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The requirements for CFC were: 1) Pure IP for the PBX and the phones 2) Connectivity and 4 digit dialing between all sites 3) Ease of management by in-house IT staff 4) A reliable & cost effective solution The topology of the network is shown below. It includes an MPLS network between all four sites and a dedicated PRI circuit at sites A, B, and C. Site D gets dial tone from site C.
Configuring and installing an IP1200 is straightforward and the “Auto-Provisioning” feature makes setting up the IP550’s a breeze. The most difficult part of an install is gathering user information and configuration details ahead of the install. As much as the IT staff need to be involved getting details like employee names, extension numbers, and email addresses comes from the receptionist. A key to a quick and smooth install is the IPitomy Setup Worksheet. This spreadsheet lays out all the pieces of the install including user information. Although it can sometime require time and perseverance to get these details the end result is an onsite system setup that goes smoothly. Each site had its own challenges. Site A was a new facility and was being cabled at the time we arrived with our equipment. We had a rack, power, and internet but we were lacking offices with live Ethernet connections. We improvised by installing a temporary 24 port switch in the server room and provisioning all the phones from there. We placed P-Touch labels on each phone to indicate the extension that was assigned and placed them off to the side until the cabling was ready. Day 2 was the PRI cut which was a new circuit will all new numbers (no porting). The cut took all of 15 minutes and would have been quicker if the carrier would have used the 4 digit scheme we requested. We were not able to receive calls even though they assured us they had the circuit set for 4 digits. We were able to prove them wrong by adding a seven digit extension to the Trunk Group and made a successful call into it. It took the carrier a few minutes to correct it and that was it. By the end of Day 3 the cabling was completed and staff was moving into their new offices. We connected all the phones and setup a training room with six phones. Our trainer gave 5 end user classes throughout the day and by day’s end everyone was on the new system. Site B was the largest and the biggest challenge due to inconsistencies in the master user list we needed to import into the IP1200 for generating all our extensions. The phones cannot be provisioned until the extensions are in the system. After two days we had the final spreadsheet which we cleaned up made into a CSV file for the IP1200. For this location we had existing staff using a combination of Cisco phones and old analog (Centrex) phones. There was also going to be interruption for each user while we disconnected their PC’s to connect the new phones. We decided to stage all the phones in a large conference room connected to a 24 port temporary switch. One of us stayed back and started provisioning phones and labeling them with the extension number. We did them in order of room number and loaded those 12 at a time on rolling tables out to the offices. By having the phones already provisioned it reduced the amount of downtime the staff experienced while we took away the old phones and plugged in the new ones. By the end of day 2 all the phones were placed and users were going through their training classes. A secondary challenge for us on this site was the number of FAX machines that were not disclosed in our preliminary documentation. We came equipped to install 2 IPR20’s for 3 FAX machines and after two days onsite we discovered there were 7 FAX machines, a postage machine, and a Polycom analog conference phone. We scrambled to order 3 more IPR20’s and by the end of the week had everything running. Site C was the most organized and maybe because we had just gone through two installs in as many weeks we tried to stay ahead of the curve. The facility was ready, all users had analog phones, the master employee list was ready and accurate and we had the right number of IPR20’s. We staged all the phones the same way and rolled them out ready to plug in. Since users had their old analog phones still running on the Centrex lines we could install the phones ahead of training. We setup our usual six phone training room with our projector and the IPitomy IP500 User guide PowerPoint as the guide. The sessions are broken into one hour groups throughout the day. Each group can hold 12 users and we give them a through hands-on lesson that includes all the phones features but also has them making calls, answering calls, parking, transferring, and checking voice mail. Site D was the remote facility which is connected over a T1 Internet circuit. All the phones were provisioned at Site C since that is where they will obtain their dial tone. There was also a single IPR20 that was also preconfigured on the Site C network. The phones were installed and user training went without a hitch. Once all the sites were up and running we went back and installed the Call Manager application on the chosen computers and trained the users that were selected to have access to the application. The final phase was to configure 4-digit dialing between the sites. Remember that in order to make 4-digit dialing work between sites each location must have a unique extension range. If not you will not be able to make this work. In this environment we designed each site to be in its own range. Site A is 1000, Site B is 2000, and Site C is 3000. Since site D is really part of C it is included in the Site C extension list. Since the install everyone from IT to Admin is extremely happy with the system. CFC now has a state-of-the-art pure IP telecommunications system. All their locations are linked together with 4-digit dialing. IT can manage the system from anywhere in the world. They now have a reliable and cost effective solution that will last for the next 100 years… |
