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NetFortris

NetFortris
Formerly Fonality

Overview

What is NetFortris?

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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

1. User Interface Complexity: Some users have expressed frustration with the complexity of the HUD web and software user interface, …
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Fonality Review

4 out of 10
September 20, 2019
Incentivized
It is used across the whole organization. It is great for creating different schedules based on different regions of clients.
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Great!

7 out of 10
March 17, 2017
Incentivized
I use Fonality to give customers automated information via telephone and to encourage them to make their purchase online through our …
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Popular Features

View all 14 features
  • Directory of employee names (78)
    10.0
    100%
  • Call reports (78)
    9.0
    90%
  • Message alerts (78)
    9.0
    90%
  • Answering rules (89)
    7.0
    70%
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Pricing

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Hybrid Software Subscription (Required with Hybrid Premise)

$14.99

On Premise
per user, per month

Essentials Edition

$19.99

Cloud
per user, per month

Professional Edition

$24.99

Cloud
per user, per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • $5 per user
    Required
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.fonality.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $30 per month
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Product Demos

NetFortris Product Spotlight - Comm-unity HUDWeb Demo

YouTube
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Features

Cloud PBX

A cloud PBX system is based on cloud computing technology where data is stored and transferred over the intenet without any need for on-site PBX equipment

7.8
Avg 8.2

Call Management

Customized phone system settings

7.4
Avg 8.4

VoIP system collaboration

Team collaboration via cloud phone system

7.5
Avg 8.3

Mobile apps

Apps are compatible with mobile devices.

9
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is NetFortris?

Rated PCMag's Editors' Choice for Business VoIP 2016, NetFortris (formerly Fonality) is a leading business phone system provider that bundles its unified communications software for a complete business communications solution. NetFortris says it is known for:

  • Innovating with Heads Up Display (HUD) so users can see who's available, chat, audio and video conference, record calls on the fly, and more
  • Building in fundamental call center features like simple queues
  • Offering advanced features that make enterprise-level call center available at the fraction of the price
  • Including a web phone and mobile app at no additional cost
  • Lowering costs with unlimited calling plans between the U.S. and more than a half dozen other countries and territories
  • Providing 24/7 support - even on holidays
  • Transparency: if there is an issue, they'll tell users

NetFortris Features

Cloud PBX Features

  • Supported: Hosted PBX
  • Supported: Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
  • Supported: Call reports
  • Supported: Directory of employee names

Call Management Features

  • Supported: Answering rules
  • Supported: Call recording
  • Supported: Call park
  • Supported: Call screening
  • Supported: Message alerts

VoIP system collaboration Features

  • Supported: Video conferencing
  • Supported: Audio conferencing

Mobile apps Features

  • Supported: Mobile app for iOS
  • Supported: Mobile app for Android

Additional Features

  • Supported: Heads Up Display (HUD) UC applications
  • Supported: 100+ Business Phone System Features
  • Supported: Softphone (Included)
  • Supported: Voicemail Transcription
  • Supported: Call Center Software (Built-in)
  • Supported: On Demand Recording / Record All
  • Supported: Paperless Fax / FaxLync
  • Supported: 24/7 Support

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.

NetFortris Video

NetFortris Integrations

NetFortris Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Mac
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported CountriesGlobal (99 countries and territories)
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

NetFortris starts at $30.

8x8 Work, RingEX, and Vonage Business Communications are common alternatives for NetFortris.

Reviewers rate Directory of employee names highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of NetFortris are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

