Andrew D Kirch Posted May 23, 2007 Report Share Posted May 23, 2007 There are days when it doesn't pay to get out of bed. It is my job to support PBXnSIP installations, and the people using them. That isn't so bad until I have to do things like write documentation on the star codes in a user-comprehensible manner, documentation I feel should already exist. Repeated requests for PBXnSIP documentation in this forum from many people, and notes from VAR's that they've had to create their own should be a wakeup call. PBXnSIP does _not_ have the installation base to compete with Asterisk, and Digum if it's going to be a "just as good", or "not quite as good" solution. PBXnSIP is not open source, and since I'm paying for it there is no impetus to give back the work I'm doing which should have already been done for a commercial product. PBXnSIP is not going to be viable if I'm paying thousands of dollars for a platform which has less documentation than Asterisk. PBXnSIP is a convergance of computing and telephones which means it needs twice the documentation. It needs users guides which are comprehensible for someone who has never used a PBX. It needs instructions for the web interface for the users. It needs the nice cheat cards that come with Avaya, Nortel, Panasonic, Cisco, and Alcatel. All these companies provide extensive administrative and customer documentation. All these companies are also making a ton of money. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, of course applies here. If I am going to need it to sell PBXnSIP to the customer, PBXnSIP needs to provide it. Pre-install questionaires explaining PBXnSIP's features. Word templates for documenting the phone system layout and features which are customer specific, with fields for things like extensions list, and hunt group/agent group lists without ever having to make that technical distinction to the user. Please figure out what your competition is doing right if you want their customers, or don't, and they'll take yours away from you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodia PBX Posted May 23, 2007 Report Share Posted May 23, 2007 Agree. We need to work on telling people what features we have, otherwise they are of no value. Did anybody see http://www.pbxnsip.com/download/flyer070522.pdf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hosted Posted May 27, 2007 Report Share Posted May 27, 2007 Agree. We need to work on telling people what features we have, otherwise they are of no value. Did anybody see http://www.pbxnsip.com/download/flyer070522.pdf? teach no.. but a nice administrator manual would be cool. asterisk doesnt have good documentation they have a good wiki. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodia PBX Posted May 28, 2007 Report Share Posted May 28, 2007 We have a manual, which is a little bit outdated, but just a little bit. http://www.pbxnsip.com/download/admin_manual_201.pdf. Maybe it is time to update it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vodia PBX Posted June 4, 2007 Report Share Posted June 4, 2007 We also took a snapshot of the user manual from the Wiki. It is available at http://www.pbxnsip.com/download/user_manual_203.pdf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimB Posted June 28, 2007 Report Share Posted June 28, 2007 There are days when it doesn't pay to get out of bed. It is my job to support PBXnSIP installations, and the people using them. That isn't so bad until I have to do things like write documentation on the star codes in a user-comprehensible manner, documentation I feel should already exist. Repeated requests for PBXnSIP documentation in this forum from many people, and notes from VAR's that they've had to create their own should be a wakeup call. PBXnSIP does _not_ have the installation base to compete with Asterisk, and Digum if it's going to be a "just as good", or "not quite as good" solution. PBXnSIP is not open source, and since I'm paying for it there is no impetus to give back the work I'm doing which should have already been done for a commercial product. PBXnSIP is not going to be viable if I'm paying thousands of dollars for a platform which has less documentation than Asterisk. PBXnSIP is a convergance of computing and telephones which means it needs twice the documentation. It needs users guides which are comprehensible for someone who has never used a PBX. It needs instructions for the web interface for the users. It needs the nice cheat cards that come with Avaya, Nortel, Panasonic, Cisco, and Alcatel. All these companies provide extensive administrative and customer documentation. All these companies are also making a ton of money. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, of course applies here. If I am going to need it to sell PBXnSIP to the customer, PBXnSIP needs to provide it. Pre-install questionaires explaining PBXnSIP's features. Word templates for documenting the phone system layout and features which are customer specific, with fields for things like extensions list, and hunt group/agent group lists without ever having to make that technical distinction to the user. Please figure out what your competition is doing right if you want their customers, or don't, and they'll take yours away from you. Boy you nailed this one, documentation for this product is weak and relying on this forum for real support is a joke. It's nice when people reply but there really is not much from the pbxnsip admin. The big advantage with this product over Asterisk was SLA when selling a key system replacement. But now Asterisk 1.4.5 supports SLA and is way more flexible than pbxnsip. Also when you pay for a 25 user license it should be 25 extensions, counting trunks and AA as licenses is wrong. Just my opinion! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hosted Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 Boy you nailed this one, documentation for this product is weak and relying on this forum for real support is a joke. It's nice when people reply but there really is not much from the pbxnsip admin. The big advantage with this product over Asterisk was SLA when selling a key system replacement. But now Asterisk 1.4.5 supports SLA and is way more flexible than pbxnsip. Also when you pay for a 25 user license it should be 25 extensions, counting trunks and AA as licenses is wrong. Just my opinion! now days it is just extensions.. which is nice the old 1.5 model sucked. The main reason why we sell pbxnsip is because its not asterisk. We have installed probably about 100 asterisk systems and for small deployments its nice. but small deployments want a key system. medium to large installation you run the risk of a crappy system. When FreePBX gets up to offer SLA then that will solve the small deployments. But the thing is, pbxnsip is a better written program. its a LOT more stable than asterisk. asterisk is just getting around to TLS and SIP over TCP. But pbxnsip being a commercial product should not even have a wiki (IMHO). I like it cause im a geek but to get mainstream with telecom companies they are not geeks. Only open source people use wiki's. A super nice Installation manual that you can leave with the customer would rule. and a Trifold flier for the end users would rule even more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keven Vachon Kiptel Posted July 31, 2007 Report Share Posted July 31, 2007 I agree with all comments here , need docs seriously , this is why I'm back to big boys like panasonic . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hosted Posted September 9, 2007 Report Share Posted September 9, 2007 I agree with all comments here , need docs seriously , this is why I'm back to big boys like panasonic . yuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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