atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information New to the PBX world & need some love!

Hey guys, new member here and looking for some insight.

I just started as IT Manager/Systems Admin for a mid sized company. The previous IT guy had been in the position since the 80's and had no training what-so-ever and basically paid other people to do his job for him. Needless to say, the company infrastructure is lacking in a lot of areas. One of them being the netowrk and phone system. We currently have an Intertel Axxess at our main site and random crap systems at the other 5 locations. As the Axxess system is no longer being supportsed for parts and support, I have signed a deal to get us a new Mitel 3000 installed and also tie all the remote sites into the same network and phone system.

So, my question...

I am green when it comes to phone systems and have been asked to do some homework by the vendor to get things rolling. One of them being to take a look at the existing call routing and get a good idea of what we wanted to do with the new system.

I have no idea how to even begin looking at the current config, let alone trying to come up with a viable new configuration.

The old IT guy left absolutely no documentation and I have been digging to find information on how to get into alot of the systems and on and on.

Is there a way to export the current configuration to like a visio document, or some other routing format that is easy to understand.

I did negotiate a training session to fully understand the new Mitel Solution, but I need to figure out this one first.

I have a lot more questions, but this is a good start. Thanks for the help ahead of time guys (and gals?)

Casey

Yes there are several gals here :0

You may need to have who ever worked on the Intertel before to get you the info they want. Or get a new Intertel qualified person in to get the pertinent information. What is 100-200 dollars compared to the cost of this new system? It may be the best investment made for this whole project.
Using the Installers Link I found 2 Intertel dealers in the St. Paul area https://www.sundance-communications...ed_States/Minnesota/Minneapolis-St_Paul/
You may want to give them a try,
Also you may get more Specific responses by posting in the Intertel forum.

The call routing would be if someone from the outside dials 555-555-5555 what do you want it to do. Does it go to an Auto Attendant? Does it go to a customer service ring group? Does it just ring an individual phone.
Depending on the number of lines you might be able to determine what each incoming call does just by dialing each one.

With a new networked system, there will also be much more flexibility in the inbound calls as well as outbound calls.
This would be a good time to start from scratch. Determine the capabilities of the new system, sit down with the vendor and your management and design how you would want it to work now and into the future.
To recreate what you have now is easy, but you will be losing a lot of what a new system has to offer.
Having additional sites opens up a whole other dimension to what you will be able to do.

Good luck with that You may get a nice overview, but to fully understand it might take months or years.
Welcome Aboard.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Inter-Tel!

To answer your question, no, you can’t export the configuration. You’re definitely on the right track, documenting everything. I have a “run book” for every site that shows call routing down to the smallest detail. It’s investment in time up front, but the payoff is huge down the road.

Are you really sure that the 3000 is the path you want to take? If you’re really serious about networking six sites, the 5000 would be the correct platform.

All systems can be crap if not installed correctly. Then there is the issue of training. But to echo the general feel of the previous posts, get a trained tech to look at what you have. People pay good money for consultants but a certified tech can be worth his (or her) weight in gold.

Yes I hope 3000 was a typo...

To give you a general idea of what you're looking for:

You need a complete list of users and their current extensions, sorted by locations. Also:

Presumably your system has certain features, such as DID (direct inward dialing, i.e. you own a block a numbers, and can assign them to ring at different desks. You will want to know what DID blocks you have. You can learn this from the phone bills and by asking the Telco. You will also want to know where they ring. You can learn this by experimenting and going through the range with a checklist.

Presumably, your systems connect to each other. For example, if a user dials 8+ [an extension in another office] it may ring in Omaha, and 7+ [an Extension] may ring in Passaic. Find out what people do in order to contact the various other offices. You can discover what kind of lines connect the offices (dry pair, OPX, centrex, T-1, POTS, etc.) by looking at the phone bills.

You may have a call-center, where callers hear, "Thank you for calling, your call will be answered by the next available agent," etc. -- you need to know the numbers which call this call center (i.e. 800-555-1212 rings the widget sales loop, and 800-750-1414 rings the widget repair group). It will be helpful to know what DNIS the telco sends for any 800 numbers that ring in (these are digits the telco uses to tell you who's calling and what they want. The telco can tell you the DNIS digits).

