Opinions On IPO 1

[phoneguyjr]

We currently are considering getting trained and certified on IP office and noticed on this forum that there are a lot of posts that come through here. I am wondering is this because this system is that popular and just difficult to program, or is it that there are that many issues with it. I am just surprised at the volume of posts and the number of different issues. Is it going to be worth our time to get trained and certified? Let me know some of your opinions please. Thanks. Matt

 

[tlpeter]

90 % of the posts are questions from end users who do not know how to program the ipoffice
And ofcourse, like every other pbx, there are sometimes some issues
I think it is a great system that looks like an easy pbx to program but the moment you think that it will suprise you


ACA - Implement IP Office
ACS - Implement IP Office
ACA - Voice Services Management
______________
Women and cats can do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea!

 

[NewNic]

The Box is quirky, However Im continualy surpised at how creative you can be with it in its applications. Just forget everything youve learned in the past on other PBXs cuz this is a half breed box. Just be open to being creative and youl have fun working on it

 

[sizbut]

Its flexibility is both a joy and a pain. And remember that people don't post if they don't have a problem - so any support forum will to be biased towards the bad.

 

[Westi]

IT has come a long way from the old 1.1, 1.2 and so on releases. It has become more stable and reliable by far then any release 3 or 4 years ago.
I like it

Joe W.

FHandw., ACA, ACS

If you can't be good, be good at it!

 

[groundedagain]

It is deceptively simple, the time you disrespect it, it will bite you.

Jason Wienert
Brisbane, Australia

http://www.centralcity.com.au

GoldMine, Avaya, ACCPAC CRM

Please remember to thank preople for their valuable input.

 

[cztech]

The IPO offers many different ways to perform any specific task, especially with regards to call flow. It is feature rich, and as others here have indicated, has improved much over time (features and stability).

cztech /

http://www.cztechnologies.net

 

[crumthwacket]

It's pretty good now (especially when compared to the bad old days) and isn't difficult to program when you consider how flexible it is. Voice Mail Pro is, in my opinion, the best value of any voice mail system on the market - no one else is even close. Spend time learning the product, don't take short cuts during installation, and listen to the winners on this site, not the losers - and there's plenty of both. With regard to the advanced applications, you can grow into them as you get more experience.

 

[aarenot]

phoneguyjr,
I would have to come back at you with some questions to answer your question.
Do you plan to get the training, and product authorization to implement the system? If yes then you should have no problems beyond the normal.
That said, you need to do as the manual says, not just fly by the seat of your pants. This is not the Partner ACS, toshibas, ESI's, or even the Magix, which from my experience you can learn on the fly, and fake it compared to the IPO.
Do you have experience with traditional phones systems? If yes, then you should be better skilled than most in the concepts of call flow, etc., so you will then not have to learn the industry, and concepts, but just the IPO.
This is, just as any hybrid IP system is, more complicated than a traditional phone system, so do not expect your average phone tech to be even as good with this as they are with the ACS. If you are an IT guy, start with the partner ACS type system so you can learn the basics of call flows, hunt groups, industry concepts, etc., or you will take years to get good at the IPO.

It is a new animal, and there are many posts on here with issues, but those posts are not hardly from trained, experienced product authorized proffesionals for 99% of them, but from either DIY'ers, or POSERS trying to act like they are qualified, and should be charging for their services when they should not even be touching the IPO at all.
Also, another reason why there are so many posts in a forum like this is simple. When you have an issue with most phone systems from Avaya SMBS(or any other major system providor), and even many enterprise systems there are an ocean of experienced, qualified techs who have been trained/certified/authorized, and experienced to ask questions from in your own company, city, county, or state that a tech can call because they know them personally, or have a relationship with their fellow techs in their area to some degree. With the IPO there are mostly POSERS who do not know their arse from a hole in the ground, then next are the mediocre POSERS who POSED long enough to know a little something enough to cookie cutter out systems all exactly the same(you have seen them in other systems as well every phone exact same buttons, no features being used, etc.), then their are the ones who get the training, spend the time to study, get their PA, and learn the system from the bottom up and can handle most situations with some skill not including getting very creative with things. Finally you have the guys who can figure out a way to do just about everything they have ever been asked as a matter of pride in what they do, and even take time to figure out how to do things just because they think it would be cool, and enjoy sharing their knowledge because they take a little pride in what they do.

