The license system.
The license system.
(OP)
We are considering Avaya IP Office and Shoretel. I am concerned about the licensing system of Shoretel. Everything needs a license. The vice president wants to be a supervisor you have to get a license. Want to also include someone else as a supervisor, you have to buy another license. And there is also a license for a voice mailbox.
With Avaya they were saying how we could take any "did" and create any number of mailboxs for any type of thing we wanted. So a mailbox for each promotion we ran etc. That would all be in the standard voicemail software purchase.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
With Avaya they were saying how we could take any "did" and create any number of mailboxs for any type of thing we wanted. So a mailbox for each promotion we ran etc. That would all be in the standard voicemail software purchase.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
RE: The license system.
As for the supervisor, I'm not sure your purpose. You need to explain more.
RE: The license system.
RE: The license system.
So lets say we have 20 phones, but we actually want 50 mailbox's depending on the options the caller chooses. For Shoretel it's about 100 dollars per mailbox. But I was under the impression that with Avaya you just paid for the voicemail software and you could use it for as many mailbox's as you wanted.
RE: The license system.
One way you can avoid the license issue is to use Route Points in the ShoreTel system. Route Points do not need a license and you can associate a mailbox with it.
RE: The license system.
I know nothing about Avaya, but I have been using ShoreTel for 6 years now, and I do not have any problems with their licensing.
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Can you explain how the auto attendant box would work in the shoretel system and why you feel it would be able to replace a mailbox in my example?
Thanks.
RE: The license system.
If you are using DID's, route a DID to ring into a auto attendant box. In that box you can give users options to dial 0 thru 9, which could be another AA box, ring to a phone, take a message, company directory, or whatever you need. It is endless of how many steps you can make a caller go through. Are you planning to actually leave messages in 50 different mailboxs? If so, there is a issue with that. You do have to pay for a license for every mailbox that will take a message, because there has to be a user associated with it. What we have done, is given our callers the impression that they are leaving messages in different mailboxs, but they all end up in one or two boxes. Meaning, If you call our number and I give you the option to press one to pay your bill, 2 to ask billing questions, 3 to buy widget alpha, and 4 if you want to return widget alpha, they have the impression that they will be going to four different mailboxs, but I will send them all to the same one.
If you are not using DID, you can still make trunks ring to AA box and do the same thing.
Lets say you want it to ring to a phone first, and if it is not answered, you want it to go into all of these options. You can use the call handling modes to control this, or set it to happen all of the time. If you always want your calls to an extension to get options if there is no answer, set the standard call handling mode to forward the calls to the AA box. If you want to select when that will happen, like after hours, the user of the extension will just change their call handling mode when they leave. ( by the way, if you use outlook and PCM, you can set that schedule in Outlook and it will do it all for you).
Does that help at all? If you can give me more detail on what you are trying to do, I am more than willing to help.
RE: The license system.
Route points on the ShoreTel are a fine way to get additional voicemail boxes but they have their limits too and are not practical for general use as voicemail boxes.
What you need to do is talk to your reps and find out the cost of VM only licenses. In shoretel land they are about $90 list price and only $60 if purchased with the extension license, again list price. Doing the math that means that it will cost you $2700 in VM only licenses. That is about 5-10% or less of the cost of the system for 20-50 users.
Both systems will charge for VM users, both charge for extension licenses. These are facts, the ways that they charge though may be different, but they still do charge for the right to use the feature.
EV
RE: The license system.
You also pay for 3rd party IP endpoint licenses, like everyone else.
The licensing is different for various applications.
Thats the fact. Your post is way off. Tell your uncle to retire.
RE: The license system.
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I started a topic in this forum based on the fact that I had been hearing good things about Shoretel. How many posts did the topic get? 10. So that tells me the system really doesn't rate.
Sure you can go to the IPO forum and find 100 times more posts and a whole lot more aggrivated people about issues with the IPO. Why is this the case? It probably outsells the Shoretel 100 to 1.
Finally I'll say this, If I were a buyer, Tek-TIPS is the perfect place to come to find out about a system to buy. It would scare me to see the lack of activity in the Shoretel forum. At least in the IPO most of "issues" are end users or rookies asking questions from lack of experience.
