Ok... Let's talk about 3CX, your company and your model

[Cloverlick]

First... 3CX ... great product. Solid foundation. Reliable protocol. Well done...

Now... I giveth, and I taketh away...

Forums (in general)
I DESPISE forum-based support. I do not want to search and scroll through 2347987 subjective opinions about

 

[Mirzab]

Colorful but seems accurate.

Colorful but seems accurate.

 

[Anonymous]

LOL,

Colorful for sure, accurate.... well only till some extend.


Forums (in general)
When you buy the software you should have direct mail support, so no need to use the forum.

want someone to ANSWER THE @#$%%@# PHONE

True but you know that up front and you have the option to choose between 3CX mail support or go into agreement with your partners. If your partner does not provide phone support or you are not happy, well get another one.

3CX Irony
It is tremendously ironic that a company that makes such a wonderful PBX... only provides support via a text forum.... bad. Again, when I write a check for $1400... I want immediate answers.... not tragic irony.

Yeah ok, you made your point in the previous two items.

Queue Hold Music
Whomever designed your hold music protocol should be beaten with their own shoes. Horrible. Depending on how a queue is setup.... the music repeats from the beginning when an extension cycle rotates........ ergo.... a customer or client gets between 15 to 180 seconds of a song... before it starts over.... bad... bad... bad... horribly... horribly .... tremendously bad.

It is acutally not a protocol..... but you are forgiven.
What you use is the default setting, there is nothing stopping you changing the music onlhold. What you have is "out of the box". Put in your own and you are on your way.
I believe there is talk about (in the feature request section) to have the option to use live radio streams for music on hold.

one of you asked him

 

[webguyz]

While on a roll (and while I'm thinking about it) I thought I would mention my pet peeve

When I am in Digital assisitant and have to figure out where to send something I see this is the drop down box for extension or DA's:

501
502
503
806
807

How much harder could it be to add the 'name' to the extension list that was defined for that extension:

501 - Bob SonSo
502 - Jack Sprat
503 - Spare phone in Kitchen
806 - DA to sales dept
807 - Da to support

If you had 100's of extensions the numbers alone are hard to work with and you already have the info entered when you created the extension.

 

[Fynskisb16]

Iwould agree with webguyz. Labeling the extension with a name instead of a number would be great. I feel as this software gets rolling the Tech support and software features will improve.

 

[Cloverlick]

Agreed. Adding an ID to the Ext. number in ALL MENUS would be tremendous... And very simple (you're doing a DB call for the list of ext's... calling the Name field(s) at the same time is cake.)

GC

 

[N_G]

3CX reply

Hi Cloverclick,

Thanks for your post and suggestions.

Please note that the forum support is free - we have email support available for $150 a YEAR. I think thats a very reasonable charge for support. Same for the enterprise PBX - at $1250 its really low cost. If you can buy an enterprise PBX with a Total Cost of Ownership less then that please let me know where

Same for update insurance - its an additional cost to get 12 months of free version upgrades, i think thats fairly standard for the industry.

In regards to your feature requests:

I am aware of your request for DID labeling. It has been put in our feature request list. note that we have not received such a request before, but we will consider it all the same.

API - on its way and will be available soon! it will allow web based applications to integrate with 3Cx PBX.

 

[Cloverlick]

It is acutally not a protocol..... but you are forgiven.
What you use is the default setting, there is nothing stopping you changing the music onlhold. What you have is "out of the box". Put in your own and you are on your way. Fair enough.

A system that executes a .wav file pursuant the onset of an interrupt variable, such as a call entering a queue, and subsequently restarting said .wav file upon cycling through all available extensions is absolutely a "protocol."

Semantics aside, what "non-out-of-the-box" options are available to us, and the numerous others experiencing the same problems?

There seems to be a breakdown in communication on this topic...

Either we're not explaining it well, or you're not understanding the problem.

It's NOT the .wav that's the issue...

It's the fact that the callers on hold in the queue hear the only the first few seconds of that .wav before it repeats... over... and over... and over.... this is horribly annoying.

We've replaced the .wav. We've toyed with all the settings.

Example...

