By Michael Palamountain, Enex TestLab on 08 August 2007 03:52 PM
Tags: samsung, communications, officeserv, 7100, voip, telephony, handset, configuration
Manufacturer: Samsung
Better check the extensions in your firm. This poorly planned system limits your extentions to certain ranges.
So, let's reprint the entire organizations business cards because the idiots at Samsung thought they know better.
The good: none
The bad: none
Dear Anonymous 01/11/2007,
I'm sorry my friend but you have been ill informed.
One of the great features of the OfficeSERV 7100 is that the system self configures to a pre-determined numbering plan after default to instantly provide a fully working system without the requirement for major programming work. However if required the numbering plan is fully flexible and can be modified to use any variation required. More than happy to help show you how to change you%u2019re numbering if required so tell us what you need?
Craig From Samsung Communications
Craig - What about the 5000 block? 5000 reserved for operator, should I list the others.
Call is a joke. The worse piece of software ever. Convoluted! Look at IBM Callmanager to see how it is done right.
List your email so I can contact you. Oh I tried that, support for authorized dealers only.
My dealer sucked, had to hire someone else.
I tend to agree with the poster about officeserv call. The people who programmed it don't have a clue or don'y use it.
First they did not put a voicemail button on the program. a call comes in you simply want to hit the VM button of the software popup to send it to VM. This really sucks. Yes on a digitial you can hit pound put I work on the pc all day. Click Click Click.
Then, then need to use tabs. One for phone book, one for workgroup showing people in the organization and whether they are on the phone.
Another tab for incomeing/outgoing calls. Right now some of this is available but it takes 20 steps to do it and by the time you figure it out the call is gone.
To transfer a call it pulls a pop up box and asks you to enter a number. Who knows the extension of someone in an org of 50 people. It should have a combo sorted by last name or select the workgroup tab, highlight the employee, after you see their status, like on the phone or not, then right click and hit transfer.
This is really badly designed software.
When Officeserv rings, a smiley face appears. This is so cute, if you are in third grade. And I also agree, it needs tabs, good first start but really awkward.
Who designed this, Forrest Gump.
K. Herlin
This phone system has more bugs than your local roach motel.
What an absolute joke. I bought because of the brand.
DO NOT BUY THIS. They promise everything and nothing works right.
If you do, get a 100% guarantee for the first 90 days. I promise you will hate this system.
You can't administer it, the software sucks, the call program is the worse app I have every seen, every other callerid may show up.
A fuc**ng third grader would have done a better job.
I'll never buy Samsung again.
J. Lentini
The good: None
It's all good here. I have a 7yr old samsung in my main office in Parramatta that works fine so I know the brand and product well.
Bought another small business and replaced a 4yr old major brand system with this model, after checking it out on demo at their head office. It ended up a little cheaper than I thought and everything they promised worked straight away.
Training and technical staff did their job. We got the link to our database for calls and we click to make a call, also came with free voicemail that's connected to email.
For an office of 14 I can comfortably recommend it. Richard James.
The good: Everything works fine.
The bad: None
If you don't take the time to understand a product I think it is unfair to post things about items you don't know. It sounds to me like most of you need some training. I use Call and I have changed my smiley face to show JPEG's of people calling in. I also use it for Outlook integration. It works amazingly. I can't understand what you are talking about. The numbering is flexible and everything works great. I wonder if the people posting here are competitors posting false info. I guess that's how the internet works. For anyone that has a Samsung question let me know. It sounds like the other posters only have negative comments/. Maybe they should get trained.
The good: Offers IP in a small cost effective package
The bad: Doesn't current;y support SIP
You no on your laptop how you have your row of normal numbers along the top, and then you have the smaller numbers on top of some letters, well when i type these letters the number above comes up unless i keep one of my fingers on the 'Fn' button and it is extremely annoying.
I rated this as average so far. I'm sure if my rep knew what they were doing they might be able to make this system more user friendly. I am trying to locate someone who understands this machine inside and out to program it. Please help.
I just purchased an 7100 system. The one good thing I have to say about it is it does have the features I needed at the most affordable price I found. The main feature I was looking for was call que or ACD/UCD where callers are placed in a que til the call can be answered.
Now the bad things. This thing is like a computer that you have to re-install Windows everytime you turn it off. It has 3 different places in the tools you can backup and restore the phone system and VM system, none of them backup and restore everything. After simply turning it off you lose all settings and have to restore what you can. Custom prompt recording are usually lost during restores as well as many settings. After doing some restores you have to reboot the system which takes about 3 minutes.
This article says the 7100 is easy to program and use, yeah right. There are no instructions or definitions for most settings and it looks like it was designed by 100 different departments that threw it all together. There is no consistency in any of the programming. Take for instance the default passwords. In some places the default is 0000 others 1234 others 4321 WTF??? A default password is supposed to be a default password.