NetFortris Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)40%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)50%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)10%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(162)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 31)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Matthew Guerra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Everyone in our company (5 individuals) uses NetFortris. We purchased NetFortris, when it was Fonality, along with compatible handsets after our previous phone system, a traditional landline, aged out of use.
  • The new handsets we purchased do provide a helpful log of calls -- outgoing, incoming, missed, etc. -- however, I imagine that any VoIP provider can also provide this service.
  • We now use headsets that allow us to move about the office freely while on calls, which we could not do with our old phone system. Again, this probably has more to do with VoIP and the newer handsets than anything provided to us by Fonality/NetFortris.
  • Fonality/NetFortris, for some reason, limits the functionality of the handsets that are compatible with it and which we purchased to compliment it. We are forced to use the HUDweb interface or the HUD desktop app to do simple things like placing calls on hold, transferring calls, and initiating conference calls. In my office, most employees have several windows open at once -- as I'm sure is common in most offices -- and it can be distracting and clumsy to have to minimize windows in order to pull up the HUD to put a call on hold.
  • In addition, the lighted buttons on the handset can be used to indicate when another user is currently on the line, or if they are unavailable (I know this because I have been speaking with another VoIP provider who offers this feature); however, Fonality/NetFortris does not allow us to use this feature. Again, we are funneled into using the HUD desktop app, which does provide the information that we want to have handy, but not where we want it (on the handsets).
  • Customer service has been less that helpful when we call to address our concerns. Ironically, the call quality with customer service is often very poor, and on more than one occasion, I was greeted with someone who did not know how to help me and didn't make any effort to do so.
If you have an office in which all employees are tech-savvy, then Fonality/NetFortris may be for you. It is not a very adaptable system however. If you want it to emulate an existing or prior setup you will be sorely disappointed as Fonality/NetFortris will probably not work with you to make the phone work the way you want it to.
Bob Lawless | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a small operation and use it for inbound and outbound customer/vendor contact, and internal communication.
  • Great Customer Service
  • Good Onboarding process
  • Comprehensive Training for users and setup
  • Hardware may need to be upgraded to facilitate better call quality.
  • Call quality via cell phone app has been spotty on WiFi, requires the use of a carrier network.
Our team is small and needed some hardware adjustments for optimal service. The standard cable modem and router did not provide the best call quality. For those with optimal hardware, or those building the hardware around their phone system this may be an ideal fit.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Fonality as our division's main phone system. I had used Fonality in the past and was pleased with their service. But the technology and transparency it allows aligns well with our QC processes, which was the main factor in our decision to use Fonality.
  • Ease of use. Fonality works as well (if not better than) our previous land-line based phone systems. The transition was incredibly easy thanks to its ease of use - and Fonality's onboarding team was extremely responsive whenever we had a concern.
  • Pricing. Fonality's pricing model is very intuitive and is easily budgetable.
  • The mobile platform allows our on-call teams to give our customers the confidence that their calls will be answered, even if it is after hours, and no one is physically in the office.
  • Id like to see recordings be integrated into Fonality's main CP. Today, these are separate, and make the QC process a bit more labor intensive than it should be. Additionally, the search features are a bit cumbersome.
  • The overall control panel, while very effective, looks dated, an the overall UX is behind some of Fonality's other competitors (CoreDial for example).
  • Proactive support would be nice - with our QOS as part of Fonality's system, it would be nice to receive automated notices whenever a potential issue arises, as opposed to being reactive to a service-impacting issue.
Fonality is well suited to businesses looking for an easy-to-use hosted VoIP provider. However, there will be some heavy-lifting expected by the end-user which can be cumbersome, confusing, or time-consuming for those who may not be familiar with a solution of this type.
Joseph Greaney | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a kayak company and primarily use it for booking tours in our office. The softphone feature was key so we could also take calls in our shop using an USB headset. The installation was easy and straightforward. Our tech made it simple. My issues now are the subscription plan. We have the basic [plan] and the HUD does not recognize the agent location. We found workarounds by moving a call to a softphone to answer but it sometimes causes big issues for agents. As for now, it is our slow season; we can not upgrade to a call center license. We will keep working on the softphone functionality.
  • Reliability of the system
  • The customization of the inbound call experience
  • Ability to transfer calls to a softphone, hardphone and cell phone
  • Great customer service
  • More clear on the subscription features and costs at time of quotes
  • Remove unusable features from the softphone if subscription does not cover
Great for both small and large businesses. Great for mobile agents when you have the call center licence to forward calls appropriately. Does not work well if the agents aren't tech savvy, there is a learning curve to use the fonality system to the best of its ability. Although, the webinars provide good instruction. The ability for managers to listen in on calls with a call center license will help with training new recruits.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality was signed up with Aug/Sept 2016. There was a painful setup and we finally just installed their system. It still is painfull as the setup was not clear and we had to use our own version of the SAMPLE setup to get this to work. I am working out the kinks in the system and learning more each day. The install department should be more knowledgeable in all aspects as well as the sales [department] too. The sales reps were a little pushy and actually told me several things that come to find out we could not do or they swear they did not say. Promised the world but not quite. I do like the system more and more but there are things like the mobile app that needs to improve. Especially using the app to log in or out. The next month (which was the next day) the sales rep said the promo that they were having was the best they will ever get since he had been there but turns out that since then they have offered the ultimate plan for the same price as we pay for the professional one. Which is also not right due to that ultimate hold more value. Plus, the phones that they offer for free also were better and in color display. I was also told I had to buy (to guarantee their service) their wifi router (which comes with wifi turned off - what's the point) plus it's a lower end model. But, we did not even need that due to the one we had. I also was told by the sales rep that they were never down and that next month they had their biggest outage. The system is used now throughout our company and its used to start help communicating better between departments and customers.
  • For the most part, the sound quality is great. Some hiccups here and there but good overall.
  • I really do like their HUD and it's better that most out there.
  • If our internet goes down it does not mean you lose everything as you can switch it to another device.
  • They need to provide their sales and install departments with more knowledge of their own system.
  • Give the new user better startup (setup) tools to help implement things in a better format.
  • The ability to switch on the fly your status when on the mobile app.
  • Flexibility in sales in order to help the user if a promo changes within the first year.
  • Can't mass upload your phone book.
It's a great way to know who is here in the company and informative to be able to get the customers to the right department quicker.
Brian Bliss | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Small business owner, who uses Fonality services across our business in multiple locations. Business is sales driven and outbound calling and tracking are important components to the business. It is also important to have options and ability to record calls on demand when needed from tracking or review purposes. Fonality provides this functionality.
  • Impressed with the quality of the equipment provided (Polycom VVX 4 Series handset). Great speakerphone compared to the phone that was provided by the previous provider with a lower overall cost.
  • Like the dashboard and softphone capabilities.
  • Customer service and setup was excellent. Available and willing to take necessary time during the setup phase.
  • The initial setup is a seemed a little challenging (however, the customer service was very patient in stepping through the process).
  • Setting up the remote phone location was a little challenging compared to other lines.
  • Would be nice if the record all function was available at a lower cost.
I think this system is very well suited for small businesses who need flexibility in setup. Also for those who like to have the option of a softphone and mobile solutions working in conjunction with the physical equipment in an office. I think this is very well suited for sales offices or call center setups where quality of call and reporting functionality are important.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have it with all of our brokers on it. Two of them are using just their cell phone. It allows the agents to be more mobile
  • Ability to be mobile
  • Ease of use
  • The soft phone (but the app needs work)
  • The ease of use for some people
  • The setup of call cues
  • Need better training when first setting up
[Well suited for] for on the go people. The ring tone is horrible and can be fixed.
February 17, 2017

