Avaya's support model

[Gloaming]

Hello,


I'm an IT manager with a networking background who has been put in charge of the company's Definity G3R7 phone switches. I've never been responsible for a phone switch before, and my knowledge of phone systems is extremely limited. The phone system in question is about 5 years old and has never been under a maintenance contract of any kind.

I'm told that my staff cannot fully administer the phone system because we do not have either the D2ADMIN or CRAFT passwords. When I contacted a couple of local Avaya partners, I was told that only partners were given this level of access.

My question is this: are all phone system manufacturers the same in regards to limiting what changes the customer can make to the systems that they sell? What reasons does Avaya give to limit access like they do? To a non-phone system person (me) this smacks of extortion. It seems that I have no choice but to pay an Avaya partner a lot of money to make simple changes to the phone system that my staff would be able to make if only they had the proper level of access.

Thanks,
Gloaming

 

[Bobg1]

It seems that I have no choice but to pay an Avaya partner a lot of money to make simple changes to the phone system that my staff would be able to make if only they had the proper level of access."

I am not sure what you have been told by your staff, but "SIMPLE" changes.... The normal admin account on the switch allows you to do what you NORMALLY need to on the switch.
If you need to get Maintenance access, yes that they will want to collect some $$$ for. An alternative is to find someone on the outside to help. You might be able to gain some more insight by going here

http://www.medak.com

They have some very basic programs that might help and they also do training.

 

[avayaman]

You should be entitled to the craft password. Did you try the default craft & crftpw?


Paul Beddows

Consulting, Avaya/EAS implementation, Training
Vancouver, Canada
E-mail use form on website at

http://www.vancouver.hm/email.html

 

[avayaman]

By the way, I would get some training of some sort before messing around. I don't where you are located. I will be driving down the west coast early June.If you get the pass word, you can hire me to spend a day with you if you wish if you happen to be on the I5 corridor.

Paul Beddows

Consulting, Avaya/EAS implementation, Training
Vancouver, Canada
E-mail use form on website at

http://www.vancouver.hm/email.html

 

[Gloaming]

Hi Gents,

Thanks for the responses, but I'm wondering if limiting access to the system is just SOP for telephone system manufacturers. If I can avoid it in the future, I don't want to buy a phone system that the manufacturer won't let me configure.

Thanks again,
Gloaming

 

[mikeydidit]

I would like to tell you that this is strictly Avaya but I can’t. All of the major manufactures are in on the RTU’s or right to use software privileges. The technical permissions are a pay to use feature. As for the level of permissions that you have even with a DADMIN or CRAFT password their will be things that you will not be able to access. I have worked under the INIT password before and I still do not have the level of experience that is needed for the level of password. So for basic testing the dadmin will work for what you need to do. Unfortunately you will need some sort of maintenance contract in place to be able to use dadmin password permissions. There have several maintenance contracts in place that range from T&M to 24 hour a day monitoring depending on what best suits your needs. One other thing that comes to mind is the level of knowledge that your people have working under a password with technical permissions. If you have staff that are experienced and can take care of your switch then a maintenance assist program is one of the lest expensive route that you can take. I would (and have) look toward the business partners for a maintenance program that meets your needs.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[Gloaming]

Thanks Mike. I'm still not happy with the situation, but at least I know that it's not just Avaya that does this.

Gloaming

 

[mikeydidit]

I understand completely Gloaming. About 2 years ago I had to start paying for what I already had. That really sucks, but that is the way things have been going. Hope this has helped anyway.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[Bobg1]

Paul
"You should be entitled to the craft password"
Maybe they do that in Canada, but not the US.
If you have Maintence assist they will set the maint rights under the normal admin login. Still not give craft.

 

[NX01]

Gloaming, you have actually found the best resource for getting information. If you have any questions, it is a Search away from being answered. Check out the FAQ's as well. Avaya does make money on bigger ticket items and Right To Use (RTU) licenses. Add, moves & changes are teh majority of what you will be doing. Anything above and beyond you can find here.


Paul, What's your daily rate?

In the future everything will work...

 

[avayaman]

Strange, we always gave the customer the craft password if they demanded it in the telco I worked for. Usually we set up limited access under an admin pass, but if they insisted on the the craft pass we gave it to them. Most customers, however were happy with just being able to to set changes.

Paul Beddows

Consulting, Avaya/EAS implementation, Training
Vancouver, Canada
E-mail use form on website at

http://www.vancouver.hm/email.html

 

[orypecos]

AS mentioned before u don't need the craft permissions in most cases, and u don't have to have the craft login to do the same things that the craft login can do. U only have to have the permissions turned on. Many Avaya users have the permissions that are the same as craft login, but they all have a maintenance aggreement of some type, or have slipped through the cracks.The craft login is owned by Avaya and using this login is a violation of the software license for the system. Even though u buy the telephone equipment, u only have a license for the software. If u do have a maintenance agreement, then u must have a phone line into the pbx, and Avaya has a program that logins in on a regular basis and changes all of the avaya passwords.
On another topic, I don't think we are suppose to offer services or advise users to go to our website in this forum.

