Looking for some input regarding conferencing options on the Avaya IP Office 500 V2.

The scenario is your typical small to mid size business with conference abilities to match. Now I have read about the many different options available and, of course, many determined by how fancy the customer wants to get.

Keeping the following in mind……price point and simplicity, the customer does not need anything fancy. However, the want to move away from third party conferencing and keep it in house with the option of secure pin codes.

Is Preferred Edition w/VoiceMail Pro necessary or is there some way to use the out of the box 64 party conference abilities to accomplish this. Is there some kind of a short code that could facilitate this on a basic IP Office 500 V2 running release 7 or 8?

What I would like to know, based on others field experience in your typical small to medium size business with average conference requirements, what is the best solution. Any pros and cons anyone has experienced as I have not found much feedback on Avaya conferencing in general.

The facitlity to use meet me conference rooms (internal dialling a code or external pin checked etc)is unlocked by the preferred edition licence, on basic/essential systems you still have the same capacity but only ad hoc (throught a handset using buttons)

The conference module in my SBC (http://www.ipofficehelp.com/sbc.aspx) is configured so that every user has a conference bridge with their own PIN. Callers do not need to enter a PIN, just the conference ID and are placed on hold until the "moderator" joins.

Kyle Holladay / IPOfficeHelp.com
ACSS/ACIS/APSS Avaya SME Communications
APDS Avaya Data
MCP/MCTS Exchange 2007/2010
Adtran ATSA, Aruba ACMA

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it." - Henry Ford

Thank you to those who replied. Given the parameters I outlined in my original post....price point, ease of installation/use I'd like to suggest the following solution myself. Again, the goal is to provide conference abilities beyond the ad hoc of the base system but only add the requirement of secure pins (thank you amriddle01 as I agree the Meet Me Conference feature of the Preferred Edition will serve this means well). Now, regarding price point and ease of use/installation...I don't think quoting out a PC for the voice mail is cost effective for a customer that requires basic voice mail capabilities with auto attendant. Therefore, the solution I propose in response to my own tek tip would be: The Preferred Edition Rel. 8X with a C110 module for the purpose of voice mail. Secure conferencing with pins codes, voice mail and the option to add cool features later should the customer want to add things like mobile worker.

Any feedback on this proposed scenario would be appreciated. Any comments in particular about the C110 would be of interest.

For the extra cost of the C110 module you can actually buy a half decent W7 pc within spec and with much more capacity should they ever wish to start call recording etc and get the features limited by the use of a C110 module/Linux apps. It does add another point of failure though (but they can run for years with no intervention running just VM Pro), if they/you want a single point of failure and single chassis to maintain etc then the C110 is a good way to go

Amriddle01 you raise some good points all around. Since the C110 module acts as a Preferred License Edition but the build is obviously different than a Preferred Edition w/standalone PC ( hence the feature limitations such as call recording) can an IP Office 500 V2 Rel. 8 with C110 peform the following "Preferred Edition" license conference features:

- Helpful voice prompts guide callers into the conference call
• Unique PIN codes help ensure security for conference calls
• Conference entry/exit tones; single beep on entry, double beep on exit.
• Conference call recording
• Conference call control (available with IP Office Power User, IP Office Teleworker, and IP Office Office Worker solutions)
• ‘Conference Room’ automatically dials users and adds them if available (Requires Receptionist solution)

Other than the restriction of Conference call recording, will this build allow for all other conference features? Is the Conference Meet Me feature still available with the C110?

Hi Dave.
The only limitations are database and vb scripition etc mentioned in the docs.
Call recording can be done.
I also manage to get contact store connected on a seperate PC although it needs some tweaking.
This way you can have enough disk space for recordings.

BAZINGA!

I'm not insane, my mother had me tested!

Indeed, BTW have you had/got Xima working with it Peter? The recording part I mean

Yes that works too.
I will make a faq soon.

BAZINGA!

I'm not insane, my mother had me tested!

Mr. Holladay, is your link to your menuconference module build still applicable/current with IP Office 500V2, C110 Module running Voicemail Pro? I don't really need a moderator do I ? Is moderator still an available option? I need to build the most basic MenuConference VoiceMail Pro module but need a conference ID to act as the secure PIN I presume. Any way to simply your Conference Module build? Does your build include default Entry Prompts, your build does not show...Last feature I need to get working on this system. Thank you.