Click to Dial Enthusiast

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is being used by my entire organization. It aids in the sales process by routing callers to the proper people, it helps to save time through the "Click to Dial" feature, it helps me manage the company through cp.fonality.com and helps my employees manage their time through the HUD. I am pleased with the level of support and the functionality of the product. I am anxious to see how it helps with telemarketing and training. In the future, I will be using the training features of being able to listen to employees' calls so I can coach them and help them to better traverse a sales call.
  • The Click to Dial feature is one of my favorites. Especially because it integrates directly with Blitz Lead Manager - the CRM I am using. Simply clicking the number in the lead or prospect starts the phone dialing. It saves time with every call, adding time to my day.
  • Setting up the phone tree can be a little cumbersome, but it is a great feature. I know that, when a call gets to me, the person on the other end of the line is looking to get a quote for insurance. Once you have a system in place, it works very well.
  • Call quality, thus far, has been more than satisfactory. The calls are clear and consistent
  • The web launcher has been causing me problems. After it did not initially work (despite numerous attempts to set it up), it started to work improperly. It is still not doing exactly what it is intended to do.
Following up with leads and prospects with its Click to Dial feature makes Fonality an effective tool to a sales organization. Misdials and wrong numbers are virtually eradicated by this feature. In addition to saving a few seconds for every call, you add time to your day and are able to conduct more business throughout the year.

