Infrastructure that supports Asia, Europe, and the US. Strong feature set. Should have everything a small business needs for telephony.
Lacks the functionality of similarly priced offerings. Hardware comes at extra cost. Making sense of Glip tool can be a challenge. Integration issues persisted during testing.
RingCentral Office (for Business) is a great mix of voice over IP tech, unified communications software, and mobile functionality. It's one of the best all-around Private Branch Exchange solutions for small to midsize businesses on the market.
RingCentral Office (for Business) is a perennial leader in the business voice over IP (VoIP) space. It offers a strong communications
RingCentral Office (for Business) begins at $19.99 per month per user for its lowest plan, the Essentials plan. For small to midsize businesses (SMBs), it provides the foundation for a hosted Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system with a variety of high-end features. While its price point is still slightly higher than some of the competition, even our other Editors' Choice winner Fonality Hosted PBX, it's become more competitive over the past couple of years as features have increased. Meanwhile, its price has remained largely the same. However, several of the additional features we discuss below are actually separate-cost add-ons to the base service so do
A PBX in the Cloud
RingCentral Office (for Business) includes all PBX administration functions, mobile app use on Android and iOS, and unlimited calling. It also includes 1,000 toll-free minutes, unlimited conference calling, fax, business SMS, and mobile and desktop unified messaging apps with HD video conferencing. RingCentral Office (for Business) also includes Microsoft Office integration, call logging, and team collaboration tools.
At $34.99 per month per user for the Premium plan, you add some potentially critical features such as
Unlike Citrix Grasshopper, RingCentral Office (for Business) functions as a hosted Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) provider, which means that you will need SIP phones on-premises to use the
As with other hosted SIP services, all voice calls will go through your internet circuit, which means you'll need reliable and robust service at your place of business for best call quality. Slow or spotty connections will be problematic or even prevent the service from functioning. RingCentral will assist in network configurations to implement Quality of Service (QoS) rules on local switches and routers so they'll prioritize voice traffic. Alternatively, RingCentral is a rare breed in that it offers dedicated circuits to its data center facility from your place of business to deliver spotless voice traffic. Naturally, this will cost more than a standard internet circuit, so do your return on investment (ROI) math carefully before choosing this option.
RingCentral Office (for Business) can also integrate with some existing PBX systems or local phone services through the use of an on-premises Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) that connects to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) through local analog lines. Most businesses will opt to use RingCentral's PSTN connectivity through the hosted service, however.
Configuration and Functionality
Setting up a RingCentral Office (for Business) PBX is straightforward. The web management user interface (UI) allows for the creation and maintenance of users extensions, the configuration of auto attendant services (dubbed "Auto-Receptionist"), company information, and phones and devices.
Nearly every aspect of the PBX configuration is handled through the use of procedural wizards. While this might be helpful to some, it can get tedious when working with a significant number of entries that may need to be added or modified. Adding a new user, for example, involves using a five-step wizard. The wizard lets you select a city and state for the Direct Inward Dialing (DID) number, and what type of phone you would like to purchase for that user (if you elected to include a phone with the user setup). Each user gains the ability to receive e-faxes as part of the deal, too. You can add multiple users in the same area through the wizard but they will all get numbers in the same city and receive the same phone model. Since RingCentral is based around one line per user, if you're in a situation where you need many phones/extensions but only a few actual usable lines to connect with the PSTN, then you'll need to pay for a DID for every extension, which may be cost-prohibitive.
Once created, these users can be assigned to various groups (such as call queues to handle inbound sales or support calls), shared lines (such as a group of phones scattered throughout a warehouse), or voicemail-only extensions used when you need to direct callers directly to a voice mailbox.
The auto-attendant functions provide the standard business phone features you would expect, including optional multi-level functions that can step callers through several layers of menus to route them to the correct extension or group. It's simple to set up call handlers to route callers to voicemail if they're calling after hours or through the menu if not. There is also support for a dial-by-name directory and automatic or triggered call recording.
More complex call handling is
RingCentral Office (for Business) provides simple and detailed call logs and reporting functions. The dashboard reporting tools offer solid, at-a-glance figures and graphs that show phone system activity; they also let you down into details on the actual calls placed, which are filtered through a variety of criteria. There are no extensive call center features included in the Standard edition, though RingCentral Office (for Business) does have an optional, fully featured call center product available separately. The Premium edition will soon include a new Call Center Lite feature (currently in beta at the time of this writing) which will provide many of the features found in the add-on product, including real-time reporting.
Glip for Collaboration
RingCentral has fully integrated Glip by RingCentral into their VoIP offering to handle the full spectrum of integrated collaboration and communication. You can register on the website for a free account but the real magic happens when you connect your RingCentral Office (for Business) account. Some features do overlap between Glip and RingCentral Meetings, although the company says they will be focusing on moving to the Glip platform for all collaboration in future releases.
Glip apps are available for Mac and Windows desktops plus iOS 8.0 and Android 4.4 or higher devices. The real power of Glip surfaces when you create a team. Teams are simply a collection of users, either RingCentral Office users or external users. Adding someone not connected to your RingCentral service is as simple as sending them an email. Once connected, you can do any number of actions including chat, video conference, make and record calls, and much more, all from the Glip UI.
Glip includes a sizable list of integration solutions which you can seamlessly connect into your environment. Out-of-the-box capabilities include full syncing with calendars from Google and Microsoft Outlook, file syncing with Dropbox, Google Drive
Tight With Microsoft
Like Microsoft Skype for Business Online, RingCentral Office (for Business) can integrate with Microsoft Outlook but it also integrates with Box, DropBox, and Google Apps. Higher-level RingCentral Office plans even offer integrations with Desk.com, Salesforce.com, and Zendesk. And that integration capability isn't simply gleaned from a list of custom integrations that RingCentral offers on a product-by-product basis. The company offers a full-on developer platform that includes a whole family of REST application programming interfaces (APIs) to let your in-house staff custom-integrate RingCentral's telephony into whatever business processes your company needs.
Overall, RingCentral Office (for Business) provides an excellent and full-featured, hosted PBX solution. It's still slightly behind Editors' Choice winner Fonality, but only due to its lack of ultra-high-end features. This is a situation that might either not affect