Howard Energy Partners

RingEX and RingCentral Glip Help Fast-Growing Eye Surgery Business Improve Patient Care
Howard Midstream logo
As a system administrator, I think RingCentral is awesome. Everyone can manage their phones independently, providing time and cost savings.  I look forward to everything RingCentral has to offer in the future.

Sean McMillan

IT Manager, Howard Energy Partners
Howard Midstream Energy Partners (HMEP) is an independent midstream energy company.  It owns and operates approximately 500 miles of natural gas pipelines, natural gas liquids processing plants, amine treating plants, a railroad park and other related midstream facilities in South Texas. Founded in 2011, Howard Midstream Energy Partners has 120 employees and six locations throughout Texas, in Houston, San Antonio, Asherton, Brownsville, Three Rivers and Laredo.

Disposing the PBX

Prior to using RingCentral, the staff at HMEP had an on-premise PBX system.  Sean McMillan, the IT Manager, had difficulty managing this system—he was a one man IT group and he preferred to solve system issues and install updates independently rather than hiring expensive external technicians.  This legacy PBX system was difficult to work with, particularly when adding a new employee to the phone system.  “Our major pain points were maintenance and scalability,” says McMillan.  “Just keeping the hardware up and running was difficult, and adding new employees to the system was very time consuming.”
INDUSTRY
Energy
HQ
San Antonio, TX
YEAR FOUNDED
2011
EMPLOYEES
120

A RingCentral Partner lends a hand

McMillan looked to Technology Integration Group (TIG), a RingCentral Partner, for assistance when searching for a new phone system.  TIG is a single source of IT solutions for small, medium, enterprise, government and education organizations.  The management at HMEP wanted to begin leveraging the cloud, so they were looking for a cloud based business phone solution to replace the troublesome on premise system.  “Switching to RingCentral has overall been a great experience.  The collaborative effort between TIG and RingCentral ensured that the onboarding process went smoothly and efficiently,” McMillan says.
Switching to RingCentral has overall been a great experience.  The collaborative effort between TIG and RingCentral ensured that the onboarding process went smoothly and efficiently.

Sean McMillan

IT Manager, Howard Energy Partners

Features that empower employees

Since migrating from a PBX to RingCentral, McMillan and his colleagues have found several of the features useful.  Call forwarding and the RingCentral mobile app have allowed employees to get away from their desk phones.  HMEP’s previous system made it difficult to setup call forwarding, deterring employees from using the features.  Another feature McMillan and his employees enjoy using is faxing.  Prior to RingCentral, HMEP did not have any form of an electronic faxing method. 
McMillan has also found RingCentral’s features helpful.   He can manage the office phone system remotely using the mobile app, and has even used the training he received from RingCentral to host training sessions with his own colleagues.  Adding a new employee to the system no longer takes hours, it can now be done quickly and easily since the help from outside technicians in longer needed.  “As a system administrator, I think RingCentral is awesome,” McMillan says, “Everyone can manage their phones independently, providing time and cost savings.  I look forward to everything RingCentral has to offer in the future.”