The Polycom phones are a little basic and finding missed calls is a little difficult. Also, the HUD is a little confusing. Depending on how you dial or how the call comes into the office, the call log may only show your extension instead of the external number being contacted.
January 27, 2017

DTV's Fonality Review

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Fonality across the entire business. It fills the need for our customer service department, our alternate office location, and people that work from home.
  • The user interface is done in an intuitive way where it's easy to set nup and understand. There are many things you can do for call routing and other phone tree setup.
  • We went from a standard BCM phone system to VOIP system. So having everything done over IP and UI is a lot easier for users to manage.
  • All the different functionality is important too. We can have people working from anywhere and still be connected to the business. You can forward on phone calls to your cell phones. The HUD is a neat feature that [lets] customer service users use a computer app instead of the phone handset.
  • The customer service is almost non-existent. It's really hard to get good service with tough questions. With minor things it's fine, but with more advanced things it wasn't very good.
  • The HUDWeb, the online versions of the phone software, was really bad at connecting for users that worked from home. But to be fair it could have been their internet connection.
  • Call quality has been an issue....if not properly set up. The phone system needs high internet speeds which is something Northfield doesn't have. We've seen diminished call quality when bandwidth is getting sucked up.
[My rating is] between a 7 and 8. The software and UI is really cool. But they still need to work out the kinks with their customer service, HUDWeb, and call quality. Unfortunately, this is the only VOIP I've used, but I think overall they're right there.
January 20, 2017

Fonality VOIP phones

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My Fonality system is used for basic phone calls and sales call tracking. I am also able to direct incoming calls to specific people for sales or service.
  • Technical support is very knowledgeable.
  • The web portal is very easy to navigate and make changes on the spot.
  • HUD integration is a very important feature to Fonality. I did not have that when I first purchased the system.
  • I run a Insurance sales office and would like to be able to log onto the Fonality site and track how many phone call are going out from my sales team and how many incoming calls are picked up by my support staff.
  • I have not been able to figure out how to use mobile HUD yet.
  • I would like to be able to log into the Fonality site using an app on my phone, preferably using Touch ID.
Fonality is great for people who work from home because you can program the outgoing call to show the office number as the caller ID. You can program the system to direct the phone call to any number.
January 20, 2017

