Disappointed - Music on Hold**IDEAS.3CX.COM

[SY]

...
1. My administrative assistant can manage the music as CD, radio, marketing materials without ever touching your admin console. This is big. The person who manages the phone system is not always going to be the person managing the MOH.
...
3. If I really wanted to, I could write my own audio management routines for my linein source.
...

Hi Leon,

It is the idea I have waited for!
It flied in the air, but you are the first who formulated it.
Could you please publish it on ideas.3CX.com?
Thanks a lot for the valuable comment

 

[igor.snezhko]

http://3cx.ideascale.com/a/dtd/MOH-Live-Stream-Ability/82355-9854

 

[smb1]

Looks like that feature request has hit the nail on the head. 74 votes so far.

 

[SY]

Looks like that feature request has hit the nail on the head. 74 votes so far.

Leon has described the idea far more clear than it has been described in the most of previous comments (in this topic, in the topic which was deleted on the site, and in the topic which has 74 votes)

the distinction is:
1. Nothing about technical details.
2. No any conclusions about the belief of 3CX staff
3. No any conclusions about trend on MOH market
4. Just clear and simple description of required functionality

 

[captivateglobal]

Leon has described the idea far more clear than it has been described in the most of previous comments (in this topic, in the topic which was deleted on the site, and in the topic which has 74 votes)

add a live stream so that many users could use their existing music on hold hardware systems that have been created and tuned for their businesses

I must admit, I'm heavily cynical of these comments. As you can see, the MoH idea itself is as clear as day can be. It should be markedly evident that using an 'existing music on hold hardware system' will allow administrative assistants to manage the content.

Anyone who has ever run or been involved in a business that needs to use Music on Hold would know this, and I think that's what surprises so many people, that a phone system developer could have such little regard for a bread-and-butter feature.

I understand there is some communication barrier here, but I find it hard to believe that over the hundreds of posts on the forum in regards to MoH that you were unable to gauge that people wanted to plug in a player or use an external live source. Regardless of the business reasons behind it:

1. My administrative assistant can manage the music as CD, radio, marketing materials without ever touching your admin console. This is big. The person who manages the phone system is not always going to be the person managing the MOH.
3. If I really wanted to, I could write my own audio management routines for my linein source.

There is no new feature definition here, just a great explanation of one of the reasons why live MoH is used industry-wide. It's a bit odd to see that hundreds of posts across many years fail to make a case clearer than a single post, but I'm glad that you now understand what is required.

What is the next step, SY? Will you be implementing this idea now that Leon has convinced you of it's worth? You only need scour the forums or idea board to see that there is plenty of demand for it. I ask this because I have a bunch of 3CX clients and resellers eagerly awaiting our live on-hold services and I'd love to be able to give them some update as to what they can expect from 3CX.

 

[igor.snezhko]

If we go into Live Stream MOH, 3CX must provide some sort of virtual audio card, so Winamp will stream to it.

Or I am missing something?

 

[instantexpert]

If we go into Live Stream MOH, 3CX must provide some sort of virtual audio card, so Winamp will stream to it.

Or I am missing something?

Igor,

I think that is a useful feature but I'd hate to see 3CX developers get bogged down into all of the possible variations of audio sources in an initial implementation. Given that line in is just an audio source, this might do what you're looking for: http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm NOTE: I know nothing about this product other than I found it on Google.

Leon

 

[igor.snezhko]

Yes, this is Virtual Audio Cable. But 3CX have to "plug" it into 3CX Media Server. Here is a trick

 

[kylejoe1]

Looking in from the outside, we currently use a 13 year old Avaya PBX; um...3CX programmers....there needs to be a way to insert marketing announcements within the MOH period CAUSE AVAYA HAS IT! so listen to your forum members.

We also have seen the un-professional comments on this forum and via email, Nick needs to appoint a moderator/project manager and keep the programmers chilled and at work making the tweaks we need. With 3CX very close to a pretty nice system, the members are avid supporters and just want the best out of what COULD be the BEST. Don't pi$$ em off.

