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Latest revision as of 11:52, 12 October 2023
Introduction to the innovaphone e-learning environment, a.k.a moodle.
What's new in V11 Trainings?
- You need to make sure you select V12r1 Firmware in the
Training Setup Device Definition , otherwise, links to help pages in the wiki will not work correctly - All necessary software and firmware can now be accessed from a new universal download page:
Recommended Tools and Firmware for this Course
Prerequisites
Previous knowledge
The advanced training requires passing the basic training before. Also, we highly recommend to have some weeks of hands-on experience after the basic training before attending the advanced training.
Also, students need to be familiar enough with their PC to perform some basic administrative tasks during the training (such as installing applications, working on the cmd prompt, changing IP settings). You will need administrator rights for that!
Language
Also, all participants in international (i.e. English) on-site trainings must be reasonably fluent in spoken technical English language to follow the trainers presentation.
Some on-line trainings will have recurring audio-conferences held to support the trainees. These conferences are held in English. If there is a sufficient number of German speaking trainees, additional conferences held in German language may be provided.
Laptop
Laptop Requirements
Make sure there is a recent Firefox or Chrome browser version installed on your laptop. Microsoft's Edge or Internet Explorer may be used but are not recommended, as long as they do not support WebRTC. Internet Explorer needs to be installed though, as it is a prerequisite for using the myPBX UC-client.
During the course, you will need to change your laptops IP address and install some applications. So practically, you should be a local admin.
Some tools used during the course will work only with Windows. It is thus mandatory to use a Windows based laptop!
Which Browser to use?
Internet Explorer must be installed on your notebook. However, for normal use witrh moodle or the innovaphone device web UI, we recommend to use either Firefox or Chrome.
Moodle should work with just any browser. However, when developing the content, we are using FireFox or Chrome.
In any case, you must allow pop-up windows for class.innovaphone.com and you must enable cookies. Also, you should not delete any cookies during the course, as you will need to redo some of the settings in order for moodle to work if you do so!
Software to install upfront
Equipment
The Training Equipment Package
When you attend an on-site training, we will provide the equipment. However, in order to continue practising after the course and to be able to attend the on-line trainings later on, you need to have the proper training equipment at hand.
We offer a very cost effective bundle of all the innovaphone equipment needed. Details can be found on the Training Pack page. These devices are for training and support use only and must not be sold.
The package includes all innovaphone devices you need for the basic and advanced training.
In addition, you must provide the following:
8 Port Switch (4x PoE) | 2 |
RJ45 Patch cable 2m | 2 |
RJ45 Patch cable 1m | 4 |
RJ45 Patch cable 0,5m | 4 |
ISDN cable 0,5m | 2 |
1 x mSATA SSD min. 8 GB, 3.3 V, max. power consumption 2.5W, throughput min. 3 Gb/s, format JEDEC MO-300* | 1 |
Standard analogue phone (incl. RJ11 cable) | 1 |
Torx® T10 screwdriver | 1 |
Mid-size Phillips screwdriver | 1 |
* mSATA modules run at 3.3V, so 2.5W results in a current of 0,75A max. A suitable mSATA product would be an Apacer APSDM032GM1HN-8TM (this is not a recommendation, it is noted here just to give you an idea).
Design of the trainee subnet
You can build up your trainee subnet right on your desk.
When you do an on-line course, then the only thing you will need in addition is an internet connection to allow you to be linked to the training network. This may be a DSL modem, or - much more likely - your corporate network.
Have a look at the design of a trainee subnet (remember to click on the link to display the image). Once you worked your way through this introduction, you may want to install the devices included in your training package on your desktop (see
External Access
If this is an on-site course in innovaphone premises, you will have access to all innovaphone web resources (including our company web, the wiki, the download page and the e-learning environment). Also, you will have access to the other trainees subnets for collaborative exercises. However, internet is discouraged.
If this is an on-line course, you will of course have full internet access (depending on local restrictions in the network you are using).