Overall Satisfied

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization uses Fonality for our infrastructure and we also recommend products to our customers. We have been very satisfied with the system and its ease of use.
  • Our employees work from multiple locations and home. Fonality makes it easy to stay connected at all times. We use the phones in our home offices and the soft-phone when on the road.
  • We are an IT support company. Sometimes calls run extremely long and Fonality makes it easy to transfer calls from our office phones over to our cell phones. This allows us to continue calls with vendors or support when we have to travel onsite or to another customer.
  • Setting up the voice recordings for the automated attendant is extremely easy.
  • Setting up the open, closed, and holiday schedules for the automated attendant is very simple.
  • Changing our location in the HUD doesn't always work and we need to login on the web to updates our status. For example, if I have to leave my office for any reason I normally change my location so my cell phone rings. The calls do not always get forwarded to my cell as expected.
  • Our initial setup took an unusually long time. We were in a bit of a hurry due to an issue with our previous system and were told that we would be setup within a week. The technician assigned to our case canceled a couple of appointments and we had to reach out to our sales rep to get things moving along. Once we contacted our sales rep, the setup got completed quickly, but all in all, it took about two weeks to complete the online setup.
  • The mobile client tends to take a relatively long time to start sometimes.
We use the online version of Fonality. In my opinion, this is well suited for small businesses due to its ease of setup and the fact that there is no need to purchase a server. I'm not sure that the online version would work very well for customers that have a large volume of calls.
Theresa Montgomey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We originally soft deployed Fonality to just our customer service department so that we could utilize the call center functions. After a few months, we deployed it across our entire organization. At the time we were already in need of a new PBX system (due to the growth of our company), I offered VOIP as a cost effective solution to help with analytics from our call center as well as to provide better features to the rest of our users. We also liked the user friendliness of the admin role, as it no longer requires us to use a third party contract for phone changes.
  • User friendliness of the system not only as an admin but for users as well
  • A lot of features and functionality
  • Quick response time for tech support
  • Provide a checklist of systems that could be affected by VOIP. We ran into issues with our very expensive all in one machine (printer, fax, copy), CC terminal, and polycom conference phone not being compatible with VOIP so we had the additional cost of upgrading or buying additional equipment to make them compatible.
  • I think the onboarding process could be a little stronger especially when migrating an entire organization. I had to piece together the information and training for the end users. Although they do provide a wealth of information it's not well organized.
  • They provide a lot of tools (apps for mobile users, Heads Up Display, and call center solutions)
  • Even their basic handsets are feature rich.
  • We have not experienced any issues with phone quality or down time.
  • Love that we are able to quickly customize our on hold messages, routing calls, etc.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is being used by the whole company as an upgrade to a VoIP system replacing an old Panasonic PBX system from 1990s. All IT staff has had mixed experience with VoIP systems before coming to the company. Fonality was chosen based on being built on open source (specifically asterisk, to avoid closed systems with limited functionality and constantly pay to scale), what we felt were honest reviews on Reddit on performance and personal reference from someone using fonality at an smb.
  • On-site product is truly built on Asterisk/CentOS, able to debug and manage detailed issues that go unsolved with other vendors.
  • Voice uptime (along with Flowroute SIPs and FiOS) has been as good as telco.
  • We specifically inquired to the sales rep about an on-site version of the product, which we thought we purchased. In our discussions part of this was the requirement that the system be up even if Fonality or our connection to Fonality was down and he answered it would be that way. What we have found is the mobile and web portions of the product are served from Fonality SaaS itself which has had carrier issues in our time with them. Worse, our on-site Fonality server requires integration with their SaaS system even to login (???), and they push configuration changes to our on-site system with no change control per client. This means bugs we have worked on with Fonality support where fixes were implemented directly in our system via config files, and which never make it back into the Fonality core system constantly overwrite our changes. Most of these bugs have come back and we are now just living with them, although they are categorized as annoyances. Upshot: Sales was misleading.
  • We were given the choice on a few brands of phones Fonality offered. On a recommendation from a very large Yealink rollout from a family member (non-fonality), we went with T42g's and T46g's. We have since found Fonality offers no specific services or controls over this brand of phone, meaning that while basic functions like calls and number keys work, features like on-screen directories are TFTP hacks we must maintain, there is no way to propagate a configuration change across all phones from Fonality, and controls for things like constantly blinking voicemail indicators when we have Fonality set to email their voicemail are not available except through temporary hacks to to our server that get overwritten by Fonality.
  • When we started the implementation we were assigned a bright project manager who coordinated with us over google docs. It became clear this was a new process for them and the organization of data and specific requests became unmanageable as different engineers and PMs entered our project which lead to many mistakes in our build with constant re-dos which drug out implementation/testing time. Support has been a mixed bag; it's evident there are really good agents and engineers working at Fonality, however as time passes it gets harder to be assigned one or get access. Our recent interactions have been reduced to "restart your server", "no you can't do that", "Oh that didn't work for you. We have nothing else, we are closing the ticket". We run our own support division and also use ZenDesk - this would never fly with us.
  • HUDweb audio no longer works for us, which means we cannot use the native web-based softphone. When we got the product (Q4 2015) we were told there was an issue with the audio plugin for Chrome on Mac they would eventually fix. The problem has now spread to all platforms and all browsers. It appears Fonality relies on NPAPI or custom proprietary (MS?) libraries that are no longer web-compliant or supported, even on Windows 10 with recent Firefox or Chrome. To our knowledge our users no longer use the web feature which is a complete failure considering the expectations you would have of a modern VoIP system. The HUDMobile product has had a 50/50 chance of working since we opened it up to our users. Neither product provides logging or support for our technicians to help diagnose issues. Regarding HUDMobile, problems arise largely when outside our network, which is understandable save for the requirement the software also talk to the Fonality SaaS system which is whitelisted for communication. We ended up using Wireshark to identify specific issues with the way each was attempting to communicate with our Fonality on-site server and Fonality SaaS (still in question why this is in play when we purchased the on-site product). We found Fonality engineers to have little understanding of how Cisco and Juniper identify and manage VoIP traffic across NAT, left alone to figure out a solution. We were successful for about a 6 month period until Fonality updates or configuration changes.
  • The web-based administration tool is awkward, first calling Fonality's SaaS system to be "blessed" and allowed to continue. It appears to proxy data from our server through Fonality, which makes every click's request/response round trip painful, especially when working with our phone, user, or extensions lists. We were given specific instructions on how to manually work around interface bugs when adding/modifying phone devices in the Fonality system that have never been addressed in the software. This makes for difficult knowledge transfer to new staff.
I would expect very small offices (<20) with a simple network, or perhaps Fonality SaaS users would be well served.
December 14, 2016

Always watching!

