While I understand it's functionality may be better suited to IT professionals I find it far less efficient than Programmer.

not yet, but, would like to see a web based System Programmer for the Digital systems...

So far it is clunky and slow compared to any web based interface an IT professional is going to be used to dealing with.

And its clunky and slow compared to System Programmer for ESI techs.

In fact, it is so slow, clunky, and finicky that I would strongly suggest that you factor in a 50% increase in your labor time for programming.

i.e. if you're used to getting a normal 8 phone simple deployment programmed in about 4 hours with system programmer, you better factor in 6-8 hours to do the same exact programming through WESP.

You can't do "bulk" programming with WESP and then send changes. You have to send changes once you're done with each function. It then loads every page, not the changes, which takes f...o...r...e...v...e...r

And some functions can ONLY be done through a phone, not WESP, and the first few times you're doing this, you'll find out the hard way. i.e. you'll be locked out of WESP for 30 minutes.

Suffice to say, they have a LOT of work to do in order to get WESP up to a reasonable level of functionality.

I find this amusing as it is almost 1 year later, and WESP still has most of the issues as previously stated in the posts. We were speaking with some of the higher ups a few weeks back, and supposedly there is going to be a new release soon (I hope) that fixes about 130 bugs in WESP. They need to make it faster, and have some type of ability of looking at offline programming. We just programmed all the key patterns on 60 phones because a of how slow the interface is.

so, on a 900, we noticed that you Can NOT program special feature keys on the phone ( thru the phone ) and you HAVE to use WESP. What were they thinking? :-(

Not sure what you mean by that Brian. You can program everything through the phone. If you know the code, you have to enter a # before the code. Like #571 for personal greeting 1. Why they made that have to happen is beyond me. The overall performance with everything through wesp is about 100 steps backwards from system programmer. Also about 50 % of the time when you send changes, it fails. Then you have to cross your fingers and hope your programming may be sent or it might not. I believe they rushed with this too much and didn't take enough time to see what their dealers may or may not have wanted.

oh, I did Not know about the ' # ' sign...but, I do know Button mapping is a real pia. ( same for System Programmer Button mapping the 60D phones)

I don't find it amusing, I find it very sad. ESI was a good company a few years ago. Now it feels like they're circling the drain.

Introducing new product and providing updated software as well as enhancements to current products are not the characteristics of a company "circling the drain."

I admit, WESP is not ready for prime time, but, really, what first release (or third, for that matter) ever is? All of the companies throw the programs out there and then depend on users to find the bugs.

ESI is a niche company. If they stay true to their established base and not try to become too big for their own good, they will remain viable for a long time to come.

Rcaman

I was part of the Webinar today. The new WESP has addressed several of the issues mentioned here. Also, the ESI-Link and Remote Phone audio problems have been addressed in the new software release.

Rcaman

The new release of WESP is a little better than the current release. I had my hands on it last week. Looks different, feels about the same. I am sure there is a lot of bugs that were fixed but have not dug into it a lot. I also do not feel as if they are "circling the drain" but can say we do not run into nearly the weird problems that we run into with ESI. Also regarding the newest com server software, we had it loaded at a 3 ESI link site, and are removing it tonight at midnight. There is too much of a delay on the calls and the customer was not happy about it. Not sure if this is inherent to this site or just some more problems with the software. Really hope they get this fixed soon. Not sure if anyone has had the chance to meet Rick with ESI, but he has been up at these sites and is very dedicated at helping your company figure out what solution ESI can get to make your customers happy.

ESI recommends Chrome for best results with WESP.

Did you have delay before installing the software? Is the delay on ESI link or incoming calls?

Rcaman

From numerous people at ESI we have always been told to use Firefox and not any other browser. For whatever reason that works the best so we always just do it.

The delay always happens on ESI Link calls. Whether it be a ICM call or a transfered co call to another location. It worked fine for 4 years. Then upgraded to 54.21 and broke. ESI loaded 55.1 and made no difference. Back loaded to 8027 (or 8021) and it worked perfectly. ESI just loaded 55.3 last week, and broke. They just loaded 8027 (or 8021) last night and fixed everything. From ESI this has been tested in the field at a bunch of locations and never a problem, just us, but they admit that the calls are night and day between the 2 releases. There is jitter buffer parameters that were adjusted after the 802X release that has affected this at our sites. Hopefully there will be a resolution or the customer will be locked into this software release.