You should also know what happens to callers who aren't answered in the call center(s) -- i.e., after 10 minutes they overflow from widget sales to widget repair, or to an operator, etc.

If you have T-1s or PRIs, you need to know whether they are AMI/D4 or B8ZS/SF/ESF. If you have a PRI, you need to know the ISDN protocol, which will probably be DMS, National, or NI-2. NI-2 has always worked best for me.

In general, ask yourself, "If I am trying to do x, what happens step-by-step until my call is completed and I hang up?"

Your 3000 course will give you a certain amount of insight into the issues (tie trunks, ACD/UCD, call progress, etc.), but don't be afraid to ask silly questions.

It would be worth your while, and will save you a lot of WTF moments, if you waylay a local phone guy and bribe him to teach you "the color code" and basic phone wiring. Otherwise, when the instructor talks about black/green-green/black you might wonder what the office decor has to do with telephony. A good bribe is a steak dinner, and a few potables.

Enjoy.

I have helped deploy many systems. Most have been pretty easy. A few took months of plannning, many conference calls, and piles of paper. Even after that, there were a couple things that got missed until the day of deployment. Expect things to get missed.

I think you should start with the basics. As a lot of information has already been mentions, I will also say, you need to get a complete list of phone numbers. Also, as mentions, what kind of lines, analog, T1, PRI. It is probabaly time to get to know your phone carrier.

If you could dump the old phone systems configuration, it probabaly would not be something you would be able to easily understand. A local tech that know the system could probabaly help.

Tome to open up Excel and (optionally) Visio and start creating some new documentation.

You know one of the best resources to you? The people that use the phones. All the employees that make and recieve calls can really help define the call flow. Sit by the operator to see how she handles the calls. Find out about private numbers and fax lines.

As also mentions, it will be a good time to find out if your current call handling method is working, or if there are ways to improve it.Talk to your own employees and department managers. A new system may offer a ton of new features, but if not properly deployed, it can make things a nightmare for you.

Just realized he could also mean the Mitel 3300 system...totally different.

Thanks for the input guys.

Yes, it was a typo, I meant the 3300. It was between the 5000 and the 3300 and I decided on the 3300 for virtualization.

I had 3000 in my head as that is one of the systems at one of the locations now.

We currently have no connectivity between the sites but will have in this project. We call long distance between the sites right now.

We will have a PRI and a T1 at the main site and a T1 at all the remote sites. Also, one of the remote sites will have a cable feed as a 3rd redundant feed for the entire system.

I have already started gathering the data types you guys have mentioned and have driven about 1000 miles hopping from location to location getting more aquainted with the existing setups.

I agree on the starting from scratch idea, that is what I am trying to do with alot of things around here.

So, some additional questions...

I was attempting to through together a rough flow chart of what I wanted, but then realized that this could be challanging now that we have 6 locations on the same phone system.

Am I allowed to use the numbers 1-6 in a call menu if 1000-6000 are extension numbers? Currently, our extension numbers all begin with a 1 and was thinking to make each location the subsuquent range.

I dont want to clutter up the auto attendant as far as options, but how do you handle multiple locations and departments (with hunt groups)?

I have been looking around for some examples that others have done with very little luck. Does anyone have something generic or iplemented I could take a peek at?

Thanks again guys!

Definitely don’t use 1 through 6 for extension numbers. If you do, your numbering plan is screwed before you even get started. Instead, 11xx for site one, 12xx for site 2, etc. will leave you enough room from growth. I’m guessing that you have less than 100 stations per site, but obviously I could be wrong.

As to the auto attendant, it really depends on what your needs are. Will callers need to dial a main number and get routed to various sites, or will there be DIDs? Figure out what you really need to accomplish before worrying about how to get it done.

Six networked sites is really no big deal. Work with your vendor on a comprehensive number plan first thing. Extension numbers, feature codes, hunt groups, phantoms, voice mail applications, page zones, trunk groups all need to be carefully thought out. I did a couple of installs for national accounts where they had no plan, and they just added devices randomly. Not fun.

I currently have 40 networked Inter-Tel sites, with another half-dozen going on line this year. If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be to plan big. If you never grow larger, no big deal; the other way around is much harder.

I can email you templates that I use, if you think it would be helpful.