RingCentral

ringcentral.com/office/features/overview.html
Video Conferencing
1-2 Weeks

Business Phone System Features for Businesses of All Sizes

How to Replace RingCentral

Overview

RingCentral is a cloud-based unified communications platform that combines phone, SMS, fax, video conferencing, team messaging, and webinar capabilities in a single system. It provides comprehensive business communications tools for small to large organizations, including call management, collaboration features, and advanced analytics.

Features

112 features across 14 categories

AI(5)

Call highlightsAIPremium

See AI-generated key phrases, next steps, and follow-up items. Coming in Q3, 2023

Call summariesAIPremium

Provide concise and easy to understand AI-generated synopsis of calls. Coming in Q3, 2023

Meeting insightsAI

Catch up quickly with recordings that include meeting summaries, topics and keywords, video highlight reels, keywords, and transcripts

Robocall mitigation and spam blockingAI

Industry-leading proprietary AI/ML, industry tracebacks, and the STIR/SHAKEN framework to stop fraudulent robocalls and spam attacks from reaching your employee phones

Sentiment analysisAIPremium

Detect the emotional tone of a phone conversation. Coming in Q3, 2023

Also in: monday.com, Notion, Airtable

Administration(6)

Call queues

Enables customer service through intelligent call routing to the right resources

Cloud Private Branch Exchange (PBX)

Maximize uptime, call quality, flexibility, scalability, and safeguard your data

Dial-by-name directory

Staff can be reached anywhere, on any of their devices when callers find them in your dial-by-name directory

Greetings

Users and departments can customize their extensions with their choice of music, messages, and voicemail greetings

Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or Auto-attendant

Extend Auto-Receptionist capabilities with connections to the Dial-By-Name Directory, system extensions, voicemail, or even external business phone numbers

Music on hold

Choose hold music and messages to play based on time, day, and caller ID information

Also in: Notion, Airtable, Smartsheet

Analytics(5)

Adoption analytics

Get the most out of your investment with detailed, user-level usage metrics across your entire platform

Business analytics

Comprehensive and flexible call analytics designed to help you make confident business decisions, every time

Business analytics APIs

Integrate analytics into critical systems with developer access to your communications data

Live call queue monitoring

Monitor queue and agent performance through fully customizable, real-time dashboards with Live Reports

Quality of service analytics for IT professionals

Real-time, at-a-glance views of your global system's health with interactive analysis that cover your network, endpoints, devices, and rooms

Also in: Hugging Face, Notion, Smartsheet

Audio(1)

Background noise reductionAI

Remove all unwanted background noise automatically from your business calls

Fax(9)

Advanced fax spam blocking

Block numbers that start with a specific area code, start with 1-800, or are identified as spam numbers

Custom fax cover pages

Customize fax cover pages or choose from existing templates to send faxes online through the app

Email-to-fax

Send a fax directly from your email account

Fax scheduling

Choose a date and time to send out your fax

Group faxing capability

Send eFaxes to up to 50 recipients at a time or enable Fax Broadcasting in case you need to send more

Instant fax alerts

Receive instant fax alerts by the RingCentral app, SMS, or email

Print incoming faxes automatically

Select a printer in the RingCentral app and print all incoming faxes automatically

Print-to-fax

Send a fax just as you would print a document

Scan-to-fax

Automatically attach a scanned document to the RingCentral app from your scanner or a multi-function printer and send it as an eFax

Messaging(1)

Unified inbox

Streamline your followup with access to text, fax, and voicemail — all in one place

Phone(27)

Answering rules

Route calls to your local numbers anywhere, worldwide, using robust answering rules

Automatic call recording

Enable automatic recordings for one or many users

Bridge call appearance (open beta)Premium

Delegates can call on behalf, hold, pick up within the group, share a line, and join calls

Call delegation

Assign up to 10 assistants to an executive or up to 10 executives to an assistant

Call flip

Transfer calls from one device (mobile) to another (desktop) effortlessly

Call forwarding

Forward calls to any extension, phone number, group, or department simultaneously or sequentially

Call from computer softphone

Plug in a headset or use your computer's speakers and microphone to turn any computer into a softphone and call controller

Call park

Park up to 50 calls simultaneously, both inbound calls and outbound calls

Call screening

Caller ID displays before the incoming call ever connects, giving you some reference to decide how you want to respond to the call

