Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) vs. NetFortris

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Call Manager is a unified call control center from Cisco that supports enterprise collaboration functions across the spectrum of IP telephony, video & web conferencing, and messaging. Features include call forwarding, call back, call transfer, ad hoc conferencing, and call park.N/A
NetFortris
Score 6.4 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
NetFortris provides business phone systems using Polycom and Yealink IP phones. They offer three subscription-based pricing plans, all including unlimited VoIP and desktop phone options. Advanced plans include other features such as video collaboration, softphone, and on-demand recording.
$30
per month
Pricing
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Hybrid Software Subscription (Required with Hybrid Premise)
$14.99
per user, per month
Essentials Edition
$19.99
per user, per month
Professional Edition
$24.99
per user, per month
Ultimate Edition
$34.99
per user, per month
Hybrid Premise Subscription (Appliance and Phone for Each User)
$200
per location, per month
Hybrid Premise Purchase
Varies
Varies
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$5 per user
Additional DetailsMust contact sales team for pricingFor the latest special offers, visit www.fonality.com/offers.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
7.5
40 Ratings
9% below category average
NetFortris
7.8
90 Ratings
5% below category average
Hosted PBX9.919 Ratings7.058 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)6.029 Ratings6.046 Ratings
User templates8.238 Ratings6.82 Ratings
Call reports5.337 Ratings9.078 Ratings
Directory of employee names8.138 Ratings10.078 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
7.4
43 Ratings
13% below category average
NetFortris
7.4
94 Ratings
13% below category average
Answering rules7.841 Ratings7.089 Ratings
Call recording5.626 Ratings7.067 Ratings
Call park8.037 Ratings6.073 Ratings
Call screening7.534 Ratings8.067 Ratings
Message alerts7.838 Ratings9.078 Ratings
VoIP system collaboration
Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
7.8
39 Ratings
6% below category average
NetFortris
7.5
55 Ratings
10% below category average
Video conferencing9.329 Ratings7.017 Ratings
Audio conferencing8.839 Ratings8.054 Ratings
Video screen sharing6.215 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant messaging6.718 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
8.8
23 Ratings
6% above category average
NetFortris
9.0
55 Ratings
8% above category average
Mobile app for iOS8.423 Ratings9.046 Ratings
Mobile app for Android9.121 Ratings9.033 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(44 ratings)
7.0
(108 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.8
(16 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(4 ratings)
7.6
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(14 ratings)
9.1
(7 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.2
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.8
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)NetFortris
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
The Cisco Unified Communications Manager platform would be most suited for the below scenarios. 1. An organization with very restricted policies and compliance where can't move to cloud-based solutions for data security. They can install the CUCM on-premises. 2. An organization that is still on a legacy phone system could adopt CUCM to save costs and have better services.
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NetFortris
For Insurance agencies, small practices, small call centers, anyone that need call forwarding or work with his number remotely while away from office. I can't list all the things I'm gaining as a Fonality customer. From the installation process, the configuration phase with the technicians, the account managers, every Fonality employee was professional and savvy. I was a contact center specialist for more than 10 years and I can tell you that I've never been this happy with a service! Never! Probably if you need a more complex solution and you have an enterprise level company having your own hardware gives you more control over your calls and how to manage them. But again, I think that Fonality can cover most scenarios without the need of a huge investment.
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Pros
Cisco
  • This solution is extremely stable and has been running in our environment for several years without (unscheduled) downtime.
  • The ability to have voicemails automatically sent as an email message is extremely helpful in helping us to keep in touch while away from the desk.
  • The Call Manager provides us very granular settings to route our calls as we want.
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NetFortris
  • From an administrator's perspective, Fonality makes administering the company's phone system easy. Configuration menus and setup options are logically structured and easy to understand.
  • Technical support has been very good. Early on in our deployment, we had some nagging voice quality issues which were network related. Fonality provided exceptional support even though it was not technically their issue. It is important to know ahead of time how well your vendors work with other vendors for integrated services like a VOIP telephone system. Fonality support demonstrated their patience and perseverance in helping us resolve our issues.
  • Although we don't use remote office capabilities much, the ability to set up phones on the system in remote locations has been a significant help to several of our departments.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Administration web page is little bit hard to understand at the beginning specially if you are not familiar with naming convention and GU Interfaces.
  • Call Detail Record interface is fine but would be desirable to include more options that fit organization needs in terms of reporting purposes.
  • Self Care Portal interface could be more useful to the end user if it includes options to manage some features without administrators involving.
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NetFortris
  • Bugginess - Some things just really need some tweaking. I had to get very creative with my call routing and hold music, because the in-queue announcements don't work right at all. For example, even set to 'play once' it would loop the 'you are the first caller' announcement over and over, and cause call drops. Or my caller-name ID, which shows the registered user's name on each line on outgoing calls, even though it's not set to such anywhere in the CP settings.
  • Support - I'll give them 50/50 on this. My experience with Verizon VCE was everyone playing hot potato with issues and saying it was the responsibility of another department, meaning several phone calls and lots of hold time. Fonality doesn't have that issue, I've never really been passed around or blown off. However, some of the 'offshore' CS reps are... wow. I spent about half a dozen emails back and forth with two of them, trying to figure out why queues I deleted from the CP randomly and consistently reappeared in the HUD. Most of those emails were spent trying to explain that no, my issue was NOT that I wanted to create those queues again in the CP.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
We have been using this product for 20+ years and will continue too. This is a great product and new features are always coming out.
