MyPhone Beta 2 Feedback

[fhcraig]

We have been looking closely at 3CX as a replacement to an aging ShoreTel system. One of the most user friendly ShoreTel tools is the Call Manager client - both for individual Users as well as for Operators/Receptionists. The V9 3CX Call Assistant / User Portal combo looked like it would do a good job of replacing this functionality. Once I heard that V10 was combining and replacing these tools with MyPhone, I was anxious to see how would this compare.

After some initial evaluation, we find a number of areas in the V10 MyPhone that lack functionality or could use some improvement. In some places the V9 tools were actually more capable! Caveat - this is based on a fairly preliminary review and I may well have missed something or gotten something wrong. This is also a "mash up" of V10 specific issues and "wish list" items that were not in V9 either!

Drag & Drop Call Handling - This ability appears to have totally disappeared from the V9 Call Assistant? For our Operators / Receptionists, the ability to drag & drop calls to transfer them to the extension list is a really big deal! In V10 MyPhone, it appears the only way to transfer calls is by invoking the Transfer function (either via right click or the Transfer button) and then typing in an actual extension number. With a large number of extensions, this is clumsy and non-intuitive! It does not even appear to be possible to type in part of a user name in the Transfer dialog box to filter for the correct extension. The only way to transfer is to know the actual extension number before you initiate the transfer? Drag & Drop transfer is much more efficient!

Transfer Look Up By Name - As noted above, users need the ability to search on partial name when transferring calls. Requiring an extension number is a step backward.

Call Transfer Display - When we make a transfer with MyPhone, the original call appears to stay in the Calls list instead of disappearing once the transfer is accepted. Physical transfers with the handset display correctly.

Extension Sorting - This has been brought up before. With larger numbers of users, the Extension list needs to be sortable by Last Name! The current options to sort by Extension Number or by First Name are not very useful. Oddly, the V10 MyPhone Phone Book gets this right (sortable by all columns)? This is a big deal (the same is true in the 3CX Extension Management interface!).

Extension Display Window - With larger numbers of users, it is critical to be able to see as many Extensions displayed at a time as possible! The V9 Call Assistant did a reasonable job of maximizing the potential display area for Extensions. The V10 MyPhone screen only gives a small window within each Extension Group to display actual Extensions, and it limits the scrollable region to 8 1/2 entries at a time. This is really inefficient with larger numbers of users! Resizing the MyPhone window does not help since this part of the display will not expand, and the list of Extension Groups eats up a lot of the available real estate. We need to be able to see a lot more Extensions at one time!

User Selectable Extension Display - This is one feature we will miss from the ShoreTel Call Manager! In their Operator / Receptionist interface, the Extension list that was displayed was completely customizable. The visible Extension list could be limited to just applicable Extensions. We can replicate this roughly with Extension Groups, bit it is still quite a bit clumsier.

Phone Book Scrolling - The Phone Book needs to display all entries in a scrollable list. With larger Phone Books, having to Page through entries is clumsy.

Outlook Screen Pop - This is a feature that we use extensively, but the way it is implemented in V10, we may not use it at all! Having the Outlook screen pop for incoming calls that are not matched is incorrect behavior. It results in all internal extension-to-extension calls automatically generating a blank Outlook screen pop. Outlook should only pop up if there is a number match. If you want to allow adding unknown numbers to Outlook, then this should be a right click option from the Call History.

There is a lot we really, really like in 3CX (that would be a very long list)! The MyPhone application is being asked to cover an awful lot of functional ground, however, and it needs some improvement. For us it represents a step backward in a number of areas - especially for our users that have to manage incoming any call volume. With all that being said, we will definitely be a customer and look forward to the future evolution of the system.

Regards -
Rick Craig

 

[nb]

THank you for your comments. Very good points were mentioned.

Drag & Drop Call Handling - We will see this in the future. We had structural problems doing this on silverlight.

Transfer Look Up By Name - This is important and planned in the future release.

Call Transfer Display - We will check this.

Extension Sorting - This is sorted.

Extension Display Window - We are discussing this. We will increase the space for sure.

