sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems NEC Telephones & Systems NEC Aspire Wish List

Let me begin by saying that I have installed Aspire phone systems for two years now and love them, even thinking about putting one in my house. This post is simply my opinion and I look forward to getting some feedback from other techs and maybe catch the eye of field engineering on possible future enhancements to the system. Please feel free to post your thoughts on improvements that I have overlooked.

CALL FORWARD: First, there are too many CFWD functions(7 or more if not mistaken). All call forwarding should always be immediate! Internal or external under the same function key! The system should recognize trunk access codes as off-premise numbers and extension numbers as internal. This would simplify things for users. Also would like to see a DONE and CANCEL softkey for Call Forward(I use *46 on a DSS key). Pressing HOLD, SPK after entering a number is NOT user friendly.

DND: DND keys must be removed from the hard keys of the digital phones!!! Receptionists should never have the option of putting their phone in DND. I know this is a COS setting but would much rather see a TRANSFER key in its place. Does anyone use HOLD as a transfer key? That is the first thing customers complain about/I turn off in COS on an install. I can always program a DND function key if the site requires it. Also there are too many DND functions(5 or more if not mistaken). That is too much for users to process. DND SHOULD ALWAYS BE FORWARD IMMEDIATELY TO VMAIL IF ENABLED IN PROGRAMMING!!! DIDS SHOULD NEVER EVER HEAR BUSY SIGNAL WHEN IN DND!!! NEVER!!! DND SHOULD ALWAYS BE FORWARD IMMEDIATELY TO VMAIL!!!

DTMF TONES HEARD WHEN CALL FORWARD OFF-PREMISE: Callers should never hear digits being dialed when forwarding off-premise. Yet this seems to be the case with every POTS install I do. Is this something I can change in programming? CALLERS SHOULD NEVER HEAR DIGITS BEING DIALED WHEN FORWARDING OFF-PREMISE!!!

SOFT KEYS: I know this is asking alot but programmable soft keys on the main display of the phones would be huge. I don't know about other installers but LIST DIR ICM PROG are completely useless and difficult to navigate for users. If I could program 4 additional features to those buttons that would be a great improvement.

INTRAMAIL ANSWER TABLE SCHEDULE: Please, we need more than 10 entries per Answer Table Schedule. When companies require day, night, and up to 10 or more holiday closures it is necessary for more answer table schedule entries.

Thank you to NEC for enabling Hot Keypad in the new software release. That is another enhancement I look forward to showing 7.xx customers. Thanks all.

CALL FORWARD: First, there are too many CFWD functions(7 or more if not mistaken). All call forwarding should always be immediate! Internal or external under the same function key! The system should recognize trunk access codes as off-premise numbers and extension numbers as internal. This would simplify things for users. Also would like to see a DONE and CANCEL softkey for Call Forward(I use *46 on a DSS key). Pressing HOLD, SPK after entering a number is NOT user friendly.

-One of my peeves also. But, from the soft keys on the phone you can adjust call forward as well as activate AME (Answering Machine Emulation) Also consider the users using User Pro through the web browser.

DND: DND keys must be removed from the hard keys of the digital phones!!! Receptionists should never have the option of putting their phone in DND. I know this is a COS setting but would much rather see a TRANSFER key in its place. Does anyone use HOLD as a transfer key? That is the first thing customers complain about/I turn off in COS on an install. I can always program a DND function key if the site requires it. Also there are too many DND functions(5 or more if not mistaken). That is too much for users to process. DND SHOULD ALWAYS BE FORWARD IMMEDIATELY TO VMAIL IF ENABLED IN PROGRAMMING!!! DIDS SHOULD NEVER EVER HEAR BUSY SIGNAL WHEN IN DND!!! NEVER!!! DND SHOULD ALWAYS BE FORWARD IMMEDIATELY TO VMAIL!!!

-Mabe they will correct this in a revision. Also some vendors of equipment don't understand what DND really is..it's a busy not a call forward. Using the hold as a transfer key is no big deal and we use it all the time. I usually turn off the DND in the COS.

DTMF TONES HEARD WHEN CALL FORWARD OFF-PREMISE: Callers should never hear digits being dialed when forwarding off-premise. Yet this seems to be the case with every POTS install I do. Is this something I can change in programming? CALLERS SHOULD NEVER HEAR DIGITS BEING DIALED WHEN FORWARDING OFF-PREMISE!!!

-Tell that to Avaya and Nortel also. Unless you are using Centrex call forwarding I would hesitent to ever use that feature on POTS. But, you are right they should include a timer for the out dialing.

-SOFT KEYS: I know this is asking alot but programmable soft keys on the main display of the phones would be huge. I don't know about other installers but LIST DIR ICM PROG are completely useless and difficult to navigate for users. If I could program 4 additional features to those buttons that would be a great improvement.

-I have no problem with these. Neither do any of my customers and they are layed out very nicely IMHO.

INTRAMAIL ANSWER TABLE SCHEDULE: Please, we need more than 10 entries per Answer Table Schedule. When companies require day, night, and up to 10 or more holiday closures it is necessary for more answer table schedule entries.

-Intramail is inexpensive for a reason...it's limited albeit VERY powerful. Very simply if you need that kind of feature set you should be putting them into one of the other voicemails they offer if it's that critical. OR you can take one of the Master CRMB and make it like a Welcome message or you can offer a holiday mode they can change then simply have it overflow to the night greeting.


This is why we have other phone systems we offer. IMHO with the addition of USER PRO they have hit a home run as long as the customer is trained. You have some good suggestions there you should put them on the NEC website.

I have one more thing to add....

Everything should have a dial number. And then instead of funky ports/numbers you just program to the DN. i.e DID to 102 or 101 instead of the 700 VM.