Year Two Insights: Digital Workplace

In year two of the Digital Campus Plan, teams across Humber have been working to transform the future of work and enhance the student experience.  

We have been intentional in our actions to adapt to the changing needs of staff and respond to the current ways of working. In the Digital Campus of Tomorrow, Humber’s Digital Campus Plan, we outlined initiatives that relate to the digital workplace and wanted to provide updates on some of those efforts. 

Microsoft Teams Phone  

Given the ability to connect from anywhere in Humber’s hybrid work environment, desktop phones have become less suitable for some communication and as a result we have transitioned to Microsoft Teams Phone. This has been implemented across the institution, and work is underway to do the same for the University of Guelph-Humber as well.  

Microsoft Teams Phone modernizes the way in which calls are made, and every employee has a “soft phone” that provides a consistent means of being reached wherever they go.  

Emergency services can be contacted through Microsoft Teams Phone. Any calls made to 911 are triaged and directed to the appropriate emergency service department and location.  

Physical phones remain in all learning spaces (such as classrooms, labs, and maker spaces) as well as in hallways and communal areas for life-safety purposes.  

Amazon Connect 

In December, the Contact Centre moved to Amazon Connect, a cloud-based system for inquiries. Students or other enquiries calling 416.675.3111 now experience a more efficient journey through a redesigned call tree, getting to the information they need faster. Some of the highlights include: 

  • Call flows are AI-enabled, using Amazon Lex bot speech activation.  
  • Callers are able to tell us what they are looking for (e.g. full-time programs, how to apply, financial aid, campus tours, public safety, technical support, etc.) to be directed to the information they need.  
  • When calls come from an SMS-enabled device, helpful information can be pushed directly to their phone. For example, someone calling about Continuous Professional Learning can get a link to the CPL website or enquiries about campus tours can get a link to book a tour. 
  • If at any point the Lex bot is not able to recognize the request, the caller will smoothly move to menu options to assist with their enquiry. 

Amazon Connect is a more technically stable system with the capability to scale up during peak periods and scale down at less busy times as well as provide analytics and insights that can improve the experience for students and customers. This was a collaborative initiative with the Registrar’s Office, Digital Solutions, and Amazon Web Services. 

Thank you to the teams involved in these initiatives for helping to push the plan forward. 

Scott Briggs  
Vice-President, Digital Innovation and CIO