User Selectable Extension Display - A bit hard at this point. Lets see how the current interface works for us and we will see.

Phone Book Scrolling - We will try and make a filter for this. You have a point.

Outlook Screen Pop - We will be adding more functionality. However shouldn't your outlook contacts have your internal colleagues details?

Thanks again for the feedback.

 

[smb1]

Nicky,

Can you clarify what timeframe for drag & drop call transfers? Are you referring to by V10 RTM or later?

On the Outlook screen pop, for company staff in an Exchange environment the contact info could be in the global address list and not contacts. Is there a reasonably easy way to have the GAL be included in the pop-up lookup list?

 

[nb]

Drag and drop is not in our control. Silverlight has its own fair share of issues. We prefer to disable drag and drop than having an application that consumes a lot of cpu usage. You will be notified when the drag and drop feature will be available by subscribing to the 3CX Blog and when we release this support, you will know. Until that time I think it is fully operable as it is.

About outlook and exchange, this is just like any other contact folder correct? Pulblic address book lists will be treated just like any other contact folder list - So yes, all the folders you will select will be available for contact matching. We have not tested with exchange for now in the beta stage. But we will support this environment

 

[fhcraig]

Nicky -

Thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately until a number of these issues get addressed, V10 is a non starter fro us. While I understand the benefits of a browser / Silverlight based version of MyPhone, it seriously restricts your ability to present a complex, feature rich interface. As a "personal" call manager, this is a great tool. For companies or individuals managing a large number of extensions, it is too limited as it stands now. FYI, the way this is handled by other solutions is to offer a different tool for "Operators" or Department Admins - the V9 3CX Assistant came close to this.

A couple of clarifications to my "list":

Extension Sorting - Unless I'm missing something obvious, the only 2 options to sort Extensions are by Extension Number (the default) or by "Name" (consisting of First Name + Last Name). When Name is selected, it causes the sort to happen on the First Name field, not the last name field (since you are concatenating the 2 fields). This is the same behavior we see in the Management Console. Sorting on First Name is not helpful! It needs to sort on last name which means the First Name and Last Name really need to be split back apart (like they are in the Phone Book).

Presence Information - The big value in real time presence information is when it can be viewed immediately - no scrolling up and down, expanding / collapsing, etc.. This requires the ability to present a fairly large number of Extensions simultaneously and/or the ability to present a reasonably sized list of customized Extensions. Basically this is the electronic version of a Sidecar. A user that manages a large number of incoming calls or is responsible for a large Team can see all the applicable Extensions immediately and has an immediate awareness of presence.

Outlook Pop On Unidentified Numbers - We are fairly typical of most larger companies. All our internal users / extensions are not contained in Outlook! When I get called from extension #### it has not corresponding entry in Outlook and generates a blank screen pop. The same is true for external numbers with no caller ID, numbers that come from outbound trunks, etc. Generally, the majority of incoming calls do not actually generate "matchable" caller ID information. For those that do, the Outlook pop is very helpful! But since I get a blank pop more often than a "hit", it becomes more annoying than helpful.

Thanks again for taking such serious interest in user feedback! It clearly shows in the current features of your product.

Regards -
Rick

 

[nb]

Hi

I do not think we are going to have any problems on this - as in the stuff you mention are going to be addressed. We understand the need for them.

Sorting - this is available for download at the moment. Download the latest version Beta 2 and you will get it. Download from the 3CX Website.

Presence information - we are working on this. to try and fit in as many extensions as we can. this will come later.

About outlook popup unidentified numbers- so what do you propose? When unidentified do not show popup? What if you want to add this and save this number in outlook?
Lets face it - If client X calls me he can call me from his office, mobile, etc. These numbers will not change often for Mr X. Then there is the problem where the cid does not come correct, In this case there is a problem with the telco not sending it. Why should we not display the popup in this case? How can we know when to display it and when not?

offer a solution - I want to see what you come up with in this scenario. Question for you is this.
How can we identify a blank popup that you want to popup so you save it and will get matched after the next time this person calls, and on the other hand, how to identify a "bad" blank popup which annoys you and you do not want to see on your screen?