Network (online courses only)
To run your training equipment and connect to moodle, you will need to connect to one or two Ethernet port on your companies internal network (or, if you work at home, on your home network). In most lesson, a single port will be sufficient but in some parts of the advanced training. 2 ports will be used.
On these ports, you will need to
- receive a valid DHCP lease (IP address), including valid settings for a default gateway
- perform HTTP GET and HTTP PUT requests to innovaphone servers (namely class.innovaphone.com, wiki.innovaphone.com, www.innovaphone.com). Web Proxy will not do!
- establish a VPN (PPTP) tunnel to innovaphone servers
You should consult your network administrator beforehand to make sure this will be possible.
Multiple Students in a single Network
We have seen issues where the requirements where met for one student, but not for a second student. Some networks for example do not allow more than one outgoing PPTP connection at the same time. Again, see your network administrator beforehand.
Additional Requirements in special Topics
Some of the topics may have additional requirements. These requirements will be listed in the topic introduction on the course home page. It is is absolutely necessary to consult your network administrator before you begin to work on such topic!Copyright Notice
Using the e-learning environment
Navigation
innovaphone's training resources are implemented in a single moodle site called innovaphone Trainings. Its short name is innovaphone. Moodle is organized in courses and the course you are attending right now is called innovaphone Trainings and its short name is innovaphone.
Courses in turn consist of a number of resources and activities. For example, you are viewing a resource of type called right now. So you could think of being in innovaphone > innovaphone > Books > . This is exactly what you see in the navigation bar on the upper left under the little chalkboard. Clicking on the individual levels of the bar will navigate you through the course (and even to other courses if required). Whenever you get lost, just click on innovaphone and it will bring you back to the courses home page .
Resource Types
There are many types of resources and you will find an overview of all the resources in your course on the courses home page. Of all those resource types, books and lessons are those you will deal with the most. For example, the introduction you are reading right now is a resource of type book. We will go into some more detail in a later section of this book.
Using References
All resources used throughout the course can be found either in moodle or in our public wiki. Much of the information present in moodle merely groups or references existing information available somewhere else. As a result, throughout all pages, you will find many links which will point you to further useful information. Such links will be formatted specially to give you an idea of what type of link it is. Link types include amongst others
- Glossary entries
- Graphics and pictures
- References to other books or lessons
- References to pages in wiki.innovaphone.com
- References to the download site
- References to English wikipedia pages
- References to just anywhere in the web
- References to your devices configuration UI (note: these links will only work after you have defined your
Training Setup Device Definition )
moodle will open each of these links in a special browser window, depending on the type of the target. For example, books will all open in the same window and lessons will open in a different window. You will need to have quite a number of windows open at any time and moodle's stratgey to open targets of the same kind within the same window will help to keep you organized. However, for best results, we recommend to configure your browser so that it opens a new tab instead of a new browser instance. This helps to keep things clear and well-organized.
Just play around a bit with it. The small icons next to the link will help you determine quickly which kind of link it is. For example, clicking on a picture link will display the image within the text, clicking it twice will hide it again. Try this now!
Other links such as the Glossary will open a pop-up window, or will open a new window to browse the information. Hovering over the link will show a tooltip with more details as of where the link goes to.
The information conveyed in the courses is organized as follows:
- the wiki is the source of online reference information. Decent detail about configuration dialogs, options, etc. is maintained there.
- The description of the underlying concepts and ideas is presented in the books found in the course
- Practice material is found in the various lessons
So get used to it and make a habit to follow and visit all the links provided!
Printing Resources
Most resources can be printed in an adequate format. For example, when printing pages with references, all references will be listed at the end of each section so you can type in any URL used from a printout. However, if you attend an on-site course you should find all material of interest as a printout in your training binder.
The Course Agenda
There are quite a number of topics available in the courses, so you might find it a bit confusing. To tidy up your e-learning environment, you have the option to mask out the topics you're currently not interested in. To do this, just click the little square on the right of the topic you want to stay. You will then see only the Course Resources and the topic you are at right now. You may want to open a new tab with this courses home page and try it out!
Choosing the Topics to work on
In an on-site face-to-face class, the sequence of topics to work on is fixed and set by the trainer. Make sure to review the detailed discussion of the course agenda!
