LBG and OCS 2007, Intelligent directory and UC Express

[Mitelpassion]

Hi,

Has anyone worked with LBG and OCS 2007, Intelligent directory and UC Express before?

need to do a presentation in detail about wha the above products offer. Documentation is ok but user experience is sometimes different to documenation but contains more detail about how actually this works.

I know this is a very broad question and probably sales related but the sales stuff I got, I'm looking for hands on experience, what you can do on the PC and what is available on the phone - in other words what do you get?

Does UC Express actually do the same as YA live. Seen a bit of it and no it doesn't. You can't set your calender as your advisory etc.

thanks in advance, hope someone out there has actually used these products extensively before.

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

YA Lite (free ed. 3.09) allows you to build a big contact list within the YA Lite client. I don't know if there's a size limit on it or not, one of my users who just retired had close to 400 entries w/no sign of hitting the wall. The Call History display in YA Lite holds up to 1000 total entries and (my opinion) is a little cleaner application, not requiring precious space on an already crowded taskbar. YA Lite also supports every instrument that the 3300 supports (including TDM sets). By contrast UCE supports only 4 sets that I know of, 5312/24 and 5330/40. One of my users has a 5140 he is in love with (because of the big handset) and threw a major hissy-fit when we tried to take YA Lite away from him. I offered him a 5340 with a cordless handset and UCE but he still whined about losing YA. So for now he still has it. I told him I didn't know how much longer it would work in future software loads so as long as it keeps working he wants to stay with YA Lite. I'm sure Mitel still very much rues the day they ever gave that app away free. It's a great product.

IOC (precursor to UCE) was a dog. Unpredictable/unstable.

UCE is much better and kinda neat because you can drag & drop numbers onto it from an open application plus you can do a directory lookup from it. The dialer rules are kind of cryptic to define. UCE loads quicker than YA Lite & a little friendlier with other desktop apps. With YA Lite we found w/multiple apps running that you had to have a certain load order starting apps else YA would sometimes cause the desktop to lock up. Once we figured out the load order it was a lot better. As I recall we had to start Outlook as the first task then YA before anything else. Ergo putting YA Lite in the startup routine was a show-stopper.

By the way, both YA Lite (3.09) and UC Express can run concurrently but I don't recommend it.

I have no experience with either LBG or OCS. One of our guys (before the layoff) did a feasibility study tho and woke a lot of folks up when they figured out that OCS did *NOT* include a voice mail client and that you needed MS Exchange Enterprise Ed. (with very expensive Client Access Licenses). That slammed the brakes on that little venture. I also recall some mention of OCS requiring several additional servers w/addt'l IT staff to support it at a time when we're cutting staff. I'm pretty sure OCS is a dead horse in this corral. YMMV.


Original MUG/NAMU Charter Member

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

YA Lite also stopped working in Office 2K7, but someone here found and posted a workaround/fix.

YA Lite also supports dialing from Outlook.

Original MUG/NAMU Charter Member

 

[Mitelpassion]

Thanks guys,

some of the stuff you are confirming and others you are shedding light on. Dial from Outlook that's not available from UC Express is probably the biggest functional difference but UC Express tackles this by being able to search the contacts via UC Express and then dialling.

I converted the YA lite to UC Express. Is there a way to go back? (I'll ask the sales guys but this is a great forum) the reason why I did this was to get away from using a server based solution.

in my opinion the applications I've mentioned does similar things, some things overlapping. I'm not sure why this was sold to the client (all of the above). Must be madness to their method.

What about the presence management? What's that like, what do you get and what is missing, if anything?

Now just after the OCS stuff and Intelligent directory.

Thanks again guys.

 

[MitelInMyBlood]

You need the TAPI drivers to be able to dial from Outlook. YA Lite includes these and in fact, conveniently leaves them behind if YA Lite is later deleted/removed from the PC. Nice. As I think kwbMitel mentioned in another post several weeks ago there are other places to get the TAPI drivers without going to the trouble of installing/uninstalling YA Lite.

There was also an app note on the knowledge base at one time explaining how to dial from Outlook. It was originally written for Win2K/Outlook 97, but the info can be extrapolated and still applies today to Office 2K3/2K7 versions.

Sales doesn't like to talk about things in the past because it doesn't represent revenue or future revenue. You probably need to discuss it with a Mitel Systems Engineer over adult beverages somewhere, tho they will likely tell you once a product has been discontinued (as YA has) then compatibility with future loads will always be a question mark. YA Lite has been so popular tho that I would not be suprised to see some piece of poison code in a future release to deliberately render YA Lite inoperable.

"Going back" to YA Lite from UC Express is as simple as deleting UCE out of your startup routine, period. Nothing else to do. YA Lite and UC Express do not seem to conflict and in fact as I mentioned in the earlier post, both can be active and running at the same time (not recommended).

We did see one problem with YA and sets that had companion key appearances of a YA-monitored prime line going OOS and taking YA down on the prime key with it. Don't remember now if those were multicall or just key appearances, but it was happening across Teleworker so obviously YA thought it was monitoring a device that it truly wasn't. Smoke & mirrors.

You're preaching to the choir re the lack of a server requirement, but unfortunately that's the way everything is headed. Either get on the train or get left behind. The longer you wait, the more expensive the ticket.


Original MUG/NAMU Charter Member