• You have 4 agents logged into the queue...
  The system will ring each agent for 15 seconds (by default)... for a total of 60 seconds (4 * 15)...
  A caller that enters the queue will hear the first 60 seconds of the .wav... before it repeats from the beginning of the .wav ... every... 60 ... seconds...

If you only have ONE agent logged in to the queue... it repeats every 15 seconds.... :evil:

It's like listening to a skipping CD. :x :x :x

How do we stop this from happening???

GC

(Side-note... speaking as a copyright attorney... recording a radio broadcast and using it as your hold music is a VERY VERY bad idea... happy to discuss this further with anyone who needs help or advice...)

 

[N_G]

Hi Cloverclick,

Well check out the issue with music on hold and let you know...

Dont hesitate to contact me for further issues

 

[RobLloyd]

I believe the idea was to play a radio stream without recording. Much like hooking a radio up to a traditional PBX system. Is there a copyrights issue if it's not recorded?

(Side-note... speaking as a copyright attorney... recording a radio broadcast and using it as your hold music is a VERY VERY bad idea... happy to discuss this further with anyone who needs help or advice...)

 

[Cloverlick]

There are tremendous copyright issues with using "streaming" audio from a radio broadcast. The fact that it is "live," vs "recorded" is irrelevant.

Copyright in a Nutshell:

As a copyright owner of a "work," or "author," one has the exclusive rights to display, reproduce (copy), distribute, perform and create derivatives of the work.

A radio broadcast typically has three (3) copyrightable elements... the song recording, the song publishing rights and the radio station's audio component (the DJ's commentary, etc).

By streaming a radio broadcast over your phone system you are "performing" the work. Without permission from the copyright holder(s), you are violating author's exclusive, federally protected copyright(s).

Solution:

You basically have one of three options...

A. Royalty free music
B. Paying ASCAP and/or BMI for a "hold music license"
C. Purchasing a third-party licensed music service (like Muzak)

We pay ASCAP.

We provide a premium helpdesk service through one of our divisions, and we want our customers to "enjoy" their hold time as much as possible. Wherefore, we use contemporary, new-release music.

Which... at the moment... plays for 60 seconds before it repeats from the beginning of the first song.

GC

 

[Cloverlick]

Re: 3CX reply

Please note that the forum support is free - we have email support available for $150 a YEAR. I think thats a very reasonable charge for support. Same for the enterprise PBX - at $1250 its really low cost. If you can buy an enterprise PBX with a Total Cost of Ownership less then that please let me know where .

Asterisk for Linux w/ queues = Free w/ access to forty-seven (47) free forum-based support communities.

Asterisk for Win32 w/ queues = Free w/ access to twelve (12) free forum-based support communities.

Same for update insurance - its an additional cost to get 12 months of free version upgrades, i think thats fairly standard for the industry.

Depends. Upgrades... yes. Updates... no.

Upgrades for Asterisk = $0

I am aware of your request for DID labeling. It has been put in our feature request list. note that we have not received such a request before, but we will consider it all the same.

It's very simple... example..
1 provider
10 DID's from that provider
We need labels to appear on the phone display, based on the DID number..

555-555-0001 =

 

[webguyz]

It took a while for Asterisk to evolve and 3CX hasn't been out there that long. I think this pbx will give Asterisk a lot of competition and allow a lot more consultants to start recommending it who aren't linux conversant and don't want to be. Releasing a free edition on a windows platform is a great strategy to get it into a lot of people hands and familiar with it and the product will mature quickly as more people start working with it.

 

[Cloverlick]

It will not take Nortel, Avaya and other's long to figure out they're losing money to a $1250 solution.

They will exploit it's weaknesses.

 

[N_G]

Cloverclick

The yearly fee includes upgrades to the software, i.e version upgrades.

We have taken note of your feature request and it will be considered for future versions together with the other feature requests.

In my previous post i referred to Total Cost of ownership, that includes the management and administration of the software as well as the purchase price. I think you will find that if you compare 3CX TCO to Asterisk TCO then our TCO is much lower. If Asterisk TCO was so much lower i think you wouldnt be here on these forums in the first place.

