World-leading provider of Microsoft communications and collaboration solutions, Modality Systems, recently introduced the launch of their “Diagnostics” service – a strategy designed to constantly improve your Microsoft experiences.
At UC Today, we had the opportunity to speak with Modality’s Tom Arbuthnot about the Diagnostics tool and experiment with the solution ourselves. Tom told us that the design of Diagnostic was driven by customer demand, from people who wanted to be able to get more out of their Microsoft UC stack. The Diagnostics service gives detailed reports on Microsoft UC performance, for in-depth troubleshooting and analytics.
What is Modality Systems Diagnostics?
Modality Systems’ “Diagnostics” tool is a solution that proactively measures and tests the performance of Microsoft UC&C services. The idea is to give customers insights into the actionable information and data trends they can use to drive higher quality user experiences. According to Tom, by housing data on the Azure cloud, Modality Systems have been able to achieve a huge amount of flexibility when delivering this new service to their clients.
Looking at a vast combination of performance and usage trends, the Diagnostics solutions gives modern companies the processes and tools required to boost the ongoing success of their Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams strategies. Importantly, it’s not just alerts and updates you get from the Diagnostics system, but all the information you need to make positive changes to the user experience.
A proprietary solution by Modality Systems, Diagnostics uses Microsoft PowerBI reports to offer an accurate and complete image of the performance, health, and utilisation of Microsoft communications and collaboration environments.
What Can Modality Systems “Diagnostics” Do
Based on the Microsoft PowerBI analytics engine, Modality Systems have created a flexible and role-based reporting system that allows organisations to explore both the top-level and more in-depth details of their collaboration and communications systems. Ultimately, it’s delivering a step-by-step format through which companies can begin to build a strong UC&C Strategy.
Not only does this analysis give companies a way to solve any collaboration and communications issues they may be having as quickly as possible, but it also means that organisations can boost their ROI from Microsoft Skype for Business and Teams investments and accelerate user experience and adoption. You can:
- Visualise global performance
- Perform trend analytics
- Access stream quality analytics
- Check network performance
- Detect errors
- Monitor devices
- Score performance using the Modality stream score
From a service adoption perspective, Modality Systems Diagnostics offers insights into usage, consumption, user troubleshooting, experience, and more, putting everything together into an easy-to-understand executive summary. In terms of business insights, the Diagnostics can help with calculating ROI through trends and performance insights, ROI indications, development insights and utilisation reports.
What We Like about Modality Systems Diagnostics
Essentially, Modality Systems sets itself apart from the crowd with their Diagnostics tool by giving consumers a simple, yet immersive analytics strategy. No other non-specialist tool can help you to understand the performance of your Microsoft collaboration and communication environment so quickly. Some of the features we like most are:
- Ease of Use: With Diagnostics, you can bring all your on-premises, hybrid and online data together on the same pane of glass for an end-to-end picture of the performance of your UC&C platform. You can also look at device, application, and network information too, reducing the costs and headaches of trying to connect information throughout a business to generate detailed and actionable insights
- Powerful Insights: Once you’ve identified all the information you need with Modality Systems Diagnostics, the data is run through the Microsoft PowerBI engine to access simple reports that help to drive continuous improvement in your organisation. Ultimately, you get everything you need to understand your Microsoft environment and drive high-quality user experiences
- Manage performance proactively: Modality Systems is currently the largest dedicated Microsoft communications and collaboration practice in the world – so they know how valuable insights can be to their customers. They offer companies the opportunity to keep their insights at the top level or dive deeper into information about connection and routing issues. You can also manage and track performance proactively so that you can maintain a stronger experience for your users
- Drive continuous improvement and adoption: When everyone’s getting the best possible experience, achieving adoption of a UC&C tool is much easier. Modality Systems Diagnostics identifies performance and utilisation issues for quick fixes and even quicker updates. The higher adoption rate also drives a better return on investment
- Reduced costs: Aside from a high return on investment, Modality Systems Diagnostics can even reduce the amount of money you put into your communication and collaboration strategy to begin with. There’s no need to pay extra to get human beings to chase problems across devices and networks. You’ve got all the information you need in one clear space
Who Is Modality Systems Diagnostics For?
Since Modality Systems’ “Diagnostics” system was purpose-built from the ground up for Microsoft communications and collaboration stack users, it’s ideal for anyone who has a plan involving Skype for Business and/or Microsoft Teams. If you want to get the most out of your UC&C environment and boost user experience, then this could be the solution for you.
Finishing Thoughts on Modality Systems Diagnostics
Diagnostics is a powerful tool for companies who need to prove ROI for their communications and collaboration stack. According to Tom, the focus going forward for Modality Systems will be to continue enhancing usage analytics, and helping companies understand how people are collaborating. Modality Systems is also looking into third-party solutions like Pexip updates and peripheral hardware to assist individuals in developing a stronger insight into their UC&C strategies.
From day one, Diagnostics was designed to adhere to the forum comments, and genuine customer demands that Modality Systems saw, for greater insights into how their products were working. Tom told us:
“Having that data to make sure people are using it correctly is going to be vital and we want to get into the nuts and bolts provide that data, so we can highlight and provide training to those users to get them back on track.”
Ultimately, in a future where everything relies on user experience, the right insights are crucial.