Also can you explain to me why the employees contact extension details are not saved in your outlook?

 

[fhcraig]

Nicky -

I have no doubts that your team will be able to fit in as much as they can in the next release! The challenge will be to try to have one unified tool (MyPhone) satisfy everyone. There is a lot in the interface that works really well!

On Outlook screen pops, I can describe how our current ShoreTel Call Manager client works. If a CallerID matches a number in Outlook, it will pop the Contact (if that option is enabled). If it does not match, it doesn't do anything. If we want to add the CallerID information to Outlook as a new Contact, there is a right click option from the Call History.

In reality, most users disable the Outlook screen pop completely, because the ShoreTel Call Manager app actually reads the Outlook Contacts on start-up and will display the matching CallerID information directly in the incoming call if there is a match! This is actually very efficient because the critical caller information shows in the Call Manager app and there is one less screen pop to deal with.

In our scenario with 3CX, assuming that MyPhone doesn't directly display matching Contact information directly, we would only want to see Outlook pop if there was a match (or at least a 7 digit match). The process of adding a new Contact (or updating an existing Contact with a new number) is relatively rare, so we would prefer to see it handled a different way (like a right click option from Call History).

Does this make sense? It would be easier to show than to describe, but I'll help any way I can.

Regards - Rick

 

[nb]

Point taken - Of course rome was not built in a day.
And after the final release there will be service pack updates so at one point we will be able to review these. I agree that a popup on each new unmatched call will be irritating.

 

[acolville]

I have been looking at the new desktop myphone. This appears to be a good move forward for our users, but a big step backwards for our receptionists.

These two user groups have very different needs and it is difficult to achieve a good app for both users.

In particular we have multiple PBX's (3). Each site has a receptionist. They have staggered shifts and operate as receptionist for the whole company ie all 3 sites.

Prior to V9, we used to have a separate monitor on their PC with three copies of the assistant running – one for each PBX. This allowed presence to be used, but transfers had to be complete via the phone.
In V9, progress was made, with tabs for each site – drag and drop between sites did not work.
Now in V10, we appear to have lost the tabs (I f they are available let me know how to set them up). So we are back the functionality of V8

Without support for multiple PBX’s we cannot move to V10.

 

[nb]

We understand this - planning to do this in next upcoming versions. Something definitely in the roadmap.

You can open 3 myphones in tabs in the browser but you will not be able to see them sim. (Even the V9 assistant was like this)

If you want to install locally, you can open 3 MyPhone installed locally next to each other.

 

[power1]

MyPhones missing ability to log into multiple extensions is a BIG deal and will prevent us from upgrading any of our existing 3CX installs. Is there any away to get 3CX assistant to work with v10?

"We understand this - planning to do this in next upcoming versions. Something definitely in the roadmap. "
Then why are you removing it at all?

"You can open 3 myphones in tabs in the browser but you will not be able to see them sim. (Even the V9 assistant was like this)"
Some of our receptionists have 6 connections in 3CX assistant! They will kill me if they have to open 6 MyPhones and log into each 1 separately every time.

 

[nbailey]

MyPhones missing ability to log into multiple extensions is a BIG deal and will prevent us from upgrading any of our existing 3CX installs. Is there any away to get 3CX assistant to work with v10?

nope sorry Assistant is gone and will not work with V10.

"We understand this - planning to do this in next upcoming versions. Something definitely in the roadmap. "
Then why are you removing it at all?

functionality, Assistant and MyPhone are two different beasts so to speak, as Nicky said "it is Something definitely in the roadmap".

"You can open 3 myphones in tabs in the browser but you will not be able to see them sim. (Even the V9 assistant was like this)"
Some of our receptionists have 6 connections in 3CX assistant! They will kill me if they have to open 6 MyPhones and log into each 1 separately every time.

Remember me and start at boot up, problem solved until this is implemented.

Nicky says it all when he says:

I do not think we are going to have any problems on this - as in the stuff you mention are going to be addressed. We understand the need for them.