Cisco UC560 install after action report - 11/28/12 04:13 PM
I have started and deleted this thread about 50 times over the last couple of weeks. I did not want it to turn into a Cisco bash fest or anything like that, but it seemed as I was writing it always turned negative.
Our setup:
Main location -
UC560 on a PRI
Cisco ASA5510 connected to the Internet through a 10 mb fiber connection.
SF300 POE switch for the phones.
9 remote locations
Cisco 891W w/hardware VPN to the 5510.
Average phones at remote locations is 5.
Phones consist of 71 - SPA504G and 1 SPA508G and 4 ATA186's.
Overall thoughts:
Its a decent system for the money - it does have some nice features we use, such as the single number reach, voicemail to email and extension mobility. Of course other systems probably have the same features, but not at the same price point.
Pros:
- Decent feature set came standard with features that would have cost us extra with other systems.
- User training is simple.
- The Cisco support is outstanding, I was a little skeptical about calling them, thinking that they would be much like all the other phone in tech support, boy was I wrong. I was extremely impressed with the folks I have dealt with!
- Call quality for the most part is excellent, with some hiccups due to QOS setup, and bad equipment.
Cons:
- Very "clunky" GUI administration tool. Being told the GUI does not support a good portion of the features and you must learn the CLI to configure them.
- I ran into more than one issue with the GUI not being able to do what we needed. Biggest being the CLID setup. The GUI will only allow 14 rules plus a default, while if you configure it with the CLI you can add 100 rules. Makes no sense at all. Though again pretty sure its geared to a much simpler installation then we are using it for.
- Configuring blast groups was much the same, you would try in the GUI, get an error, with no explanation to what the error was. You then went to the GUI and set it up without issue.
- Buggy handsets, more then one complaint of the callers being to quiet, or the caller not being able to hear the person talking, swap out the handset and it fixes the issue. I was told there was a bad batch of phones, but no way to check to see if we have any of them as there is no sn range to look at??
- Finding that the UC560 really is not setup to support our install type really irk'd me.
Lessons learned:
- There is a reason we pay you the phone techs so much to set these systems up! I learned real quick that I was way way out of my element with this system. Of course that did not stop me from learning, but again, it was a shock.
- If your installer shows up and says "I have never done a setup like this before" - calmly boot them out the door and request a new installer. Out of all the issues, this was the biggest headache. I feel if we have had a properly trained installer show up 90% of my issues would not have happened.
- Get more then 2 references and make sure they match your installation type. The references I called both had nothing but praise for the system/setup/installer. Only to find out they were single site installs.
- If the person you are talking to trying to get an issue sorted out does not listen, go around/over them until you find someone that will, we spent 3 weeks fighting with our CLID issues due to folks not listening to what was happening.
- Find a SINGLE point of contact for issues. Toward the end of our install I had a list of 11 email addresses for people working on different issues. What a PITA.
- Make sure the system actually does what you were told it can do. We still have an issue with call trace that is not functioning, we were told repeatedly "Yup it will allow that feature" to find out after the install that its not supported.......
- Read this forum more and ask questions. I had flipped through here while doing our research for the install, and instead of posting and asking all I did was read what was here. Not really seeing anything negative led me to think this was a good product for what we were needing. (This is the reason I started my install post)
Conclusion:
All in all it was a very trying experience we started the install on June 18th. Our cut over date was Aug 28th. Last issue was resolved Sep 28th. It was a 4 month stress fest for me, luckily we had existing systems in place so there was no disruption to the workings of the agency. This was part of the reason why things took so long as I did not push as hard as I could have.
I got some very good training on the inner workings of this system and it has helped me troubleshoot any issues we have had pop up.
Now that things are up and running we are happy, it was a long crappy journey getting here but now that its done we are satisfied with the results.
For a single location install this thing would have been great. I did not really run into issues until we started tying in the remote locations.