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NetFortris
We've already made a deep investment in the system hardware. We wouldn't be interested in another system at this point! And by the look of my colleagues faces when they see the HUD, I don't think we'd want to switch to a system that would limit us or take away any of these features! We may look at putting the server in the cloud, should internet outages prove to be such a common issue that it is preventing our other locations from functioning smoothly
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Usability
Cisco
Although it's very easy to use, once you understand the concepts of IP telephony, as I said before, I think Cisco could have improved the management interface of the platform, adding modern technologies and the design language of the other platforms like DNA Center, etc. This interface hasn't had a substantial improvement for about 10 years
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NetFortris
Overall excellent usability, with a few adjustments I feel this is the absolute best VoIP system out there. Just a clarification on the licences and limit the interface to reflect what licence we have. There should be a back or redunancy feature to Fonality Server, If there was a mistake we should be able to resort back to a usable state asap. Before implementing changes to the server, there should be a trial or sample of the changes to make sure it behaves as intended before effecting customer experience. It would be nice to have a demo version of Fonality interface so possible clients can truly evauluate the system. Because of the quality, it would have made it easier to convince the owners to make the transition sooner
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
NetFortris
Fonality has been available to us 99% of the time. There have rarely been any lengthy outages. If any issues do occur, their support staff is available around the clock to help. This is important, since communication is a big part in our company and availability of the phone system is important in maintaining this reliability
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Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
NetFortris
Fonality's performance is excellent. The phones work flawlessly and the calls are clear. It is a well put-together system that does not need daily support. It is not complex from a user standpoint, as most of our staff are quick to learn how to use the phones. More systems should strive to work as well as Fonality's
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Support Rating
Cisco
CUCM is supported by most third-party vendors for related products, so it makes finding solutions to specific needs easy. Also Cisco TAC is very knowledgeable, and we have never run into a problem they have not been able to resolve. Usually they are resolved without the need to escalate tickers either.
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NetFortris
Because of their customer support and their attention for details in our problems that we face during our initial stage. We simply love fonality just for the way we are treated when we reach them with our fonality issues - they take it seriously and resolve it as early as possible and the most important part is we dont need to keep on insisting them to do so.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
NetFortris
Training was provided by the in-house IT administrator. Fonality was able to provide support to the admin, who then assisted the users. It went smoothly and all the details and functions of the system were made available to the office staff. Any questions were answered promptly and if any issues did arise, Fonality was available to answer them
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Online Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
NetFortris
Training was excellent, but most of what they had was webinars and not real world situation for our company's need. It would be better to have them remote in my local computer and test my system using inbound / outbound calls. This would have made it easier to learn and more relevant
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
This was the first phone system we implemented that could span multiple locations. We were very satisfied once fully implemented
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NetFortris
Everything from the installation to the implementation has been great with Fonality, there is a lot of freedom to how the system will operate but the freedom comes at a cost of more technical experience to make sure it is configured correctly. The staff is very helpful can will make sure that the system is setup correctly and work perfectly.
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
We have been a Cisco based shop and have looked at other cloud voice options such as MS Teams pbx, and others, but ultimately, the features, endpoints, and reliability of Cisco has been the common factor in staying with them as our voice provider. Their integrations, room systems, and hybrid design allows for us to be flexible and keep a high up time vs reliance on 100% cloud.
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NetFortris
I have not used any other VoIP system that I have been paying for. I hope that Fonality proves itself enough to where I will not have to switch. So far, for the price and the functionality, this is my recommendation for small businesses. I might recommend going with a more high end phone to increase functionality, but other than that, the system is one I would definitely recommend.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
NetFortris
It is easy to scale this system, as long as you have the proper technical staff available to support it. Adding users and phones is straightforward. The main work involves having the physical network in place and configuring the networking equipment. Overall, it is not that difficult as long as all of this is in place.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Communication and collaboration - Our offices are able to communicate both internally and externally due to this system.
  • Down time - Struggles with CUCM has caused a lot of down time due to the instability of the system.
  • High Costs - the cost of both the license and the maintenance was much higher than other systems.
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NetFortris
  • We are still new to Fonality, but having the flexability has proven quite successful thus far.
  • The management of incoming calls and voicemail messages has really helped us to be able to follow up with potential clients.
  • The service at Fonality helped our new business take a leap into 2017, and we expect much growth with the continued use of Fonality.
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ScreenShots

NetFortris Screenshots

Screenshot of Fonality's Heads Up Display (HUD) Web dashboard is home base for connecting with colleagues and customers.Screenshot of Chatting is easy in HUD as they are easily launched by hovering over a fellow user's avatar. Chats are also available within Groups and Conferences.Screenshot of Managers with Fonality's Advance Call Center license can Barge, Monitor, or Whisper with one click. Useful for training, customer insights, and quality assurance. Real-time call queue information is shown in the Dock area to the right.Screenshot of Every Fonality system comes with voicemail boxes for all users, but with optional Voicemail Transcription you'll never have to listen to a voicemail again. Transcribed voicemails are delivered in HUD and via email.