Elizabeth Agundis | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Fonality to monitor all of our calls, measure how well some of our marketing is doing based on the phone numbers used, to IM each other in 7 separate offices, and transfer phone calls. Fonality allows us to be together when we are so separated across Central Texas. The IMs really help out our financial service representatives to get the information they need without interrupting their conversations with the customer in front of them. The live call monitoring is a great tool as well, it helps with training a lot.
  • The live call monitoring helps with training. We are able to listen to a call live; we can just listen, we can whisper to our employee and the customer can't hear us, or we can barge in and take over the call as needed.
  • We have 7 offices across Central Texas and the IM features are great! It allows us to feel as if we are in the same place without being in the same place.
  • I, personally, use the Mobile HUD when I'm not in the office. This is great because it makes me mobile and accessible anywhere and I don't have to be sitting in front of the desk all day.
  • On the Mobile HUD I'd recommend allowing users to listen to calls as if they were on the desktop version. It doesn't appear to be an option.
Fonality is great to use when measuring your call volume for both marketing and just calls in general. We are able to use Fonality to measure how many calls each of our employees have done and can pull reports easily. The Holiday scheduler helps let our customers know when we are open or closed. There were times Fonality was down and intermittent for weeks but it seems to have been fixed now.
December 14, 2016

Fair and Balanced

Scott Braun | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Fonality as our primary telephone system for the entire company. It also supports our helpdesk operations so we have a call queue configured to distribute support calls.
  • The HUD application provides a great dashboard for seeing who is on the phone, who they are talking to as well as who is logged into the support queue.
  • The cloud deployment has proven to be pretty reliable and trouble free for remote employees using a traditional handset.
  • The administration console is pretty user friendly for managing the system.
  • The softphone options have not proven particularly reliable. The HUDweb application has some potential as far as a visual tool, but has just proven way too unreliable for everyday use. Would not recommend it for use. With that being said, a new softphone application is to be released on 12/16/16, so that may render use of HUDweb obsolete. Am hopeful the dedicated softphone application will prove worthy.
  • HUD Mobile is also less than an ideal solution. Not sure if the mobile OS is to blame for some of the disappointment, but having to run the mobile application in the foreground in order to receive calls is not really practical. Also, the design of the application is not very efficient as it's not obvious immediately how to get to the keypad and direct dialing an extension is not working for us. It does however make calls and can work, but it's more of a hassle than it's really worth. My remote sales team just uses their carrier minutes for calls.
  • The click to call feature while it has worked for us in the past, it has also caused issues with adding extra characters and logos in random areas of email messages, so our users have pretty much turned that feature off.
I would recommend taking a look at Fonality for instances in which dedicated handsets will be the norm. Also if you have a relatively simple need for call queues, I think Fonality is definitely worth a look. For the moment, if you are looking to make use of softphones I would urge you to carefully test out the new app to make sure it works well enough. I think a dedicated softphone application will prove to be vastly more reliable than the HUDweb option, but time will tell. If you need a reliable and dependable mobile application, I'm not sure what Fonality currently offers will meet the need.
October 26, 2016

HUD dud

Scott Berken | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a 3 attorney 8 support staff law firm that was using a 4 line PBX system that was maxed. This problem was compounded with a myriad of inefficiencies including the lack of a dynamic voicemail system, 5 local area codes with varying calling requirements and most importantly connecting clients to the attorney when they are out of the office, as well as, the inability to avoid using their personal cell number when calling clients.
  • The ability to move a call from your desk to your mobile phone almost seamlessly has been an effective tool for the staff.
  • The ease of accessing the recent call log. It assists us in logging accurate call times with our clients.
  • An identifier for parked calls. When multiple calls are parked, some type of numbering system would help.
  • Ability to merge Outlook contacts into the HUD.
  • Ability to put HUD mobile on vibrate.
To be able to slide into a mobile office with ease has been a paradigm shift on how we manage our office communications.
October 14, 2016

