Server SP1, the Exchange Server 2007 Edge Transport server does an extremely thorough job of getting rid of spam, phishing e-mail, and viruses.  Sara Windsor Senior Network Engineer Tracy Unified School District

The school district will realize a one-time savings of $168,000 earmarked for licensing its previous unified messaging system. Unified messaging is covered under the district’s existing Exchange Server 2007 licensing agreement, so it doesn’t require an additional licensing cost.

Also, eliminating unneeded phone lines and outdated PBX, and consolidating their voice-mail systems through Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and VoIP, will help the district save an estimated $126,000 annually in telephony costs. “Replacing most phone lines with a VoIP solution is a huge cost savings for us,” Minter says. The district expects further cost savings when it implements Office Communications Server 2007 and can therefore eliminate phones at many locations.

Improved IT Productivity

For the IT department, the new messaging solution brings several new efficiencies. For example, the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer tool has helped Windsor better manage the school district’s Exchange Server environment. “The Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer tool has brought misconfigurations and potential problems to my attention long before they turned into severe problems,” Windsor says. “This has allowed me to be more proactive and more efficient.”

Windsor estimates that she saves 1.5 hours per week managing public folders because she can now complete that task using the management console in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 instead of a command-line interface. With Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Windsor can also create mailboxes for multiple users much faster using the graphical user interface. Windsor estimates that she saves two hours per week creating mailboxes. “Previously, I could select only one user and create a mailbox, [and] then select another user and create a mailbox. So if I had to do hundreds of mailboxes at a time, I had to either write a command-line script or create the mailboxes one by one,” Windsor says. “[The ability to make] multiple selections of users is a great enhancement with Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1.”

In addition, the Autodiscover feature in Exchange Server 2007 automatically configures a user’s profile when the user logs on to a PC and first launches Office Outlook 2007. The school district’s five computer technicians no longer have to manually configure users’ Outlook profiles for them at their workstations, saving each technician 1.25 hours a week. Windsor estimates that each of the district’s 1,200 full-time employees save approximately one hour in productivity because they don’t have to wait for that IT setup. “When the Office Professional Plus 2007 rollout is complete, those efficiencies combined will save the district more than $70,000 per year,” Windsor says.

Tighter Security for Messaging

The use of the Exchange Server 2007 Edge Transport server role along with Forefront Security for Exchange Server SP1 and a third-party firewall is helping stop unsolicited e-mail messages before they enter internal server computers. “On average, we receive more than 100,000 e-mail messages per day, of which less than 10 percent are legitimate,” says Windsor. “In addition to the time it used to take users to sort through unwanted messages and delete them, I used to spend a lot of my own administrative time responding to these issues.”

Windsor says the school district has reduced the amount of unsolicited e-mail messages by using the three security products. “In combination with our firewall and Forefront Security for Exchange Server SP1, the Exchange Server 2007 Edge Transport server does an extremely thorough job of getting rid of spam, phishing e-mail, and viruses,” Windsor says.

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Tracy Unified School District, call (209) 830-3200 or visit the Web site at:
www.tracy.k12.ca.us

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx

For more information about Microsoft Exchange Server, go to:
www.microsoft.com/exchange

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published October 2007