Caller ID

Caller ID information is displayed for all incoming calls on all devices

Deskphone accessories and devices

Choose through hundreds of state-of-the-art voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phones or bring your current devices in our BYOD program

Extensions

Use extensions to play announcements, eliminating the need to answer the telephone system for commonly requested information, such as hours of operation

Heads-up display

View up to 100 user extensions' real-time presence status on desktop or mobile

Hot desking

Allows employees to access their own extensions, profiles, voicemail, and other cloud-based phone system features during remote work or while sitting at desks working in different offices

Interactive Virtual Response (IVR)

Easily create a call menu that directs callers automatically to the right service or department

IVR Editor

Customize call menus through an easy-to-understand, drag-and-drop interface

Local numbers

Select local telephone numbers in any location and establish yourself as a local business

Multi-way conference call

Simple-to-set-up audio collaboration for three or more parties, no bridges or special equipment needed, and no minutes restrictions

Native Dialer (AT&T only)

Native dialing and voicemail mean no extra software to disrupt normal workflows

Out of office for phone

Just like automatic replies on emails, the user can also schedule a time period when the incoming calls should be forwarded

Paging

Make announcements from your desk phone, desktop, or mobile

Presence

From your desk phone, you can see who's available, on do not disturb, already on a call, holding, or has a call ringing

RingOut

Make voice calls directly from within any app by highlighting any number on your computer and click RingOut to dial

Shared lines

Share calls and lines among traditional phone systems, and pick up an incoming call on any phone

Vanity and toll-free numbers

Transfer or create new dedicated 800 or vanity numbers for different marketing and business needs

Visual voicemail

Preview your voicemail messages in text when you can't listen to voicemails

Voicemail-to-email

Get email and SMS notifications of voicemail transcriptions, received faxes, missed calls, fax transmission results, etc

Push to Talk(2)

Auto-play

Voice messages play automatically in real-time on locked and unlocked devices

Push to Talk

Enable secure and clear voice communication over the cloud, enhancing employee- or company-owned smartphones and tablets with walkie-talkie

Rooms(6)

Join 3rd party meetings

Directly join other 3rd party meetings (such as Zoom and Webex video meetings) from the room

Mobile to room switch

Move your meeting from your mobile device to a nearby room, with just one click

Phone as personal controller

Pair and control room settings directly with your mobile phone

Proximity share

Share content wirelessly from your desktop computer directly to the room

Rooms as a softphone

Use your Rooms system to place phone calls, using the room controller as a touch display (requires Rooms Phone Line license)

Voice commands to start a meetingAI

Say 'Hi RingCentral, join meeting' to the room controller to start a scheduled meeting

SMS(9)

Advanced search function

Use powerful search capability to search through text trails by looking up keywords

Business SMS

Login and send SMS & MMS in seconds. Switch between desktop and cell phone anytime to pick up where you left off

Enhanced SMS deliverability

Designed to help improve deliverability, stay carrier compliant and deter some of the new fees now associated with business SMS

Group SMS/MMS

Send a text message to multiple people, either separately or as a group text

Send more than plain text

Send and receive images, audio files, videos, emojis, and other file attachments

SMS Automations

Create automatic replies to inbound SMS' for after hours, when you're on vacation, or to respond to commonly asked questions

SMS integrations

Automate processes and accelerate revenue when you integrate RingCentral SMS capabilities into your CRM, scheduling, marketing, and other business tools

SMS Messages sync

Send and receive texts across all your devices, including VoIP phone systems, smartphones, tablets, and PC

Unified phone number

SMS outreach from your business number to maintain professional and secure communications

Security(7)

99.999% SLA uptime

RingCentral delivers less than 6 minutes of downtime every year, making good on our reliability promises and maintaining the highest uptime among industry leaders

Advanced call and fax blocking settings

Block calls and faxes with no caller ID, and allow or block numbers that start with a specific area code — plus more advanced phone service options

Emergency response locations for 911 calls

Fully compliant with RAY BAUM's Act and Kari's Law to keep your employees safe with enhanced nomadic location awareness

Mobile Application Management for BYOD

With our RingCentral for Microsoft Intune (iOS, Android) integration we make it easy for IT to monitor and enforce security policies across company-owned and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environments

