Is 3CX a good fit for our environment?

[Brandon Hall]

Hello,

I'm trying to migrate our company to a new PBX and was wondering if 3CX would work well for us. Here's what I'm looking at:

• We use VVX 410s everywhere. We have probably 400 of them at this point and I don't think I'll get approval to replace them in a new system. I see 3CX supports them as "Legacy" but I'm not sure what that means.
  • I don't know what No PnP support means - I get it is plug and play but what does that mean? I have to manually log into each phone and provision it?
  • No STUN support - does that mean I can't provision a VVX phone internally and then give it to a user to use outside of my network? Or that STUN specifically will not work for that and there is another method? Or are we talking major NAT issues as a result of no STUN?
  • No SBC Support - Does this mean I can't do site-to-site calls through our network? What if there is a VPN at each site? I'm guessing then it will traverse network OK. What if there is a 3CX server on each side of the VPN? What about extension dialing at those two sites? Will that work?
  • No Full CTI Support - I get this one but as long as soft phone works OK I don't care too much about CTI unless I'm underestimating its usefulness
  • Manual DST support - does this mean manually changing your phones time each time DST hits? Or just setting it via a setting in the phone manually? Can it just like to an NTP server still?
• SBC Selection
  • We have a number of Sonus SBC1000 and 2000s. I see these aren't a supported option but will they still work and what are the possible downsides of using one? In the end they are just transcoding the same codecs and passing SIP/PRI Traffic.
• AD integration
  • Can users log into the smart phone with AD credentials or is it always via the template file they get emailed? I suppose the latter may actually be easier but was curious to what degree a user can use their Active Directory identity in 3CX
• Mobile integration
  • The app store reviews for 3cx app are pretty bad but most apps have bad reviews for enterprise stuff. Is it better than the reviews state?
• AutoAttendants/Hunt Groups
  • How complex can I go with hunt groups? Can I get full reporting on calls?
  • What about Auto Attendants at a single site and possibly transferring to other auto attendants on other 3CX systems connected by VPN? Is this possible?
• Troubleshooting/Support
  • What does premium support look like with 3CX in the event of a major outage? I haven't found any SLAs anywhere but phones are pretty important in most of our offices.
  • How easy is it to gather SIP logs, call quality reports, device, and user statistics in 3CX GUI?

 

[craigreilly]

AD integration

• Can users log into the smart phone with AD credentials or is it always via the template file they get emailed? I suppose the latter may actually be easier but was curious to what degree a user can use their Active Directory identity in 3CX

Contacts can be imported from AD. Extensions can be created by importing from AD. That is all. Softphones must use provision file.

Mobile integration

• The app store reviews for 3cx app are pretty bad but most apps have bad reviews for enterprise stuff. Is it better than the reviews state?

The latest clients are great. The reviews are likely for older clients, atleast on iOS. CallKit integration is great! Some people would like to see option for CallKit or not. (this means incoming calls appear as a normal cell call and are answered in the same manner.

AutoAttendants/Hunt Groups

• How complex can I go with hunt groups? Can I get full reporting on calls?
• What about Auto Attendants at a single site and possibly transferring to other auto attendants on other 3CX systems connected by VPN? Is this possible?

Have 1 AA for Night time. Not too much experience here. Our hunt groups call other hunt groups if someone doesn't answer. I am sure there is a way to call AA's - and that VPN isn't even a consideration. Just another 3cx Server somewhere that is bridged together.

That is all I can really provide. I do not have a support contract. I can not answer the questions about the legacy phones. We use Grandstream 2130v2 which is not supported at all. But I am able to create a template and auto-provision without issue.

 

[nb]

Dont replace those phones - they are good.
Legacy means that not all features we have for the supported phones are available on polycom. But you dont need those features if you are a polycom admin because you are used to do everything on your own. So dont worry. Nothing changes for you.

PNP means Plug and play - you plug the phone to the network and it takes the file. You can use option 66 instead for polycom.
Stun - These phones do not support stun. You know this by now already. You cannot get a polycom working remotely by magically changing the pbx.
no SBC support - we are adding this.
Phone does not have CTI. You dont care about this.
DST - Im not sure what the concern is here. Where did you see this? I can speak to Polycom about this.

SBC if you have one and you are comfortable to use it, use it. This will get your polycom phones working remotely also.

AD - template will be emailed.

The app reviews mean nothing. We get reviews people that are into cats and dogs. Do you really want to listen to what they say? Some people download the app and think it is viber or whats app. Some people send an email asking me for the configuration file.
Some people used to put their name in the server ip and then write a comment that the application does not work (that was before we locked it down only to 3CX). Some users buy a 70 dollar Samsung with dual sim and complain that the voice is jittery. I mean these type of phones sometimes require you to leave a scratch mark on the display when you scroll..but they dont mention that - they leave a negative review on the app!! Whatever...

The clients are free. The pbx is 8 sim call free. Just try it..

Autoattendant - all possible. Queues.

Troubleshooting: Premium support in case of outage - Check with support. Send an email to [email protected]
Gathering support information - Help > generate support info. (2 clicks and a little wait)

 

[rks]

We had a lot of issues w/ Polycom VVX500's periodically losing registration to 3CX. We spent 3 months trying to fix these issues and ended up losing the customer to FreePBX.

 

[nb]

Very sorry for this. how in 3 months we did not find the issue? Do you know now what the problem was or it is still a mystery?
Were the polycoms remote? (Was there an SBC in the middle)
We have a perfect polycom template in the build and if they are provisioned with the 3CX Template, everything should work immediately.