ESI Presence Management Solution

[Tech Electronics]

I figured I would kick this one out to the community and see what happens.

We are in the process of changing out an ESI IVX 128+ Generation II phone system for a new customer. When I went out to the site with a colleague yesterday we noticed a unique door box that we figured was just a digital phone version, but found out today that it is so much more.

When asked how it works they stated the following, "when we come in we open the door with our key-fob and it takes our phone out of DND and if someone comes to the door and presses the button we can answer the call and then press the open door button on our phone to let them in, when we leave the office we use our key-fob on the way out and it puts our phone back into DND. Our first reaction to this was, "Why are they wanting to go to the 5000 when they have this?"

Here is a link to the feature that we are having trouble trying to find a solution that would do everything this one does AND that will work with the Mitel 5000.

http://www.esi-estech.com/devices/features/device_details?id=232

The customer is saying this is a big deal for them to be able to maintain this functionality, but this is obviously not native to the 5000; not sure how our sales person sold them on this one. To make it even worse they have two separate doors this needs to work on for two different sides of the company, that act independent of one another, so the single door relay on the 5000 just doesn't work completely for this application. The solution also has to be able to support 50+ users as well which means it would most likely need to be a system unto itself that would also integrate with a phone system.

Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

TE

[johnp]

I think the only way to change dnd status would be via UCA mobile phone location. Might be easier to give them staus control to save battery life.

The doorphone could be handled with viking equipment, they may have to dial a DTMF tone instead of pressing some programmed button.

[acejavelin]

I have been employed with ESI dealers and installed and maintained these systems for over 10 years, the ESI Presense Management feature and how it works is very unique to that system... it is deeply integrated into the system and it's user based call routing functionality, the FOBs and door boxes actually do much more than just put the phone into DND when they FOB out, the system also logs all these actions and they can be reported on and used to import directly into time and attendance software solutions. It also ties into their UC client (VIP) for showing presence and station status (Off-Premise is different than just DND, Off-Premise can route calls to a cell, well DND can route to Voicemail, or whatever the user choses as a destination based on the status of the phone).  The FOBs and door readers are also totally configurable, the FOBs are assigned to users/stations, which also gives them access to certain doors at certain times of the day or days of the week. It is a much more encompassing solution than it appears, and it is all controlled by the phone system.

Honestly, I have never seen another phone product that can emulate what it does with the door readers, cameras (which can be integrated into the door box system with recording of video), call recording, etc... The ESI is not without flaws, but some things like these it does extremely well and we have not found a solution for Mitel or Avaya platforms that can achieve the same results.

Sorry, but they need to change the way they do things and use MiCollab Client properly or find another solution. Most of our ESI customers won't even consider a different platform.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, sorry...

[Tech Electronics]

Guys,

I am extremely impressed with this product, but in the end I still have to find a solution that will work for this customer; which is not easy to say the least. We are going with an Aiphone solution coupled with the MiCollab Client IF we can sell them on the cost of it.

The Aiphone solution will take care of the door solution and has the added benefit of a camera solution as well. The MiCollab Mobile Client is the only solution we have for presence management that even comes close to this products abilities; which is sad to say the least.

The funny thing is that we stopped installing the ESI years ago because of its lack of features and abilities to solve customer problems; now I can say with certainty that this was a mistake on our part. Since we are now an exclusive Mitel Dealer, for the discount, we can no longer sell and install any other phones systems as new.

Thanks for the help,

TE