In an online course however, you can work on your own pace. All topics have been arranged in a suggested sequence. However, you are free to visit topics in just any sequence you like, depending on your existing knowledge or when you re-visit the course after a while.
Books and Lessons
Books
Contain the conceptional part of a topic. After reading a book you should understand how to solve a certain problem by using innovaphone devices. It is a good idea to read the book on the day before you intend to work through the corresponding topic. This way, you can ask question on that days conference.
Whenever a wrench occurs in the text, it means heads-up - there's something to do for you now!
Books can be printed (using the little printer icon on the top of each book page). Some people find it easier to work with a printed copy.
Lessons
The role of a lesson is to help students to understand the practical configuration of innovaphone devices.
Lessons can be printed too. Again, using the on-line version only or the printed version in addition is a matter of taste. However, we strongly recommend to print out at least the scenario page and all overview diagrams that may be available. This makes it much easier to keep everything in mind you need to know during the lesson!
Preparing your Training Equipment
Moodle needs to know about your training equipment in order to prepare proper configuration files for you. This must be done in the
Moodle will provide you with configuration files that fit your devices. In most cases, there will be a link to simply upload all needed configs and firmware files to all your devices.
All devices (=gateways) will be operated in test mode. This mode provides all possible licenses for a period of 8 hours. Test mode can be restarted at any time (requires a reset).
Lesson Structure
- Scope: describes what to expect by finishing this lesson
- Scenario: describes the task/scenario to be configured. Students should try to configure the scenario with the information given on the Scenario page.
- Configuration check: contains questions to check if the student has configured the scenario correctly
- Config helper: additional pages to help students configure the devices. The config helper pages will not be composed of screenshots, it is desired that students still have to work/think at this point to get to the correct solution.
Working through the Lesson
The recommended procedure to work through the lessons is as follows:
- Read the relevant books. Make sure you follow all the links and read through the referenced wiki articles. It is a good idea to do that on the day before you work through the lesson
- When you have worked your way through the book, start the lesson
- Install the lesson start config files. Most of the lesson config files will include the licenses. If not, you must install test licenses (as downloaded from
my.innovaphone.com ) after you have installed the start config files! - Work through the lesson
- It is perfectly OK to have a look at the on-line reference config when you are stuck (if available)
Generally, do not hesitate to give wrong answers deliberately!! Wrong answers do never count towards your final grade (except for the final exam of course!). So feel free to try all kinds of wrong answer as this will give you access to the so-called config helper pages. They often include interesting information even though you already knew the right answer. In all lessons except the Final Exam, the grade (that is, the number of points you got in the lesson) does not matter at all thus!
Feedbacks
There will be one or more feedback forms in your course. Please fill out immediately after finishing it. This feedback helps a lot to improve the trainings!
Collaborative Elements
There are various forms of getting in contact with your trainer or course colleagues. Keep in mind that during the course period a trainer will always be logged into moodle and try to give you an answer to your question ASAP.
Discuss a problem with all course members
If you want to hear the opinion of all course participants on a given issues, use the Forums link. For every topic there is a separate forum to discuss problems and solutions regarding this topic. This is the preferred method to discuss issues as everybody will benefit from this discussion then.
This of course does make sense in an on-line course only - in a face-to-face course you would rather ask your fellow students right away .
Discuss the problem and solution
To solve complicated problems, a longer conversation with your trainer might be needed. In this case, it is best to have a phone call. If you feel this is necessary, post a message requesting a call to the forum and a trainer will call you back.
In some cases the trainer will need remote access to your PC in order to understand/solve the problem. The Teamviewer software is used by innovaphone for this purpose
Upload your own Picture
Although your trainers will be available to help, keep in mind that your fellow students will also be a very useful source of advice and tips! You can find all other students in the Participants list in the People block available in the left sidebar.
In order to facilitate communication between course members, it is always a good idea to upload a pretty picture of yourself! After all, who would not prefer to talk to a nice face as opposed to a boring fish!