If you click on the link on the right side of the page in the MVP's area called (Full List) you will see the majority of those who have some level of competence as witnessed by those in the forum giving them votes( to be fair, that is as witnessed by others voting for them, not meaning no one wihtout votes is incompetent). You might look at the threads that they start alone to get a better idea of what to expect. Remember as well that they may have worked on over 100 systems like myself so they have had opportunity to see most problems you might encounter, and if like myself also do remote, or phone support to help other techs at times so they have even more exposure to issues than a normal field tech handling only the issues they run into. I know many in that list are lead techs, service managers, operations managers, company owners, project managers, inside vendor support personel, tech trainers, tech instructors, distributor tiered support personel, or avaya support personel, as well as certified trainers on the system.
I mean seriously there are 10,909 members in the IPO forum, and only 50 with enough votes to make the list with 8 votes. That leaves one per state at best that would get votes from others to appreciate their competence to even close to double digits in numbers. That is like 1/2 of 1 % of members have even been able to help enough people to get any serious number of votes So if you are going to look at this list as a refection on the IPO, take a realistic look at it, and only look at the top 3% of the posters or less as qualified at the IPO.


Note: half of the list are probably outside the USA. I do wonder for the listed MVP's where are you all located?

 

[Westi]

aarenot: I love your post and agree fully to what you said. Therefor a star for you.
I made the MVP list and I am on number 5 right now but there are guys way better then me on here I can tell you, I am still learning the networking parts of the business,
but to let you know where I am, Burlington / Ontario / Canada.

Joe W.

FHandw., ACA, ACS

If you can't be good, be good at it!

 

[aarenot]

Westi,
You seemed to have flown onto the full list, and the MVP very quickly, but then I do not know how long you have been doing the IPO just how long you have been on TT. I started doing the IPO as part of my duties in 2006 so I am fairly new comnpared to some guys around here. When I started in this forum it was a tech to tech atmosphere, and I liked helping techs. I doubt I will ever get up to the MVP list as I have taken an approach that I do not help those that seem to be POSING as (charging customers $ like) professionals with the IPO yet come here to ask questions that the other PA tech at their BP should be able to answer since they are supposed to have two to implement it, or that any person who has a PA should already know, or if they would just RTFM they would already know it. I am all for helping end users though because most of them here are probably here because a POSER charged them $ to implement their system, and they are incompetent, or they would be hiring them to do it. Without helping the POSERS,it seems 3/4 of the threads are not within my opportunity to recieve a star for since I do not help them. When you look at a persons threads, and the point of view they are writing from, it is easy to tell who is POSING, and charging as if they are a professional yet does not have the PA knowledge, or access to the support due a PA BP. On the other hand, it is also pretty easy to tell who is an end user by the point of view they write from as well. I made my decision to take this approach of being discriminating in whom I will help with their legitimate work, and whom I wil not help because I wonder where the word fraud comes in, and I have dropped down the MVP ever since. I do still have a few stars though so I am still on the full list.

 

[Westi]

aarenot
I do IP Office since 2003 but I never discovered TekTips until 2007 because I am more for the RTFM approach of things and if that doesn't work or seems not conclusive then I just try it out and play around. A colleague of mine told me once that I have no life because I do that even on my time off because it is fun and I take pride in my work. I am not on the full list of MVP's yet because I am fairly new to a full time access to a PC because I was a tech on the road for years but now I am remote support for our technicians and customers. I discovered that there are very many people just creating an account posting a question and will never be heard of again once they get their answers, others come constantly with some stuff that can be solved with the help file in manager and I also get pickier what I answer as I am moving along and can sort out the posers better.
I am pretty much on TekTIps all week including Saturday and Sunday because I enjoy the thought that this is a world wide forum and I learn new things every day by reading the postings, because even if you installed 150+ systems most customers have certain needs that are easy to fulfill and there is not a lot of room for new discoveries of new features and workarounds.

Joe W.

FHandw., ACA, ACS

If you can't be good, be good at it!

 

[kwing112000]

Westi,
You sound just like me. I am addicted to my work. It is always on my mind. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of ways to fix things. I work remotely from home so i am on here all the time.

Kevin Wing
ACA- Implement IP Office
Carousel Industries

 

[Westi]

kwing112000
does this drive your wife as mad as it does mine? Watching TV at night with her at your side and the Laptop open to read some manual?
I wish I could be working from home but my boss thinks that people won't work and just watch daytime TV and do other stuff that are not work related. I am working on him though and he could save a ton of money on office space.
I guess there are a few guys like that on this forum, you can always tell if someone responds to post on the weekend that they are not just your regular 9-5 guys and actually taking it a step further.