If I had to do it all over again would we have purchased this system, probably not. The Allworx system we were proposed would have likely been my choice.
Thanks for all the help and guidance you all have given me over this install!
Brian
Our setup:
Main location -
UC560 on a PRI
Cisco ASA5510 connected to the Internet through a 10 mb fiber connection.
SF300 POE switch for the phones.
9 remote locations
Cisco 891W w/hardware VPN to the 5510.
Average phones at remote locations is 5.
Phones consist of 71 - SPA504G and 1 SPA508G and 4 ATA186's.
Overall thoughts:
Its a decent system for the money - it does have some nice features we use, such as the single number reach, voicemail to email and extension mobility. Of course other systems probably have the same features, but not at the same price point.
Pros:
- Decent feature set came standard with features that would have cost us extra with other systems.
- User training is simple.
- The Cisco support is outstanding, I was a little skeptical about calling them, thinking that they would be much like all the other phone in tech support, boy was I wrong. I was extremely impressed with the folks I have dealt with!
- Call quality for the most part is excellent, with some hiccups due to QOS setup, and bad equipment.
Cons:
- Very "clunky" GUI administration tool. Being told the GUI does not support a good portion of the features and you must learn the CLI to configure them.
- I ran into more than one issue with the GUI not being able to do what we needed. Biggest being the CLID setup. The GUI will only allow 14 rules plus a default, while if you configure it with the CLI you can add 100 rules. Makes no sense at all. Though again pretty sure its geared to a much simpler installation then we are using it for.
- Configuring blast groups was much the same, you would try in the GUI, get an error, with no explanation to what the error was. You then went to the GUI and set it up without issue.
- Buggy handsets, more then one complaint of the callers being to quiet, or the caller not being able to hear the person talking, swap out the handset and it fixes the issue. I was told there was a bad batch of phones, but no way to check to see if we have any of them as there is no sn range to look at??
- Finding that the UC560 really is not setup to support our install type really irk'd me.
Lessons learned:
- There is a reason we pay you the phone techs so much to set these systems up! I learned real quick that I was way way out of my element with this system. Of course that did not stop me from learning, but again, it was a shock.
- If your installer shows up and says "I have never done a setup like this before" - calmly boot them out the door and request a new installer. Out of all the issues, this was the biggest headache. I feel if we have had a properly trained installer show up 90% of my issues would not have happened.
- Get more then 2 references and make sure they match your installation type. The references I called both had nothing but praise for the system/setup/installer. Only to find out they were single site installs.
- If the person you are talking to trying to get an issue sorted out does not listen, go around/over them until you find someone that will, we spent 3 weeks fighting with our CLID issues due to folks not listening to what was happening.
- Find a SINGLE point of contact for issues. Toward the end of our install I had a list of 11 email addresses for people working on different issues. What a PITA.
- Make sure the system actually does what you were told it can do. We still have an issue with call trace that is not functioning, we were told repeatedly "Yup it will allow that feature" to find out after the install that its not supported.......
- Read this forum more and ask questions. I had flipped through here while doing our research for the install, and instead of posting and asking all I did was read what was here. Not really seeing anything negative led me to think this was a good product for what we were needing. (This is the reason I started my install post)
Conclusion:
All in all it was a very trying experience we started the install on June 18th. Our cut over date was Aug 28th. Last issue was resolved Sep 28th. It was a 4 month stress fest for me, luckily we had existing systems in place so there was no disruption to the workings of the agency. This was part of the reason why things took so long as I did not push as hard as I could have.
I got some very good training on the inner workings of this system and it has helped me troubleshoot any issues we have had pop up.
Now that things are up and running we are happy, it was a long crappy journey getting here but now that its done we are satisfied with the results.
For a single location install this thing would have been great. I did not really run into issues until we started tying in the remote locations.
If I had to do it all over again would we have purchased this system, probably not. The Allworx system we were proposed would have likely been my choice.
Thanks for all the help and guidance you all have given me over this install!
Brian