RingOut and Number Masking

Make outbound business calls using your personal number, but mask it with your RingCentral number to maintain confidentiality

Single Sign On

Secure identity management with any identity provider (IdP) that supports SAML 2.0, such as Okta, OneLogin, Microsoft, Google, and more

TLS encryption / SRTP secure voice

Call encryption prevents eavesdropping on all RingCentral endpoints, such as desk phones, the desktop app, and the mobile app

Team Messaging(15)

Add-Ins

Bring your everyday business apps into the RingCentral app

Admin management

Add or remove users, create or manage channels on all corporate devices instantly to ensure secure access

Calendar integrations

Connect your Microsoft, Google, or device calendar to your RingCentral app to schedule, view, and join upcoming meetings right in the app

Customizable tabs

Reorder the tabs in the left navigation bar on the RingCentral app to get quick access to your favorite advanced features

Device interoperability

Compatible with iOS, Android and multi-modal devices with no special installation needed

File sharing

Attach files like documents, images, or videos to a message from your computer or cloud storage services

Group communication

Create channels with up to 200 people

Image pins and comments

Save an important message for yourself and your team members or leave comments right on a file

Multi-channel participation

Toggle between channels or choose your default channel to connect immediately to your team

Notes

Document information you'd like to refer back to later. Add notes directly into direct messages, groups, and teams

Personal folders

Categorize your conversations based on names and colors

Presence status

Check who is online or offline at the click of a button

Resource Center

In-app Resource Center for onboarding, feature discovery, help, support, and feedback

Secure management

Prevent data leakage and compromised devices in the field with integrated Microsoft inTune

Task creation and management

Create tasks for yourself or other people. Add them to a direct message, group, or team conversation

Video(10)

Breakout rooms

Easily split up a larger meeting into smaller groups for effective brainstorming sessions

Browser join

Join video meetings straight from web browsers—all with the exact same look and feel

Collaborative notes

Capture notes during your video meetings, and share them in recordings or team chats

Device switch between mobile and desktop

Flip from mobile to desktop and back again with one tap, without ever leaving your meeting

Digital whiteboarding

Bring teams together for exciting collaborative sessions with a digital whiteboard that makes room for everyone's ideas

Dynamic end-to-end encryption

Add another layer of security to video conferencing sessions when needed — with the ability to dynamically turn on or off with a click of a button

Live transcription (AI)AI

Keep a record of who-said-what with automatic voice transcription, complete with speaker identification

Remote Desktop Control

Remotely control another participant's mouse, touchpad, and keyboard while screen sharing

Share camera view on mobile

Share a live back camera view from your mobile device during a meeting

Team huddle

Host ongoing meetings that allow colleagues to come and go as they please — kind of like a virtual team room

Webinar(9)

Backstage prep & debrief sessions

Hosts can prepare backstage before a webinar and after a webinar is over to debrief

Branded registration pages and emails

Add company branding and colors with simple drag-and-drop functionality

Configure automated emails

Customize and send automated reminder and follow-up emails to registrants and attendees

Join from anywhere

Attendees can join from the RingCentral desktop/mobile apps, Rooms, or even from their favorite browser

Marketing integrations

Integrate and sync webinar data with your marketing automation platforms, such as Marketo

Polls

Pre-configure or create polls on the fly to better engage with and understand attendees

Q&A

Engage directly with attendees by answering questions through the Q&A tab

Schedule, manage and run from the RingCentral app

Set up and configure all of your webinar settings, directly from the RingCentral app

Webinar host panel & QoS Analytics

Hosts can view engagement metrics via the host panel, and admins can view quality of service data of the webinar

Cost Calculator

Pricing data not available for RingCentral. Check their website for current pricing.

Build vs Buy

Should you build a RingCentral alternative or buy the subscription? Estimate based on 112 features.

Buy RingCentral

Better Value
Monthly costContact Sales
3-year totalVaries
Time to deployDays

Build Your Own

Development cost$132,000
Maintenance$1,980/mo
3-year total$203,280
Dev time~11 months

Buying RingCentral saves ~$203,280 over 3 years vs building.

Estimates based on 112 features and a BuildScore of 3/5. Actual costs vary.

Integrations

10 known integrations

GoogleGoogle CalendarMarketoMicrosoftMicrosoft CalendarMicrosoft IntuneOktaOneLoginWebexZoom