sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Which are Easy phone systems to program?

Executone systems are really easy with there menu based programming. Corporate office was in Connecticut, now owned by Inter-Tel in Arizona.

Nortel; Norstar systems are a very flexible and reliable system. Not to bad to program, take some time and patience. Corporate office in Canada.

AVAYA partner systems are not to bad to program either.

I think iy is a matter of learning there nomenclature.

The larger systems like Nortel Option (Meridian) and ROLM/Siemens are more complex. Almost all the large PBX system they get more complecated.

Partner and Norstar are both easy as pie. So are the Panasoic KX series. Panasonic DBS, however, is a pain.

Agreed, the DBS..is like bass-ackwards to every other key system ever made in how it references things.

I can only speak from 16 years experience with this product, but Vodavi is pretty easy to work with. In addition to telephone set programming (99.9% of the system's features), you can use any terminal program to perform programming AND really informative maintenance/trace functions. Then, there's the proprietary "WIN DBA" software that makes it really easy. Problem with WIN DBA is that you are making changes to a downloaded database and then uploading them. It takes longer, but the nice thing is that you can upload only the categories that have been changed. It also lets you view a customer's programming without calling into it so you can answer customers' questions about how they are set up. I am old-school and using Procomm is the way I manage our customers' systems, but it's nice to have multiple options. I like the way Vodavi keeps everything categorized so you don't waste time looking around for potential conflicts, etc. Again, I speak from experience, but if you ask anyone about "flash" programming (from a telephone), I think they will agree that it is pretty easy and straight forward.

Easiest: Partner, Panasonic KX-T, Vodavi STS

Worst: Toshiba, or any of the old systems that used LED's for visual reference, or had no visual feedback at all.

IMHO,

Easiest
1. ESI
2. Executone
3. Samsung
4. Nortel
5. Alcatel

All of the above are pretty much equal with little bits here and there that each one does better at(or worse, perspective please). Alcatel could be a big winner except that most database changes require re-inputing the entire database, not just tweaking a certain part. Still it has a sweet tool for working with it.

Difficult or unwieldly
1. Iwatsu
2. Vodavi
3. Avaya (I just can't get the hang of it!)
4. Siemans
5. Fujitsu

Yeah, the bigger (read "More Robust") systems do tend to require more specialization in order to get the nuances down. Me simply missing a particular period (.) once brought a multi-cabinet siemans switch to it's knees and required carefully listening to German speaking engineers walk me through getting it back to database load.

A question I have is, Why do certain manufacturers insist on sending out equipment that has to be service packed (sometimes many multiples of times) before it can be loaded for the first time?

I agree that programming a Toshiba from a phone is a royal pain, but the CTX winadmin makes it soooo easy.

I agreed with junkman toshiba is more then a pain. I installed it several years ago and never again. Avaya docs could be cleared for the other then straight key install. I think the main thing is to find a system that you can get the support you need and stick with it, sooner or latter it will all come together. Hopefully sooner