Fonality Phone Systems

Michael Garlie | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Fonality for all outward facing employees, sales, project management, reception and customer service representatives, located in two separate offices plus a home office. It's great to have the function of a PBX, and more, but without the infrastructure that a PBX requires. Fonality has given our company and its employees the freedom to work everywhere.
  • Voicemail
  • Call Transfer
  • Hold music
  • PBX type functionality
  • Pricing could be lower
  • Call forwarding to mobile
  • iPhone application
Fonality is great for companies that have employees that move around a bit because they can just take their phone and plug it into an ethernet port. Most of the time it works perfectly but in the scenarios where it doesn't, the customer support is great at trouble shooting issues with the network and router.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is being used across the whole organization. It meets our VoIP requirements. We are able to create new users, set up extensions, and menus through the web interface. The system, as well as the phones, have worked with limited interruptions. If I ever have any issues, they are available via chat or a phone call.
  • Web interface is easy to use.
  • Setting up new phones and users is quick.
  • Fonality provides good support if there are ever any issues.
  • Quality service and easy to work with.
  • Sometimes the account managers take longer to respond when dealing with account issues.
  • Should have access to add a new phone directly through the web, but Fonality needs the MAC address to do that.
  • Setting up the company directory could be more straightforward.
Fonality would work for organizations of any size. It simply requires a PBX and VoIP phones, so it's relatively easy to get started. Setup and use are straightforward, and you don't have to be tech savvy to use the system. Overall it is a clean system and is well suited for any VoIP implementation.
October 04, 2016

Works great!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have been using Fonality for a few months now and have enjoyed the services it comes with. I have been able to integrate other CRMs with this phone system to work within each other. I would have spent twice as much going with a local provider with less features and am glad we made the switch.
  • Record all feature allows me to record every conversation made from each user.
  • Enjoy using the HUD.
  • Works well with Salesforce.
  • Would like to see more support on the third party app side. For example with Salesforce it was not working as intended at first but got it working within a week. I would like to have seen a shorter resolution time frame.
  • A more user friendly control panel. The UI takes a little time to get used to.
  • I can't think of any other areas.
We switched to Fonality because of how well it works with our call center and routing calls to the correct department. We have a large staff and some are in different cities and the ability to work remotely and not lose productivity has been great. It's not suited for a smaller operation that only needs a few lines.
September 12, 2016

We Recommend Fonality

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We are currently using a hybrid solution with an onsite server. We have 3 different auto attendants. We have it connected using a PRI and VOIP SIP Truncks. 20+ phones are connected from outside of the office. The HUD Mobile and HUD Web keeps all users' communication in one place. The voice quality is crisp and what you want. Our old phone system (AltiGen) had terrible sound quality.
  • Sound Quality. Believe me this is its best strength.
  • HUD puts all communication under one app (chat and voice). Once you have this feature it's hard to go somewhere else.
  • There are lots of setup options to make it fit your company's and customers' needs.
  • Would like to see free web conferencing integration. But this may be a dream.
  • Would like the capitcha to be removed from the login [screen], at least for the administration [team].
  • Would like more constant system updates. Lets face it there are bugs and security holes. System updates lets the consumer know that they are always protected and retains the feeling that their system will always be supported.
For small business that have an old phone system I would always recommend to upgrade to this system. If they don't have a phone system I would recommend the hosted solution.
Peter Mello | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our entire organization uses Fonality. We have remote users and use Fonality to communicate via extensions rather than calling their phone or them calling the main number as we did previously. We use the Chat module extensively and it has replaced the product we used previously. The conference line has been a tremendous benefit to us and linking that with an outside line makes it easy for us to get on calls with others outside the company. We also use the video conferencing feature (Zoom) and that has replaced another product that we used. We were always contending with each other to reserve the conference line we had before and now we each have our own. One of the features we hope to see is the ability to setup a call and have it repeat over some period of time.
  • Chat
  • Video Conferencing
  • Conference Calling
  • Repeat occurrences with Zoom
  • Do not display "missed call" to those that didn't pickup the call when a call comes in through the Blast group
1. Remote users 2. Conference calling 3. Chat is great but could be improved to match features in other chat products
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is our phone system. It makes calls of all sorts simple, links into the computer, forwards to cell phones, everything you can want; except their iOS app is nonfunctional. Work at home? Check. Office? Check. On vacation? Check. Keep your cell number private, because with Fonality you can use the HUD to dial, it calls your cell, then rings out so your clients see only the number for your business, which is probably the one they have in their phone anyway.
  • The HUD feature, so you can see who is on what lines, what numbers they are talking to, and chat within the system, even if you are physically far apart, is very useful.
  • Allowing calls to transfer between not only your lines, but cell phones of the users, and to call out with the system while out of the office by using your cell with the system is amazing.
  • Calls are clearer than standard landlines. There is also a lot of room to set up the system how you want, even down to the hold music.
  • iOS app could be useful.
  • Not having to dial area codes would be nice.
  • Adding a digital fax system would make having one phone company possible.
Very well suited for businesses of all kinds. I guess you could use it at home, but I don't know that I would bother, as cell phones have become so predominate for personal use. That said, I have a line at my house to facilitate working at home when at home.
Joseph Bettencourt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is currently being used across our whole organization (currently 2 users). We had been using Ooma Office for the last 2+ years and it was actually a pretty decent solution for a small business like ours. We started to have some issues with call quality with Ooma and I'd been on the lookout for another solution.
We started using a CRM program (RepairShopr) that has some great integration with being able to associate inbound phone calls with our customer records and shows a live pop-up of the ticket status of the customers as they're calling. Fonality was one of the providers that supports the integration so we decided to make the switch.