So I'm curious GSmitherman, since I didn't comment on Shoretel at all, just commenting on the IPO licensing, I take it your really pissed about me saying the ACS is really a waste?
RE: The license system.
I've read many post in these forums where people give incorrect information, or more correctly, information that they believe is correct. Even some of the most experienced users, techs and others don't have all the answers.
Eddie shows as a "technical user". I'd expect a vendor, such as yourself, to be more knowledgable and use that knowledge to educate people on the products you know so well.
There is no reason to respond with a personal attack. I think your comment to "Tell your uncle to retire" was totally inappropriate.
RE: The license system.
RE: The license system.
The reason you do not see very many post here is due to two things. One is training, the other is the product. ShoreTel training is light years ahead of Avaya training. Avaya used to have great instructors. Now all they have are people who read from a lesson plan and have little to no experience with the product. ShoreTel training is conducted by ShoreTel engineers. There was not one question they could not answer on the spot. After the training course, ShoreTel ensures you have learned by a difficult hands on test. I walked away from the ShoreTel training ready and able to program and install the product.
How many times have you seen Avaya send product out to market with "Known Issues". This is horrible. ShoreTel only sends out the product when it is ready without the headaches of "Known Issues".
I was the most die hard Avaya fan you could find. I still believe Avaya makes outstanding systems. I work on alot of them.
My remarks yesterday was probably due to two factors. One after digging out from the blizzard I can become grumpy. The other reason is I hate to see someone attacked for the comments right or wrong. If I offended anyone I do apologize.
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I'm an ACS-Implement and I'm on the waiting list to take the Performance Lab. Why am I doing it, because it looks good on a business card and in my email signature. Its marketing plain and simple, in reality it means nothing.
And GSmitherman, did you ever own a Tauras?
RE: The license system.
In a small community network, what happens in the IP Office world when the voicemail server fails. Answer, no voicemail. In the ShoreTel world, if the voicemail server fails all voice messages are stored on another server in the network. When the voicemail server is in operation all messages that were stored are moved back to the server. No messages lost.
The competition paper Avaya sends out about ShoreTel list two things Avaya believes they have an advantage over ShoreTel. One, Avaya has a red hold button. Two, ShoreTel is a totally IP system. Avaya feels a totally IP system is not reliable. Reliability and IP Office sure do not go together.
To answer the question of have I ever owned a Taurus. Yes I have.
RE: The license system.
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Can you say it has a superior feature set?
Can you say it can be serviced by a large number of regional vendors?
Can you say it has the same R&D and support that the IPO has?
Can you say that Shoretel is on the same financial footing as Avaya and will have the same longevity?
Can you say other companies will develop software to work with it the way AVAYA has?
Look I don't know the answer to these questions. I come to a forum like this to learn not to have disinformation spread.
I don't see much info being passed here and that tells me alot.
RE: The license system.
1. I feel the sets are superior to Avaya. The speakerphone is unbelieveable. The phones are not as bulky as Avaya sets and take up less space on the desks. Customers who had Avaya sets and now use ShoreTel sets rave about them.
2. Quantity doesn't always mean quality. ShoreTel is very picky on who they allow to sell and service their product.
3. ShoreTel R&D and support blow Avaya away. I have only had to use ShoreTel support a couple of times. The support engineers will actually log on the system and troubleshoot with you. Avaya support is someone reading out of a book who has no or very little knowledge in the product. Avaya wants you to send a config, trace and whatever while the customer is still having issues. After calling ShoreTel support the issue was resolved. After calling Avaya support you have to wait for a callback.
4. Ask the Avaya personnel who lost a ton of money with their Avaya stock about Avayas financial footing.
5. I really don't know how much other companies work with ShoreTel. All I know is the software is outstanding.
The company I work for is an Avaya Business Partner. We also sell ShoreTel. Selling two products gives potential customers a choice. Some want Avaya. Others want ShoreTel. I have never said Avaya was junk. I only expressed my opinion that when all things are considered equally, ShoreTel is the way to go.
RE: The license system.
