Cisco UC-One Review: A White Label Collab App to Beat ‘Em All?

For service providers looking to deploy a one-stop UC app, we think this one is a no-brainer

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Cisco UC-One
CollaborationCollaboration Reviews

Published: February 24, 2020

Anwesha Roy

Technology Reporter

In the last few years, Cisco has cemented its market positioning as a unified communications leader. Several strategic acquisitions have allowed it to constantly grow their UC capabilities and offer new products and tools to growing enterprises. Cisco’s UC tools are mostly available as part of its Webex lineup – but the one we’re reviewing today is slightly different.

Cisco’s UC-One is a white label communication app available through Cisco’s network of Service Provider partners. This means that different service providers can define their own, individualised offerings by leveraging UC-One as the underlying application. UC-One is a result of Cisco’s game-changing BroadSoft acquisition back in 2018.

At that time, BroadSoft was a globally recognised communication software and service provider with a sizable workforce and impressive revenues. It is no surprise, therefore, that Cisco picked up BroadSoft for a massive $1.9 billion. Some of BroadSoft’s offerings were rationalised after the acquisition, but UC-One remains largely the same.

Let’s review UC-One’s features and differentiators in detail.

Inside UC-One

UC-One is available as a private-label collaboration app, intended for use by Cisco’s Service Provider partners. They can give the app a branded look and feel, along with additional integrations and capabilities. Here are its key features:

  • Cloud-based calling – While it sounds pretty basic, UC-One is probably among the most comprehensive calling apps out there. Users can assign a single business phone number that can be accessed on multiple devices

UC-One supports WiFi calling as well as dial-in for video conferences. We liked that the corporate directory was easy to access, allowing you to find team members in seconds. Other essentials like HD video, availability status, and direct calling from websites are also included.

  • Messaging – There’s no denying that instant messages are now a big part of communicating in the workplace. That’s why UC-One supports both direct and group chat, file sharing, and in-chat searchability. This can help you cut down on email volumes, significantly. Apart from this, the app has an offline mode that lets you listen to voicemail even in poor network coverage areas

It comes pre-integrated with popular tools such as Office 365, G Suite, and Salesforce to consolidate all your messaging needs in one platform.

  • Meetings – UC-One gives every user their own secure online meeting space where they can invite team members and guests to dial-in. Virtual meeting rooms mean that there is no more dial-in hassles or passcode remembering

There’s high-definition video conferencing at 20 frames per second, keeping distractions to a bare minimum. Other features to expect are group chat during meetings, screen sharing, and guest collaboration.

  • Team collaboration – These are features designed specifically to make collaboration easier. UC-One offers a unique capability called persistent spaces, which is like a digital workspace where teams can share insights and information. Persistent spaces are searchable to keep track of all the content shared

UC-One lets you assign a moderator to control who joins which space; the moderator also has rights such as deleting someone else’s messages or files. Spaces can be used to call someone, send a message, hold a meeting, or send files – you can set custom alerts to stay updated on when an activity occurs in the relevant space.

  • Mobile working – Obviously, UC-One is extremely mobile-friendly, ideal for distributed teams. It works on Windows, iOS, and Android, and calls can be switched from one device to another. We were particularly impressed by the fact that you can take two calls simultaneously or even merge them to create a conference

Why UC-One Makes a Difference

For service providers looking to deploy a comprehensive collaboration platform (without undertaking development from scratch), UC-One is a pretty compelling option. You can add up to 25 participants per conference call (Slack supports up to 15) and render up to six participants on desktops.

At the end of the day, UC-One isn’t really a Slack or G-suite alternative – enterprises that require a branded platform for communication, file sharing, productivity, and customer interactions should definitely give this a serious look.

What We Think

You can deploy UC-One via Cisco BroadCloud (hosted by Cisco), Cisco BroadWorks (hosted by you), or a hybrid model. This gives service providers incredible flexibility while gaining from the fruits of Cisco’s BroadSoft acquisition and its homegrown innovations. Installation requirements are also quite simple, with UC-One supporting every new operating system. Finally, the fact that it supports 10 languages apart from English makes UC-One a smart investment for communications service providers.

 

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