Passing the Exam
You must also complete all topics and lessons which are marked as mandatory for you. Without completing the mandatory topics and lessons and passing the exam, you will not receive a course certificate and you will be treated as if you haven't attended at all.
Also, some courses require you to gain a certain number of credits. If so, there is a tab called Merits available in your profile page. The profile page is available by clicking on your name on the bottom of each moodle page.
Please note that you must do all necessary topics within the regular course duration. While this is obvious for an on-site classroom training, it is also true for online trainings!
Use of the Course Material when the Course is over
However, since better is the enemy of good, we are constantly improving the course material. To ensure you have access to the latest and greatest material, we will provide you access to a version of your course that is always up-to-date. It is thus called most recent. For most accurate information, you should always refer to this course after you have passed the current course (innovaphone Trainings).
So there is one most recent course per course type, and your access to this course will be enabled once your current course has finished (this is to avoid confusion). You will find the link to this course on your profile page.
Also, the books of this course can be found in the wiki (use the courseware link in the sidebar on the left).
Typos
Other Ressources
However, during your day-to-day work with innovaphone products, you will use some other valuable on-line resources much more than moodle:
- my.innovaphone. The main portal to manage your licenses, warranty extensions, maintenance contracts, RMA devices etc.
- innovaphone-web. The source of all product information. This is the first point of reference for your customers, so you should know what is in there.
- innovaphone-wiki. The source of all up-to-date iCE wisdom and also the online-help.
- the download page. Where you get up-to-date firmware and software from.
-
support@innovaphone.com . The place to submit requests for support. -
presales@innovaphone.com . The place to ask whatever questions regarding potential use of innovaphone products.
my.innovaphone
- managing licenses in projects
- download test licenses
- manage software service (SSA) and warranty handling
- guarantee status (only visible for resellers/partners not for end-customers)
- RMA handling
- return licenses
- license download directly to the device
- conversion of old licenses
- monitor all your open support & presales cases (of your company)
- convert audio into G.7xx files which you can use as announcements
There is also a nice English or German quick-start guide available.
innovaphone-web
The official innovaphone web is your primary source for sales and customer related information from innovaphone.
All innovaphone products are described in the products section and the product data sheets can be found on the individual product pages, e.g. the IP6010.
The solutions section provides a number of interesting case studies and scenario descriptions.
Locating sales partners is easily done on the partner section.
Investigations about tested and recommended products can be done via the corresponding wiki list.
All publicly available documents, such as data sheets, product flyers, catalogues, manuals etc. can be found in the download section. Please note that for any kind of protected download (such as firmware), you will need to use the download server which will be introduced to you in a later section.
innovaphone sends out a monthly newsletter for customer and resellers. You can (and should) subscribe to the customer newsletter on the newsletter archive page. Please make sure you subscribe right away unless you haven't done so already (you can do so directly from the archive page). Also, the press release archive might be of interest.
Customers can request a callback from the web site. Although everyone is free to use this interface, you will learn about a much better suited interface to have your iCE questions answered in a later section.
innovaphone-wiki
- on-line help (available directly from the device admin GUI)
- knowledge base articles (How To etc.)
- test reports
- release announcements
Access
Most of the wiki content is open to everyone. Only a few protected pages require an account. If you don't have a wiki account already, you can request it straight from the
Searching inno-wiki content
Most of the wiki content is free for everyone. The beauty of this is that you can use your favourite internet search engine to search inno-wiki. For example, to search for how provisioning works, you can have google search for it like so:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:innovaphone.com+provisioning
To search protected content however, you must be logged-in to the innovaphone-wiki. Some people often have difficulties to search the wiki and the reason is mostly one of these:
- you are not logged-in. Protected content will not show up in the result list. You should thus really tick the Remember my login on this computer checkbox during login!
- you are not using the "right" keyword. Although you will probably consider the search terms you are using as appropriate, the author of the article you are looking for might not. As a result, you won't find the article. So when you don't find useful content, try different keywords. And should you find the desired article, please edit it and add the keyword you were using initially. This will save you (and all others) a fortune when you are around the next time!