 

[Bobg1]

orypecos
You are at least partially correct...
"u must have a phone line into the pbx"
Not so, it depends on the plan.
as for "don't think we are suppose to offer services or advise users to go to our website"
Offer service is not the same as selling a service.
Paul has made a lot of good info available through his sight and the sight I listed I have no affiliation with at all, I listed it because it has some good info.

 

[mikeydidit]

After reading all of these replies, I thought I might add one more thing that may help. In my case I had a (Cust) password that had craft type permissions levels. When Avaya approached me with the maintenance assist program or loose my technical permissions, I would only loose the ability to do test. The regular old customer password will still let you make changes to your stations, hunts, and many other things. The customer password will not let you do test. If you do have alarms come in, then you are on a T&M basis with Avaya. Some people are happy with that setup. They may have never had the higher level of permissions to do testing to begin with; lack of a trained staff to work on the switch, or this is about cheapest option and is OK in a small non critical type environment. For larger business this is not an option. “Most” larger companies either have remote monitoring through Avaya, a business partner, or staff that can handle most problems that arise with Avaya’s tier 3 as a backup. So this gives you some options as to the service that you need and the price that you have to pay to get it. It’s not getting any easier to maintain our systems.

Hope this helps.


Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[orypecos]

I offered some telephones for free to non profit in this forum, and the administer told me not to.
Sorry, didn't mean to step on any toes, just didn't want anyone to get thwacked on the head like I did. I still have a virtual knot on my psychy from that.

Avaya and the partners had all kinds of aggreements that allowed the customer to have almost all permissions. Some of them are very limited in what they cover, but still give u permission. Avaya really doesn't want to sell them cuz they don't make much money on them, but if u push a account rep, he or she will find a plan that u will have to pay very little and still get permissions. But I still think that unless u are doing alot of changes to your system or have a lot of trouble with it, u don't need the permissions. U can get around the permissions thing is some cases too. If u need to busy and release a station, just remove the port and put it back in, it does the same thing.

 

[PeaveyPhones]

Be careful what you ask for, cause you might get it.
You may be accustomed to PCs and servers where you can dig into the OS. This does not happen with most, if not all, PBXs. As a result, PBXs have MUCH higher up time. You probably have as much access into your switch as you need.

While I at times get angry at Avaya for charging so much I also recognize I get a lot for my money.

I love working on phone systems and feel sorry for the poor the guys having to wrestle with Windows based PCs all day. If my PBX was as squirrelly as our PCs and servers I‘d get fired.

Richard


The unexamined life is not worth living; Socrates

 

[orypecos]

Something else that should be paid attention to as far phone systems is support. Avaya is announcing end of support for many items and businesses that don't pay attention to these annoucements could end up with thousands of dollars worth of junk with no replacement parts.

http://support.avaya.com/japple/css...electedProduct=161339&temp.selectedBucket=all

Title: End of Manufacturer Support Notification for:


Call Processing Software G3V2 through Release 10
Call Center Software G3V2 through Release 9
CMS Software Release 6 through Release 9
CallVisor® ASAI Software Release 6 through Release 10
Notification Date: February 2, 2004

Consistent with the Avaya Manufacturer Support Policy (published September 15, 2003), End of Manufacturer Support on these products means that Avaya will no longer provide:


Routine software updates or patches to fix product problems
Updates to product documentation and other web-based information
Important Services Note: Ongoing Maintenance Support Will Continue To Be Available

Avaya Global Services will continue to support customers past the Manufacturer End of Support Date. Avaya Global Services will offer extended maintenance support for the following software releases:


Call Processing Software G3V2 through Release 10
Call Center Software G3V2 through Release 9
CMS Software R9*
CallVisor ASAI Software R6 through R10
*One year maximum term - subject to change
Additionally, Avaya Global Services will provide promotional pricing on Avaya Maintenance Agreements for customers who upgrade to select current Avaya software releases.

I think the above says that R7 will no longer be supported a year from now.

 

[AvayaHelp]

It was mentioned to try the craft UID and I got an error telling me that ASG for this login is enabled.

Any suggestions?

 

[smoody3]

Avaya reserves the craft login for itself now. ASG is a 128 Bit encryption key that only they have.

 

[orypecos]

I thought that u could buy ASG from AVaya or was that some other encription lock and key?