atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information PC based Voice Mail software /hardware kit.

Hello.

Does anyone know if there is a software available that will turn a normal PC into a full voicemail system?

I'm not really too happy with the Aleen because you have to basically listen to hundreds of your old messages because to get to today's messages.

They always start you from the oldest calls.

I'm looking for maybe product that you might install of a PC which give you all the basic feature of a normal voice mail system but on an PC.

Perhaps there might be a way to do this with Astericks PBX or perhaps there is a commercial product available?

Please let me know if you know of anything like this.

Thanks.

Most major brands of voice mails install on a PC. You can either get a kit, and install it on your own PC, or buy the entire setup. Keep in mind, most kits still require you to use ISA slots. Kits using PC slots are expensive. Most of these voice mails run DOS or UNIX, so a standard 486 is overkill. You don't need a P4 to run a voice mail. If your looking at a replacement voice mail. Try Keyvoice or Active Voice. Both are good products. I like the Keyvoice for it's user easibility and lower cost.

If you want something easy and inexpensive, Amanda has the Amanda at SoHo Flash, 4 ports, 17 hours, about $700 ordering on their web site once you sign up.

Very, very easy to program and enough features for most everyone.

www.taa.com

What phone system are you going to install it on? You could buy yourself a great deal of headaches if you're not careful. For example, Amanda SOHO works great most of the time but last time I worked with one it would not support 3 digit extensions on a Comdial DXP. You find this kind of stuff out after you have bought it and plugged it up. Why can't you simply use the voice mail that was made for the system?

I would bet that the Alene has LIFO or FIFO choice in Programming or user interface. Most mails do.
You keep hundreds of messages in your mailbox???

I use comet software on my toshiba system. I bought this software and a d41d v3 card on ebay for about $150 and it runs on a 486 computer using dos. Do a google search for comet voicemail or Stok software and check it out for yourself.
JBW

Lot of good suggestions.

I will do a search for the comet software.

The iDCS 100 system does not have any room for anything. You only get 3 universal slots which are needed for station cards and CO outside lines.

There is no room left for voicemail unless you get an expansion cabinet. So it will cost in the thousands just to get a voice mail. This system should of come with at least 4 universal slots in my opinion.

Thanks.

Do you have any single line ports in your Samsung cabinet? If you plan on a PC based voicemail you are going to need single line (analog ports) to integrate with the voicemail.

There are alot of systems out there that expand the way the Samsung does. They give you a basic KSU with X amount of realestate and then require you to buy the expansion cabinet to max it out. To say that they should of given you 4 universal slots instead of 3 probabley would of been more expensive to buy. Then people might not buy it being that it starts out big and only expands to 2 more slots with an expansion. So they have to play in the middle.

If you dont have any single line ports with your current config. Then you are going to have to buy the expansion anyway. At this point, may as well get the SVMi voicemail.

You would think so right!

I mean anyone in the voicemail business is expected to have this baisc feature just like any car is expected to have steering wheel.

Can you believe that they don't have a LIFO/FIFO option!

They only have FIFO(first in, first out), this means(I'm not kidding), if you just got a message 2 minutes ago that you want to review.

You must first start to listen to messages you got back in 2003 and individually skip them 1-by-1 just to get to the message you got 2 minutes ago.

This is by far the worst design voicemail system I’ve ever seen.

The people at absolutely Aleen refuse to fix this.

I guess because most people expect this feature to already exist in all voicemail systems, they don't find out about this until its too late. I read that Aleen has their corporate office in the middle East so I'm not sure what type of logical people they have working system.

However, please take the advice from someone who bought an Aleen and stay far away from these guys!