Course14:IT Connect - 10.2 Technical communication with innovaphone: Difference between revisions
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Presales mission is to answer all questions about how to use innovaphone products.
Presales is not sales, so don't ask them for prices . And presales is not support. So whenever something doesn't work as it should do, don't contact presales. We will pass support cases to support, but this will certainly waist (your precious) time.
Whenever you are not sure if something works as you think it would, do not hesitate to contact presales. 10 dumb questions asked before customer rollout are still better than 1 important question missed.
Presales will help you. It will not do it for you. So, complete your tender as far as you can and then send remaining questions to presales. So don't send 250 pages PDF to them!
You can discuss solution designs for customer requirements with presales. We can as well give advise regarding the use of recommended 3rd party products. Whenever you are in doubt, it is better to involve presales earlier as it can be difficult to fix design problems in a later stage of the product.
Presales is doing several 3rd party compatibilities. The results will be documented in the innovaphone-wiki.
Presales service is targeted primarily towards partners, distributors and 3rd party vendors. However, technically this service is open to everybody.
You contact presales by sending an email topresales@innovaphone.com . Please make sure the person requesting help is sending the request directly. Do not send such requests to your sales representative and expect him to forward it to presales. If you want to keep your sales rep in the loop, it is perfectly OK to put them on Cc: on your email.
Once your email is received by our CRM system, you will receive a response with the ticket number. Please be sure to keep note of this number (i.e. keep this email) and to always respond to this email when you want to follow-up with the case. This way, our CRM will be able to associate your subsequent communication with the case in question. Sending a separate new email to presales will open a new case (which will probably considered a duplicate and removed).
There is currently no formalism whatsoever enforced to submit a presales case (as opposed to support cases).
Please note that our CRM does not support embedded images in emails (it is purely text-only). So if you send an image (which is good), then send it as an attachment, not embedded. More details can be found inHow to post a successful Mantis Request .
Many issues are best clarified with a short chat on the phone. However, to make sure presales is prepared and has time to take care of your issue, they will call you back. So don't call, we call you! If you want presales to call you, just follow-up with the case and send a short remark "please call me" and your phone number. If you want the guys life easier, put your phone number on a separate line in your email such as
@phone +41 234 5678-9
portal.innovaphone.com has an overview of all issues your company currently has open with innovaphone.
To get an idea how this page looks like, you can have a look at the customer status sample page.
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Revision as of 14:15, 16 May 2024
This book is targeted at technical personal and explains where to get information, download resources, ask questions, get support.
Who this is for
This book is targeted at technical personal and explains where to get information, download resources, ask questions, get support.
Downloadable resources
Firmware, Software, Tools
Your primary download resource probably will be our store: store.innovaphone.com . Here you can download firmware and Apps for the Application platform, was well as various software. Give it a try and shop around at this site!
However, be aware that there is usually no need to download apps or firmware as this is done automatically
- either in the AP Manager or AP app installer PBX Manager plug into install new Apps (see
Installing new Apps ) - and in the Devices App to update Apps and firmware (see
Managing Devices: Update )
Documentation
Wiki
Our wiki includes tons of technical information (more precisely 11,233 articles as of March 2024) available in our wiki at wiki.innovaphone.com . This can be overwhelming at times, admittedly.
To get a grasp an what is available, here is how it is structured (if a wiki can be structured).
Reference pages
There is a distinct reference article for each page in the device's advanced user interface (available directly using the Help link on each page). Reference articles are version dependent. That is, different versions are available for different major firmware versions. So there are name spaces for each version like Overview Referencexxry:Overview , etc. which can be reached easily using the links in the sidebar on the left.
If there are multiple versions for the same article, all the available versions are listed at the top of the article. So make sure you are reviewing the version relevant to you.
There is a link in the sidebar on the left for each such name-space.
A special case in this category are the so-called Concept Articles. They are not related to individual UI pages but provide concise and in-depth information about various solution components. Generally very useful reading! Have a short look at Concept App Platform to get an idea.
Technical data
Data sheets have their own categories (as they are - in contrast to all other article types - available in multiple languages). Also available from the side-bar.
Release notes
Release note pages provide a complete reference of all changes included in new releases. See e.g. Release Notes Firmware for the current firmware changes.