We'll hold with Avaya until v10 SPXX supports Citrix/Terminal Services for MyPhone (ticked CRM does not work with Outlook 2002/XP but what can you do) and the above item. Not much more missing from our perspective.

 

[captivateglobal]

We've given up trying to get an improvement from 3CX, and have decided to start offering the work-around solution we have developed for 3CX.

The solution is an automated service which provides transcoded files managed by our delivery platform and the content produced by our studio. This means that 3CX can offer a Music on Hold service that can be easily updated, which will change daily (or even more often).

We can't get around the part where 3CX plays from the start every time; but we can replace that file a few times every day with a different promotion at the start. The service establishes as close to a 'live feed' as possible for the customer with 3CX.

We feel it is unfortunate that we have to offer this service, which is specifically designed for 3CX. We have had this in operation on a number of 3CX clients for 6+months, however we feel it is not up to the standard of our 'live' solution, i.e. those you would find in systems like kylejoe1's.

So; we will be offering this 3CX solution to all 3CX customers and resellers (including a remuneration package for resellers) with the promise of a discounted or free upgrade to the 'live' solution if and when 3CX release their MoH updates.

For more about our solution for 3CX check out our site at http://www.captivateglobal.com/ and lodge an enquiry - or send me a PM, we would be glad to assist any 3CX integrator with their MoH requirements - for those in Australia we can offer daily local weather, news etc as part of the on hold service; we are currently looking for a partner for this in the USA.

 

[nb]

3CX, when it plays moh, does not start from the beginning in call. It continues from where it was kept on hold.

Of course it starts from the beginning when a new call is made into the system. This is acceptable I think. When you call your bank, you hear the music on hold from the start always.

captivateglobal = good job. This is perfect what you did. And we encourage it. We cannot cope with all the features that are asked from us due to the high demand of users currently using 3CX. Its impossible.

kylejoe1 - If you are using an installation of 10 years ago - what do you expect? Of course it does not work with Outlook 2000 or whatever you have there? You can call it whatever you like. from a Microsoft registry perspective that is Outlook 2000 - just a different released name. About time you upgrade I think. We happen to support 3 full versions of outlook - 2003, 2007 2010. That is unsupported and will remain - why? because it is simply very very old.

 

[captivateglobal]

captivateglobal = good job. This is perfect what you did. And we encourage it. We cannot cope with all the features that are asked from us due to the high demand of users currently using 3CX. Its impossible.

Thanks nickybrg. We have had this solution for a long time, as we had to deliver to a client and could not wait for any help from 3CX. It does give the customer's caller a much better music on hold - depending on how often the caller rings, they might never hear the same MoH, as each time they call it's random from 5 files, and those files are replaced every day.

We could even 'turn it up a notch' and replace the files multiple times a day, randomizing the order in which the promotions play, making it so a caller would probably never hear the same thing twice.

If there's enough interest for it, we might release a stand-alone application of which you can supply with some files and have it do this 'randomization'. As it stands, however, it's just another way of delivering the quality service we pride ourselves on.

I truly hope that one day 3CX will support a line-in or form of streaming music on hold, as I believe we are the only provider of professional on-hold services who can deliver a dynamic service to 3CX.

Looking in from the outside, we currently use a 13 year old Avaya PBX; um...3CX programmers....there needs to be a way to insert marketing announcements within the MOH period CAUSE AVAYA HAS IT! so listen to your forum members.

It certainly wouldn't make sense for 3CX to develop support for a product that was taken off the shelves before 3CX was a pipedream, but it sounds like you know this. I share the same hope of you for MoH to be improved; but I don't hold out much hope.

We can deliver a workable MoH service with the aforementioned solution, so perhaps 3CX will just leave it at that - or perhaps they will open up a live-feed MoH so MoH providers other than us can deliver to 3CX. Either way we are going to stop pressing the issue, and start pushing our solution instead.

 

[nb]

Yes in the meantime we are working on a pipe where you can create a pipe in .net and as moh put for example FILENAME.pipe.
The pipe channel on the server will feed 3CX media server with music on hold. more details will be coming on the way.