  • The call quality is outstanding. I do a fair amount of small business consulting and have used a variety of VOIP providers in different roles. The call quality with Fonality has been the best of any service I've used.
  • Ticket Response Time is great. I've had to make a few phone calls for minor issues after deployment and I usually get somebody on the phone within a few minutes and they've been knowledgeable and helpful.
  • Abundance of useful features. I'm sure a lof of VOIP Providers have similiar features, but the integration that Fonality's Hudweb provides has been very useful. For our business, if I hear a call ringing at a co-workers desk and he's away, I can literally just drag the phone call to my own extension and answer the call for him without having a specific ring group in place to ring both phones.
  • Onboarding. I spent 8 hours getting our system setup with tech support. EIGHT HOURS of actual time on the phone with support. It took their support staff 7 of those hours to basically determine that my router was blocking a required port and preventing activating my system. Even after reaching out to their sales team to impress upon how frustrating this was, the sales associate helping me (Dan Halloran) offered me a measly two weeks ($35 equivalent) of free service for the time I wasted on the phone and had my own customers waiting an extra day for service. I understand a 2 or even 3 hour onboarding, but it was pretty ridiculous. Honestly, I probably would have just cancelled the service if it wasn't for the unique integration they provide with our CRM Provider.
  • Communication. During the course of signing up, Fonality called 1hr before my scheduled install because an employee had called in sick and they didn't have anybody else to help me. They were able to get another technician to help, but he was (obviously) not very knowledgeable as he wasn't able to get my system setup.
  • On another occasion, my sales rep (Dan Halloran) indicated via e-mail that he was start the porting process for me. 7 days later, I reached out to inquire about the process, and it hadn't been initiated.
  • As a third example, the rep that was finally able to get my system going (Syed Rizvi) was supposed to follow up with me on a Friday, and I never heard from him. After reaching out to him nearly 5 days later, he apologized and indicated he had been very busy.
  • Mobile App. Overall, the Mobile App (I'm using the one on Android) is great. It has it's own dialer so that I can call my clients so they see my work number instead of cell phone. But, I can't access the contacts on my phone from the app. I have to lookup a number, memorize the number and then type it into the dialer. Very minor, but would be great to see this added.
I'd say that Fonality would typically be a great fit for any business looking for a cutting edge phone solution. It would probably be best suited for businesses with at least 4+ employees. A lot of the features are based around functionality for larger teams - call transferring, call queues, departments, call-center features, etc. While it's been great for our business, the setup and installation time for a 2-3 man shop is probably overkill for most smaller businesses like ours. Especially when there are other providers that offer a more cost effective solution for a decent feature-set.
August 24, 2016

Phantastic Fone system

Richard Ainsworth | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We use Fonality as our main PBX for our entire company. It allowed us to be flexible with our communication. Our remote locations have seamlessly incorporated in the rest of the company's communication channels.
  • Transparent mobility.
  • Highly customizable.
  • Strong technical support from Fonality.
  • Would like to see an improved desktop app for when it is preferred over the webHUD.
  • Stronger built in protection from SIP attacks.
  • Mobile app could be improved, even though it does function well.
Because of fonality's flexibility to be hosted, onsite or hybrid, it works well for most environments.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used throughout the company. It is used as a phone.
  • Voicemails are emailed
  • Voicemails can be accessed online
  • Interface works but is slow
  • Sometimes calls are very bad quality and clients can't hear me
  • Mobile app volume is really low
It is good for any business, but call quality can be a concern.
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