There are a number of further release note articles, for example for security related changes. See Category:Release_Notes for a full list.
Step by step tutorials
A step-by-step article describe a solution in a simple step-by-step guide. Each step is illustrated by a picture and an easy instruction. If you follow all steps carefully you will have a working solution.
Other stuff
There is a vast wealth of other stuff available, including documentation regarding tested SIP providers for example.
Searching
Wiki has a search function, but we do not recommend to use it. Rather use your favourite search engine to search the wiki. These guys invested millions of dollars in improving their search capabilities and it seems to have helped
So simply try wiki innovaphone isdn cause code "Non-selected user clearing" for an example. It yields much better results than the search built-in to the wiki.
Sample code
Even if you are not into coding, you should still have a look at the code snippets we have available. These are no ready-to-use products but samples rather which can help you to fulfill certain requirements your customer may have. These are mostly voice-mail XML and simple PHP scripts.
A list of these samples can be found on Wiki Sources . Most of them are documented in a wiki article (linked from there).
SDK
If you intend to develop Apps for the V14 App platform, then the software development kit is the right thing to look at.
There is also a developer forum to help.
Audio converter
An online tool to convert audio files so that they can be used as announcement in an innovaphone PBX is available on our web site.
News channels
We're running a a number of news channels to make sure you stay up-to-date.
X (Twitter)
For technical news such as release notes, new approved SIP provider or hints regarding technical issues, you can follow us at Twitter on our @innovaphone_tec account. These are technical updates only from innovaphone. Expect less than 20 message per month. All tweets in English.
This twitter feed is also available as forum on forum.innovaphone.com.
For all other tweets from innovaphone follow @innovaphone.
Newsletter
To receive news and invitations from innovaphone, you can subscribe to our mailing list at www.innovaphone.com.
RSS Feeds
There are a number of RSS feeds available to keep up-to-date with changes in our wiki. See wiki.innovaphone.com: index.php on how to subscribe.
Also, the content of the @innovaphone_tec twitter feed is available as RSS.
Finally, all the forums on forum.innovaphone.com are available as RSS too. simply click on the little RSS icon on the top-right of the respective forum.
Forum
There is an online forum available for innovaphone enthusiasts. Everyone can read this forum, but you need an account to post. However, your moodle account will do (in fact, the forum is a special moodle instance)!
In addition to the discussion forums, we have a Suggestion Forum. This essentially is the place to post feature requests to.
Currently, we have 4 discussion forums ( English, German, French and Italian). Feel free to post anything that you may want to share with other innovaphone enthusiasts!
In addition to the discussion forums, we have a Suggestion Forum. This essentially is the place to post feature requests to.
Presales
Mission
Presales mission is to answer all questions about how to use innovaphone products.
Presales is not sales, so don't ask them for prices . And presales is not support. So whenever something doesn't work as it should do, don't contact presales. We will pass support cases to support, but this will certainly waist (your precious) time.
Answer day-to-day questions
Whenever you are not sure if something works as you think it would, do not hesitate to contact presales. 10 dumb questions asked before customer rollout are still better than 1 important question missed.
Help with completing tenders
Presales will help you. It will not do it for you. So, complete your tender as far as you can and then send remaining questions to presales. So don't send 250 pages PDF to them!
Help with solution design
You can discuss solution designs for customer requirements with presales. We can as well give advise regarding the use of recommended 3rd party products. Whenever you are in doubt, it is better to involve presales earlier as it can be difficult to fix design problems in a later stage of the product.
3rd party product compatibility tests
Presales is doing several 3rd party compatibilities. The results will be documented in the innovaphone-wiki.
How to access Presales
Presales service is targeted primarily towards partners, distributors and 3rd party vendors. However, technically this service is open to everybody.
You contact presales by sending an email to
Once your email is received by our CRM system, you will receive a response with the ticket number. Please be sure to keep note of this number (i.e. keep this email) and to always respond to this email when you want to follow-up with the case. This way, our CRM will be able to associate your subsequent communication with the case in question. Sending a separate new email to presales will open a new case (which will probably considered a duplicate and removed).
There is currently no formalism whatsoever enforced to submit a presales case (as opposed to support cases).
Please note that our CRM does not support embedded images in emails (it is purely text-only). So if you send an image (which is good), then send it as an attachment, not embedded. More details can be found in
So why can't I call these guys?