Its not that we do not listen - we listen and take features seriously. As you know telephony is so vast and business A differs so much than Business B. Still they both need a phone system and whatever you do, it is impossible to please everything and everyone.

If you are a developer and would like more details on the pipe let me know and at the end of the week we will discuss - contact me via email. We are working on a new update so I got to go Thanks

 

[kylejoe1]

kylejoe1 - If you are using an installation of 10 years ago - what do you expect? Of course it does not work with Outlook 2000 or whatever you have there? You can call it whatever you like. About time you upgrade I think. That is unsupported and will remain - why? because it is simply very very old.

Like I said, unprofessional responses.

nickybrg, I wish we could, tell my boss we need to upgrade, economy isn't in the best of shape to just fork out $50K to upgrade 150 users to Outlook 2003 just to get Outlook Popup for 3CX; Internet Explorer and our CRM application still works with "whatever we have here".

Anyway, back to the point/thread topic...once you allow announcements within MOH, let us know and we'll test. Hopefully v.11?

Below is vector from our OLD Avaya system that has true MOH and "3" marketing announcements once a caller is placed in queue.

-----

01 queue-to skill 1 pri m
02 announcement 7839
03 wait-time 5 secs hearing music
04
05
06 announcement 7840
07 wait-time 20 secs hearing music
08 announcement 7842
09 wait-time 30 secs hearing music
10 announcement 7839
11 wait-time 10 secs hearing music
12
13
14 announcement 7840
15 wait-time 30 secs hearing music
16 announcement 7842
17 goto step 10 if unconditionally
18 stop

 

[SY]

Gentlemans,

3CX Programmers are very disappointed.
Almost each comment which is posted in this topic discusses theirs "professionalism". Is it a new trend of the courteous discussions?
I have a simple question to you:
Do you really expect that such kind of comments can speed up realization of the feature?

Thanks

 

[igor.snezhko]

This happens from misunderstanding.

MOH is a standard feature of most of PBX'es (for decades!!), and when people hear that this is "not needed", "not important", "cannot be implemented" whey really thing that 3CX Team is little slow-learning

If 3CX things that MOH is not important, they have to clearly explain this point of view and open a discussion.

 

[nb]

Stepan - do not waste more time on this thread. Not worth the trouble - We have other things to worry about.

 

[captivateglobal]

Just wondering where this is at. I've had a couple of resellers contact me asking when they can expect a full live MoH service to offer to their customers/potentials.

It's been marked as In Progress but I haven't heard anything back from Nicky since our emails some 2 months ago. Does anyone know the status of this feature addition?

 

[KerryG]

3CX does not discuss release dates or ETAs. They have publicly stated that a solution is under development and that is the only answer you are going to get from them. While I wish 3CX would post a public roadmap so we knew what to expect, that is just not going to happen in the near future so all you can tell anyone is that "it is currently under development for an upcoming release" as that is the information you have been given.

 

[andrewbucklin]

Yes in the meantime we are working on a pipe where you can create a pipe in .net and as moh put for example FILENAME.pipe.
The pipe channel on the server will feed 3CX media server with music on hold. more details will be coming on the way.

Its not that we do not listen - we listen and take features seriously. As you know telephony is so vast and business A differs so much than Business B. Still they both need a phone system and whatever you do, it is impossible to please everything and everyone.

If you are a developer and would like more details on the pipe let me know and at the end of the week we will discuss - contact me via email. We are working on a new update so I got to go Thanks

Just demo'ed the 3CX features to a client who owns a radio station. They really like it, but they would like the caller to be able to listen to their radio station while on hold, rather than standard music on hold.

Makes sense; you don't want the caller to have their radio on in the background when waiting on hold to go on air live; there is a horrible echo. And you don't want people that are calling in and are on hold with their "answer" for the content to continue to sit on hold even after someone before them gave the correct answer and the contest is over. I could go on, and I'm sure there are other reasons to have this for other industries, but this is just one I ran into today.

Whether you implement it via a streaming MMS protocol or something simple like the "line-in", it's a feature that I think would make an awesome PBX even better.