It was mentioned in the Webinar that ESI is suggesting Chrome works best for WESP as it does not load extraneous extensions as does Firefox and IE Explorer. Personally, I like Firefox, I am just relaying what was said in the Webinar.

The latency and jitter issues were addressed in the latest release over all the platforms, meaning Comm Servers and IP 900. According to the Webinar, the WESP will have additional programming choices to adjust for jitter and latency.

Rcaman

I can only state what we are going through right now. I really hope that the new software, or soon to be released software's fix their audio problems. I have had to remove 55.3 at a customer site already (less than a week installed) and have esi fixing the new wesp functions at the other site with a 900, and the sip phones still fall off the system, even though the system thinks they are online. Anyone will tell you anything to get you amp'd up about a product. I do like the fact that you can export programming to a csv, look at it and change it, and then import it back into the system. that may save some time, but I can't figure out how to do it yet.

I think they have already become to big for their own good and abandoned their niche. Have you not dealt with ESIHosted yet?
They will throw some great support (Rick is the man at this) at trying to get a problem resolved but I think they are getting too control hungry. They need to empower techs in the field to solve issues which in turn would help them but all of the logs/reports are only viewable by them unless you are a master tech (since aborted).

I don't know if it's being control hungry or just not trusting the field techs. I have, on several occasions, requested that the system programmer include such features as system and module reset, change day/night/holiday, move SW to slot 1 and view system reports. This would free up a lot of their techs time doing mundane tasks that can be done with other systems and leave their techs to do the real problem tasks.

It would be nice if someone at ESI corporate would try and talk with their dealers and explain why such small requests can't be accommodated. I understand that the system was built with a terminal emulator in mind and the system programmer was one of those "whiz bang" idiot proof GUIs that companies release to make programming "easier." I am fine with Procom or Hyperterminal as an emulator into the system. We have done it for years on Mitel. If they would allow reasonable access to system functions as mentioned, we all would be a lot happier.

Rcaman

You can do all that you stated, except for change the mode, through master tech. You have to link to system first, then use their "terminal" option to do so. Changing day and night can be done through auto attendant, but would be nice through a command. Also easily looking through debug has bailed me out quite a few times once you learn the lingo. One thing that I would like to know more of is their ASC functions, and how that card stores and view some of the logs to troubleshoot mobile messaging. Hopefully on the 900 they will have master tech cert soon, and not have to fly to Texas. Regarding the hosted services, we have not touched it yet simply because we may have other options in that regard. And the function to export to a CSV is not available yet, even though it was supposed to be. Figure that one out.

I can do some of the things through Master Tech, but when my techs are at a location and need to do one of those operations, they end up having to contact me or worse, ESI to do a system reset or a module reset or to move software. If those operations were included in the programmer, it would save time and aggravation.

As far as features, the webinar host did mention some were not ready for "prime time" and would be rolled out in future revisions, so that may be one of them.

Rcaman

I understand what you mean. I also am the only MT that we have. We have sent enhancement requests in through the email,with either no response or just not doing anything about it. All we can all hope is that one day they will get a majority of these bugs fixed across all platforms so we can have happier customers. I really hate when they release something, and either it doesn't fix what it was released for, or it breaks something else. I spoke to Rick today and your right, its not released yet, but there is another build being released soon that is supposed to. Can't wait to see what that will do.

I have always said the manufacturers, no matter which one, release "Alpha" ware and expect the field techs to find all the bugs and "rabbit hole" sub routines that don't work. I have not found a manufacturer that has ever released firmware or software that was bug free or well tested ware. It's just too easy to satisfy the bean counters by releasing something at "almost works" than trying to justify several more weeks or months of testing and proofing.

Rcaman

That made me chuckle a little.

ESI isn't power hungry or untrusting; it seems exactly the opposite: they have gone insane trying to accommodate feedback from far more people than they have staff to satisfy.

If you've ever been on a walkthrough at their building their engineering department ain't huge. It'd probably take half their team just to fix the things discussed in this thread, and we all know we account for maybe 5% of the input they get.

I don't see them circling the drain, but they need to balls-up. Surest way to get yourself to circling the drain is to try and please everyone. They're trying so hard they aren't pleasing anyone, like the drunk girl at the party who can't stand when people don't like her.

I'd be fine if they'd come out and say "Look: We're focusing on WESP, and we're not going to touch anything else until it's done. Got bugs in a CS? Don't care; working on WESP."

But you can only do that if the other products only have relatively minor complaints. Seems there's too many big issues across the board to try and do something like that.