Many issues are best clarified with a short chat on the phone. However, to make sure presales is prepared and has time to take care of your issue, they will call you back. So don't call, we call you! If you want presales to call you, just follow-up with the case and send a short remark "please call me" and your phone number. If you want the guys life easier, put your phone number on a separate line in your email such as
@phone +41 234 5678-9
Keeping track of your cases
If you don't have an portal.innovaphone.com, then you can still keep track of your cases, by keeping all emails related to the case. However, if need be, you can request a summary of all your open cases using the customer case summary request page. A proper link to your case summary page will be sent to you each Friday. You should really have a look at this page once a week, to make sure there is no case where we expect feedback from you and you are not aware of it!
To get an idea how this page looks like, you can have a look at the customer status sample page.
Support
Support will help whenever innovaphone products being installed at customer site do not behave as they should.
No case will be accepted without identifying the product source. This will usually be your distributor. You must identify the source by putting a separate line
innovaphone products are expected to be installed by skilled professionals. As a result, our support will always be 3rd level support, first and second level support must be handled either by the partner or by the distributor. However, 3rd level issues may be presented to support directly if time is of an essence. As a result, support is available to partners and distributors only!
Interoperability issues
Support will help with malfunction of a customer site that is caused by interop problems.
Complex and unusual scenarios
Scenarios like this should have been validated with presales before. But when it comes to installation, support will help.
Bug fixing
Whenever you encounter a non-conformance situation with innovaphone products, support will handle the issue.
Feature requests
Quite often, support cases turn out to be requests for missing features. Support will handle resulting feature requests.
Access
The interface to support works much like the interface to presales via email. To open a support case, you will need to send an email to support@innovaphone.com , However, as opposed to presales service, there are a few formal criteria that must be satisfied by your request. If not, the request will be rejected.
Generally, it is of utmost importance to request support in time. We have seen more than one customer installation where a problem lingered around in the installation until the customer finally got upset and the problem was escalated to support. Of course, instead of 4 weeks time to address the issue, only 3 days were left. It doesn't have to be that way!
Also, to make sure problems are resolved timely, be as responsive as you want support to be. So when you get a request for further information, respond in time!
Please note that our CRM does not support embedded images in emails (it is purely text-only). So if you send an image (which is good), then send it as an attachment, not embedded. More details can be found in How to post a successful Mantis Request .
Product source
@source distributor
into your email. This is required to keep your distributor aware of your issues and also since we might pass back the case to the distributors support eventually.
Problem description
Your initial email must include a brief description of the problem including all affected hard- and software components. Usually, an additional quick drawing helps a lot.
The description must include
- a list of devices which are involved
- config files for all of those devices
- a description of how the problem can be reproduced in your setup. please specify exactly what you do. Instead of saying "if I call a waiting queue, it does not work" better say "if I call from an IP110 registered with PBX user Jake (remember, we will know what Jake is cause you have sent us the config files) to the waiting queue object with number 200 in block dial mode, I expect to hear an alert tone for 2 seconds and then the announcement. However, what happens is that I hear a busy tone right away."
See How to create a support ticket for a detailed description.
Configuration files
Whenever appropriate, your email must include the configuration files of all affected innovaphone devices (use the Save config with default password for this). Missing configuration files will be asked for and the case will not be considered before all information is presented. So omitting the config files will just waste precious time.
TechAssist Output
If you need to open a case, be sure to run the TechAssist App before and include the output json filecreated by the Download results for supportcase button.
All available contact data
Of course, support will be able to email back to you. However, in many cases, it makes much more sense to call you or to use an alternate email address. If so, please let us know! As is possible with presales cases, you can include a phone number like
@phone +41 234 5678 - 9
in your email so that we can easily identify it.
Remote support
If need be, support will choose to give remote support using the the Anydesk utility. This allows us to get access even to secured customer sites as long as internet access is possible.
Real time support
If know you will have a difficult installation ahead, you may want to let us know 5 workdays before. If so, we might be able to schedule a support person that is dedicated to your installation and may be called right away in case of problems (call the switchboard at +49 7031 73009 0 and ask for the support person assigned to your case).
Further Points of Contact
You can find a comprehensive list of points of contact in Innovaphone Email directory .