Might I point out that our company has a fair amount of experience in software development, and quite frankly we know exactly how to compete with Asterisk and others.

 

[Anonymous]

(Side-note... speaking as a copyright attorney... recording a radio broadcast and using it as your hold music is a VERY VERY bad idea... happy to discuss this further with anyone who needs help or advice...)

RobLloyd,

Could you update your post? (although I agree with Cloverlick's statement, it is not my quote) the way it reads now is that I am a copyright attorney........ by doing so you hurt my feelings :lol: sure enough that would not be your intention. LOL

 

[Anonymous]

It is acutally not a protocol..... but you are forgiven.
What you use is the default setting, there is nothing stopping you changing the music onlhold. What you have is "out of the box". Put in your own and you are on your way. Fair enough.

A system that executes a .wav file pursuant the onset of an interrupt variable, such as a call entering a queue, and subsequently restarting said .wav file upon cycling through all available extensions is absolutely a "protocol."

Hmmm. that must be the legal term, but the way you describe it I would call that an interaction not so much a protocol.

See in my book a protocol is something that allows the interaction to occur in a timely and correct fashion.
Having said that, an agreed-upon format for transmitting data between two devices.
The protocol determines the following:the type of error checking to be used data compression method, if any how the sending device will indicate that it has finished sending a message how the receiving device will indicate that it has received a message

But I am obviously wrong, that happens.

Semantics aside, what "non-out-of-the-box" options are available to us, and the numerous others experiencing the same problems?

There seems to be a breakdown in communication on this topic...

Either we're not explaining it well, or you're not understanding the problem.

It's NOT the .wav that's the issue...

With "out-of-the box" options I was pointing out that that is the way the system works from day one, you can change the announcements etc.
This is not asterisk where you have a command prompt "out-of-the box" (instead you have now voice prompts), this system is a bit more sophisticated from a user point of view.

So there are not many "not-out-of-the-box" features.

I have no specific definition for "out-of-the-box" but I assume that it is common knowledge on what that means.


What I also notice is that we are getting a bit of topic here, so my take on your comments is that, you obviously have very valid points.
However, live is about making choices, and if you are not happy with what you get you have a few options.

1. Walk away, instead of ramping and raving on about a company and their model. Unless you know what their strategy is, you might as well be a clown in a rice field. (Looks silly and does not make sense, for most of us).
2. Make constructive comments, by reviewing the feature requests and if you

 

[N_G]

Thanks for your feedback Itfarmer

In regards to the Music on Hold & Call Queuing issue (i.e that the music restarts), we can confirm that this issue indeed needs improvement and we have scheduled this for v4.

So Music on hold for Call Queuing will be improved and available sometime in the next 2 months. Thanks for your feedback on this Cloverlick.

 

[RobLloyd]

Sorry about that. Must have not deleted everything needed to make it accurate.

(Side-note... speaking as a copyright attorney... recording a radio broadcast and using it as your hold music is a VERY VERY bad idea... happy to discuss this further with anyone who needs help or advice...)

RobLloyd,

Could you update your post? (although I agree with Cloverlick's statement, it is not my quote) the way it reads now is that I am a copyright attorney........ by doing so you hurt my feelings :lol: sure enough that would not be your intention. LOL

 

[Cloverlick]

What I also notice is that we are getting a bit of topic here, so my take on your comments is that, you obviously have very valid points.
However, live is about making choices, and if you are not happy with what you get you have a few options.

1. Walk away, instead of ramping and raving on about a company and their model. Unless you know what their strategy is, you might as well be a clown in a rice field. (Looks silly and does not make sense, for most of us)....

Wrong. As usual.

This is about business, business models, revenue and overhead. This is about our concerns with a very recently aquired product. Namely, yours.

Business is also about choices.

Let me give you an example...

An agent of 3CX just told the CEO/Counsel of a one of your customers (the aforementioned $1400 purchase) to "walk away," in a public forum.

Done.

We'll be returning the product to Deerfield for a full refund... wherefore the 30 day "money back guarantee" provision in our contract does not expire for another thirteen (13) days.

Have a good one.

GC