Joe W.

FHandw., ACA, ACS

If you can't be good, be good at it!

 

[TomMills]

glad to see i am not the only person who reads most of the posts in spare time, i like seeing how other people approach problems, and have seen fixes for problems that i encountered later, which is mega handy.

i dont reply a lot because the rest of you are so bloody fast and i am very young sometimes encounter problems with people not taking me seriously, one customer actually said "oh my god they have sent a schoolboy" when i walked through the door, they shut up when i sorted their problem out tho.

some of the stuff on here is genius, and i think it is very cool that everyone takes the timeout to read and help out with stuff, i guess it just widens the level of exposure to issues etc that aarenot mentioned, the more you see, the more you learn

 

[victor5908]

OK-here's the deal.I have been installing and programming IPO since it came out as an Avaya BP with full training and certs.I keep trying to like this product but I simply can't bring myself to do so.There are just way too many issues with the product that aren't programming/knowledge/skills related.The software remains buggy at best,any software applications such as Phone Manager,IMS,and Call Center are riddled with issues.And the system requires far too many re-boots programming related or not.I'm not completely bashing it-as an ip-enabled replacement for Partner/Magix customers sold with the bells and whistles that ACTUALLY WORK!(vmail 2 e-mail,outlook thru tapi,ip phones,and even linking sites together) it does a credible job.It simply can not be sold as an advanced PBX.It has no redundancy,lousy diagnostics/alarming,and is simply too "quirky" for me too take it seriously.Keep in mind that I come from the CM world-where THINGS JUST WORK! and bugs/issues are almost non-existent(MM not included).
Also-any application involving analog ports on IPO seems to always be painful(Paging,Bells,etc.)
Devices that are plug and play and walk away on Partner or any other damn phone system in the universe cause a world of pain on IPO.
Proceed with caution and if you have someone in the area with experience to bring in as a consultant it could save you a lot of trouble.
I am terrified that we might actually sell one of these as a Call Center soon-I can't talk the damn sales guy out of it.We will lose money and maybe a customer on that job.
Sorry all of you IPO lovers-I speak the truth.
Adios

 

[SuperJenks]

No offense Victor, I think your view is a bit narrow minded and is based obviously on your own experiences. I have also been supporting and implementing this product since 1.x and yes, it has been a bumpy road, but all in all, its a good product for most customers. However, once in a while, this product is sold to a customer that really needs a CM. Alot of the times we are being asked to simulate or emulate the customers previous system and features because the end users have problem with change, where the IPO is designed with the intensions of tommorows needs and not yesterdays. Every customers needs and situation are different which makes this system appealing because of its flexible architect. If the product is programmed cleanly by a true certified experienced technician, you will find that the system is far more stable than if an non-experienced tech programmed it. There will always be bugs and glitches which is to be expected. I do think that avaya could do a better job testing the software before releasing to the public, but hey, who am I to cast stones.

 

[janni78]

My main opinion is that the IP Office is to easy to setup.
By that I mean that anyone can setup a IPO as a basic phonesystem to a customer.
If you want it to actually work good and include advanced features, you need to know what you're doing, and seeing a lot of other systems, people often cause most of the problems themselves.

 

[aarenot]

Almost all of the complaints I hear from end users that are real complaints not just "it does not work the way I want it to work" are because of the sales guy selling the IPO for something it is not. Staying on the cutting edge(MAINT releases), and away from the bleeding edge(GA releases) relieves the majority of stability, and feature issues that require all the headache work arounds. I have never really had much issue with analog devices, but then I just took the first instance of usage of the like, and learned how to do it the IPO way. I still never use a UPAM as I do not see the need, and almost always use an analog station port for the paging interface. As far as bells go, if I need one, and I have paging connected to the system I just make the bell ring on overhead paging via a WAV file on VMPRO being posted to paging, or another type of sound file.

Do I think the GA releases lack, yes.

 

[TLDuk]

I have been working on this system since its first iteration as the Alchemy range, have been there from the start lived the pain that was 2.1 !! ..

Some people call it quirky, some say its easy to program...

Don`t get me wrong it is a powerfully system but i have lost interest in recent years..

I find the technical documentation inadequate, while i applaud regular software updates i cringe when the phones rings the day after an upgrade, x y z is now not working !!

While the system on the face of it is easy to program it can byte you if your not careful.