Just as a followup, I'll intimate to the list what went down: (paraphrased) I'm in Edmonton, the users are in Calgary, so I conferenced in to a Calgary conference with all of the suits in the big boardroom. I basically let them argue themselves in circles about how the Directory app should work in order that they may exhaust themselves, then I politely informed them that the Directory app operated basically the same as on the old Meridian, and that ran for years without comment, so why was it an issue now? And, as it turned out, the one manager who was raising a stink about the directory app actually had never *used* the directory, he had just heard "from a friend" that Asterisk was crap and we were fools for using it, so he was looking for any excuse to go back to Meridian. I asked for metrics to back up that assertion, he had none, I said: "I have some metrics as to how effective Asterisk is" and ran phpMyAdmin queries in real time to show total number of calls (a lot), how many buggered up (very, very few), how many minutes we had saved in long distance (a lot), how fast we could provision a new user with a handset and a DID (really really fast), how much the handsets cost (cheaper than Meridian, 1/3 the price of a Mitel) and overall what the platform had cost us (not a lot). He then countered with how the directory was useless because "almost no one he knew had letters on his mobile phone" and I asked how many people in the boardroom had their mobiles with them, all of them said "we all have them", I said "Pull them out, and if even one of you has a keypad with no letters on it, I will pull Asterisk out tomorrow and replace it with Meridian. They all did, and predictably all of them had letters on the keypads. A long silence ensued. Then, they thanked me, and apologized for wasting my time. So in the end, the guy who made this stink wound up looking really really stupid in front of his peers, and the suits in Calgary have a new appreciation for how cool Asterisk is. To throw them a bone, I did propose a higher level directory on top of the Directory application so they can press 1 for sales, 2 for accounting etc and told them that they would have to work out amongst themselves what would happen i.e. who would pick up the phone if someone pressed 1 or 2. I haven't heard back from them yet, presumably they are still arguing about it. Lessons learned: 1. If your install is good, compile stats that you can yank up at a moments notice and wave under the nose of any nay-sayer. Stats speak for themselves.
2. Be diplomatic. If I had flippantly told the suits that this was an ID-10-T error, I'd be in Calgary right now installing a Meridian. -----Original Message----- From: Dovid B [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:36 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Directory too difficult? This is being forwarded to my "People who should be banned from using technology" folder. ----- Original Message ----- From: Colin Anderson <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - <mailto:[email protected]> Non-Commercial Discussion' Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:10 AM Subject: RE: [asterisk-users] Directory too difficult? I got a requirement list just now, with my comments inline: (showing it just for a giggle) User requirement: 1) Directory set up by name - If person calling does not know employee's name, how will they access? -Why, using app_telepathy.so of course! User requirement: 2) Directory set by first &/or last name?? -Yes. Now decide which one. User requirement: 3) Not all mobile phones have the albphabet on their dialpads, how do they access our directory? -Shout really loud. Telus should have a class action against it for selling Razrs with no DTMF. -----Original Message----- From: Bryan M. Johns [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:19 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Directory too difficult? Exactly. ESU = Equipment Superior to Users ;-) Bryan M. Johns Partner Shelton | Johns Technology Group office: 678:248:2637 x:1500 direct: 678:229:1809 mobile: 404.259.9216 iaxtel: 700:248:2637 x:1500 <http://www.sheltonjohns.com/> http://www.sheltonjohns.com On Jan 10, 2007, at 12:47 PM, Alexander Lopez wrote: More like a ID-10-T error….. _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ] On Behalf Of Bryan M. Johns Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11:57 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] Directory too difficult? I wish had some pearl of wisdom here, but I don't. I will simply share my sympathy. Sounds like an ESU situation to me. Bryan M. Johns Partner Shelton | Johns Technology Group office: 678:248:2637 x:1500 direct: 678:229:1809 mobile: 404.259.9216 iaxtel: 700:248:2637 x:1500 <http://www.sheltonjohns.com/> http://www.sheltonjohns.com On Jan 10, 2007, at 11:10 AM, Colin Anderson wrote: I have a group of users whos complaint about Asterisk is that the directory application is too hard too use. (yeah, yeah, I know. For the record, they're Calgarians) Now I'm in a pickle: I don't want to have to create a custom directory for these guys. Anyone have any tips for making the directory easier, maybe re-record the prompts so they are more verbose? We go by first name. _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users <http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users> _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users <http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users> _____ _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
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