Do your "campaigns" require the ability to record messages with distinct greetings, or play distinct greetings with some options to follow?
If YES: Then you need mailboxs.
If NO: Then you can use menus.
If SORTA BOTH: You can have Menus play options then transfer callers to certain mailboxes to reduce required mailboxes. Either way you could email the voicemails back to people/departments to be dealt with.
Either system will handle this, but in hindsight if you want to compare apples and oranges (in terms of how they each cost their products out), Shoretel Voicemail is approximately 250+ ports similtaneous access out of the box, so really a few licences are really not that big of a deal. Avaya gets you on the port activation fees, unless I'm wrong. If I am wrong about any of this stuff, someone correct me please! ;)
Either way, you will get a good system, but if you are considering high inbound voicemail traffic, look more closely at what you want to accomplish and why. Function before Fashion I always say.
RE: The license system.
This is the IPO knowledgebase, if you want take a look.
I previously worked for the largest shoretel dealer, and they were also one of the largest (top 20) Avaya BP's there was differing opinion about which was best by the technical staff.
First of all, I mostly care about what techs have to say because they are the ones who install, and program the systems. Everyone else, including all other shoretel, and Avaya partners employees, managers, owners, etc., are just users, so they do not know much. Users know what they like, but do not know the application of the technology which is possible.
Where I worked IPO techs were a dime a dozen, including all experienced enough to implement an IPO probably three dimes worth at least. Shoretel experienced implementors were much fewer, maybe 6, but no where near as experienced with the shoretel as the IPO guys were with the IPO.
This is simply because the IPO is implemented so incredibly more numbers wise than the shoretel that it was impossible to have as many experienced shoretel guys. Very few were experienced on both, and none at the time I left this year do I believe had more than 6 shoretel implements if they had ever installed an IPO at all. Almost no one who was highly experienced with the shoretel had even installed one IPO by 100% themselves yet. That means the IPO techs were the only ones really qualified to evaluate both, which leaves a little bias in the mix most probably.
That being said, the concensus was that the shoretel was as stable as the network. For multi-site that includes the P2P's. Servers fail too because they have moving parts, so that is the next weakest link. If having just mailboxes is sustained VM, then P2P, or VM server being down does not effect sustained VM service. The shoretel is hands down more expandable, but has less features than the IPO, which is irelavant if you don't need what shoretel does not have.
The IPO is only network dependant at the multi-site level, as it is a hybrid system not pure IP which from that standpoint removes local network issues from effecting the IPO. It has the same VM server failure issues, but loses mailboxes as well when it goes down, although in most multisite scenarios if the P2P goes down calls still reach all VM facilities as normal. The IPO has more features, but cannot compete on the enterprise level expandability scene anytime soon. Although, as an enterprise system level Avaya has other systems as options with greater feature sets, which shoretel does not.
I have not confirmed this, but from what I have been told so far in this calendar year alone Avaya has implemented more IPO's than shoretel has implemented its systems in its entire history. From what I am told on the numbers of systems installed, the number of members of the shoretel forum 302 members VS the IPO forum 9,681 shows that a higher percentage of shoretel techs come on here than of IPO techs.
Oh, IPO VM is a pay for ports, which means how many simultaneous people can be accessing VM at the same time, including checking VM via phone, leaving VM, interacting with an AA, or hearing a Q message other than MOH/IOH. The number of VM boxes, AA's, etc. the VMPRO server can handle is a matter of server resources for the most part, not constricted by licensing. I have done 485 total which I recall, maybe more.
I think from my own limited experience that they each have their niche, or they would not both be selling. It is really not fair to compare the two as most small networks cannot support VOIP, so a pure IP system cannot be implemented without a serious network investment which changes the total cost of ownership. Also, Avaya licenses as a rule are assigned based on first come first serve, so when one logs off another can use that license.
Most of my knowledge of the shoretel is from working on some shoretel projects with a shoretel tech, and a tech being trained, neither of which had the experience to do anything but programming. They did have some issues that required some hours of support from shoretel, and the tech doing the training had advanced training, and certs. They just didn't know the punch down color pattern on a cable, if you know what I mean.