About Armagh Observatory and Planetarium

Armagh Observatory and Planetarium comprises an Observatory that has been conducting research since 1790 and the longest running planetarium in the British Isles. The planetarium was opened in 1968 and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018.

Armagh Observatory and Planetarium sought to deliver a range of communications and collaboration tools as part of its strategy to improve productivity, cross-company and client working.

The Benefits

  • Increased collaboration across dispersed teams across multiple locations
  • Business continuity with flexible and remote working
  • Employees have seen the implementation as transformative
  • Teams meetings and calls are now used across the whole organisation
  • Online access to comprehensive call statistics enables informed business decisions
  • Advanced management information relating to call handling efficiencies, productivity, call patterns and caller behaviour. Data includes time to answer, call waiting time, call outcome and caller details stats.

The Challenge

At the start of 2020, the organisation had started to roll out some of its new tools, which included Microsoft Teams. In March, the coronavirus pandemic led to a nationwide lockdown – meaning that all Armagh Observatory and Planetarium employees were required to move from office to remote working almost overnight which faced them with a range of telecommunications challenges.

The Solution

Research of different telephony solutions led to the identification of Microsoft’s Teams Phone System as a possible solution.

The team at Rainbow reviewed the challenges that Armagh Observatory and Planetarium faced and identified Gamma Direct Routing with Microsoft Teams as the best solution.

In addition, Rainbow Communications put together a bespoke calling plan for both UK and Ireland destinations that best suited Armagh Observatory and Planetarium calling profile

The Results

Microsoft Teams Direct Routing enabled Armagh Observatory and Planetarium to build a cloud-native voice solution, leveraging the elasticity and scalability of Azure along with full Teams Direct Routing support.