Editing inno-wiki Content
Once you have your wiki account authorized, you will be able to edit all pages (except for the main page)! This allows you to add your own remarks, fix mistakes (typos or wrong information), add keywords for better searching. You can do so without any fear as inno-wiki has its own versioning mechanism and is closely monitored by us. You can thus safely edit anything you want, as even if you completely screw up and don't have any clue on how to fix it again, we will see this and repair the damage done.
So please note that every iCE is strongly encouraged to contribute to the innovaphone-wiki.
wiki syntax
wiki syntax is in fact a bit strange. However, you should never need to spend time formatting your thoughts nicely in wiki. As said above, we will see your attempt and do the magics for you! So just type in your stuff and don't care for formatting!
The one thing you might want to keep in mind is that keywords (which shall be found by the search but not be visible in the article text) should be noted like HTML comments:
<!-- your keyword goes here -->
Missing content
Whenever some information is missing or you can't find it, please take the time and send a request to presales and have it fixed!
Staying up-to-date with wiki content
For an iCE it is extremely important to stay up-to-date with the information provided in the innovaphone-wiki. There are 2 mechanism to accomplish this.
RSS feeds
RSS feeds send out a small piece of information each time the innovaphone-wiki changes. These feeds typically will be read by a RSS-reader which checks for updates periodically and alerts you when your attention is required. It may be
- integrated to your web browser
- part of your mail system
- a stand-alone program
The innovaphone-wiki provides several feeds to organize different kinds of information to different feeds. This is to make sure you receive only the information you are interested in. As an iCE though, you must make sure though that you at least subscribe to the News and Problem Alerts feeds!
The watch list
The innovaphone-wiki maintains a per-user watch-list. Whenever you come across an article that seems to be of special importance to you, you should click the small watch tab on the top of the page. This will send you an email whenever this page changes.
WikiToGo
Sometimes, you need to install innovaphone devices where you don't have internet access. If so, as the innovaphone-wiki is the source for on-line help, you will have no on-line help available during installation. This problem can be overcome by using wikitogo. This is a fully self containing wiki system, which you might carry on a CD or USB stick and gives you access to wiki content on your local PC. Wikitogo is updated weekly so that you can obtain an up-to-date copy whenever you go to a customer site.
Forum
Currently, we have 2 discussion forums (one in English, one in German). Feel free to post anything that you may want to share with other innovaphone enthusiasts!
In addition to the discussion forums, we have a number of Suggestion Forums. 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 iARs, 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
To keep track of your cases, you essentially need to keep 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.
Licensing
There is an extra special mail inbox in our support system called license@innovaphone.com. This is solely to resolve questions related to the ''handling'' of innovaphone licenses (incl. use of my.innovaphone).
So whenever you have a question like how can I download test licenses? or I need to move licenses from one box to the other. What do I have to do?, then this email address is your friend.
Support
innovaphone products are expected to be installed by skilled professionals (a.k.a. iCE). As a result, our support will always be 3rd level support, first and second level support must be handled either by the iAR 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 iAR 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
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
Product source
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
@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."
- a pcap trace file take from each device in the call path when the problem is reproduced. In the example given above, this would be one from the IP110 and one from the box running the PBX the waiting queue object is located in. Turn on the All TCP/UDP Traffic and Enable RPCAP check-marks on those devices before you obtain the trace
- Dump of the event list on all devices involved (not a screen shot, rather a file obtained with the Save link top-right on the Events paqe!)
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.
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 with presales, you can include an
@phone +41 234 5678 - 9
line in your email so that we can easily identify it.
Priority
You may want to include a priority tag with your case. This is free text in your email as follows:
A = very important
B = normal support case
C = Feature request or just want to know
There is no service level agreement associated with this. However, it helps us to do the right decisions in time when scheduling work.
Remote support
If need be, support will choose to give remote support using the Teamviewer 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
Download Site
Most of the resources on the download server are not publicly available. If a password is requested, use ice/technical.
By the way, the download server should not be be used any further to obtain test licenses, my.innovaphone is used instead.