The whole system is mickey mouse at best, a good example is the music on hold connection, it uses a RJ11 or RJ45 plug instead of a standard 3.5mm plug and what do the resellers of the 7100 tell you, "Cut a phone cable and a 3.5mm plug cable in half, splice the wires together, tape it up and then connect it." Maybe I should just use some duck tape and chicken wire to connect my music on hold to my new $2000.00 phone system.
The good: Cheapest price with the feature I needed.
The bad: Programming is mickey mouse, terrible documentation, loses all setting at power off. There are 3 different places to do backups and restores but you can set the system up the way you want, do backups, shut the system down and do the restores and everything will not be back the way it was, it loses settings, custom recorded prompts. No uniformity in programming, different default passwords everywhere, same functions are done by different keys depending on where you are in programming. They have MMC codes like 601 and other codes like 4.2.1, and they do not conincide, why have different codes for different interfaces, why not use the same codes everywhere.
Follow up. Found yet another way to back the system onto the memory card that has to be done through the phone itself. This backup and restore proces does not restore everything. After a system reset and a restore you still have to re-setup mailboxes.
Thats 4 different places this thing has for backup and restore... NONE of them backup and restore everything.
Whats the point of having a memory card if it does not read the settings from the memory card after it loses power? It appears the memory card is for backup purposes only the system does not store any operating settings on the card except when you do a backup to the card. On a system reset it does not read the saved settings on the card, instead it starts in factory default mode with all your settings lost.
The system does have a switch you can turn on the motherboard that has a super capacitor backup that the manual says will keep settings for 1 day with power out. I have not tested that, I have been testing with this switch off to formulate a recovery plan in case failure/ long power outage / module replacement etc.
The good: Price for features.
The bad: No reliable complete backup and restore. Programming is horendous. No consistency in anything, sometimes you press 3 to record, sometimes 2, sometimes you press # to exit, sometimes you press *, sometimes you press ANS/RLS. Most techs that sell these things don't even know how to do things with them reliably, it took a tech 2 hours to program something that should be very easy. Samsung does not respond to inquiries.
With people like yourselves playing around with the system and not knowing what you are doing it is no wonder why the poor tradesman blames his tools when it is you that is the problem. Look up the Samsung website www.samcom.com.au and use the find a dealer locator and get someone out that is a factory trained professional and actually knows how the system works, get it setup to your requirements and then leave it alone. All negative comments are placed by people with obviously no training on the system or have had the system installed by someone on the cheap or untrained themselves. These problems have been demonstrated to be trivial crap. Talk to your dealer or find a new one.
The good: Flexible and very user friendly. Samsung provide 36 months parts warranty. Avaya and others only offered 12 months. Excellent value for money and the true cost of ownership is much lower. Wifi handset works from anywhere I can get internet access even at home and no other system could do that within budget at the time.
The bad: Handset display could be larger.
He's right - this is a product that is NOT designed for end-user's to implement.
It is only meant for sale through a network of certified/trained dealers, and should NOT be implemented by any one else...
Most dealer's, that I know - say it's an excellent product, and easy to work with...
If you are an end-user, make sure that the dealer you purchase the product is certified - and can show you the certificates to prrove it.
The good: VoIP SIP Trunking and SIP Station support. 802.11 WiFi Wireless Handsets VoIP Remote Keysets
The bad: Digital Keysets are a bit "old school" - but still an economical solution...
To the poster that states that you need to hire a trained samsung rep. WHYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
Why can't an ip professional use it. Trixbox and asterick have easy to program interfaces, why not this. To keep you lame idiots in business.
We are going into a depression, back to the days when you wash your own car to save money instead of throwing it away. Hiring people to do small things make a cheap system expensive.
And by the way, I regret buying this system. We are now running PBX in a flash and it blows this POS away.
The good: None
To anybody that says this unit should only be programmed by a trained professional. WHY? I can see the initial setup maybe, but what about when small tweaks need to be made or when you lose power and it has to be setup again? I guess you must be one of those trained professionals that would love it if you got paid $100 everytime the most trivial changes has to be made. On my setup I was told by a "trained professional" that you could not turn the ringer off on an extension without setting that extension to "Do not disturb"... wrong, after hours of trial and error and searching through the settings I found you can do it. So much for "trained professionals". There is no reason this unit cannot be more user friendly except for the fact it is sold to business and like most products sold to a business it is lower quality and higher priced than a consumer model would be.
After finally getting this system setup the way I need it the only problem I have with it is the incomplete backup and restore and the complexity / lack of good documentation. If I ever lose power I will probably have to pay $200 to get it set back up again.
The good: For the features I needed it was the cheapest I found.
The bad: Too complex and poor documentation for programming. Incomplete backups and restores. Has a memory card but loses all setting after power off for extended period (1 day?) and the restore of your backup does not restore everything.
Ron,
While it is possible that you were misled about the ringer, it is just as likely that your question was poorly phrased and stated with the same disdain and hostility demonstrated here.
(e.g. The phones can be made to ring or not ring based on assorted criteria, such as whether it is an external call (answered and forwarded by the auto-attendant, ringing to a DID direct to you, ringing a group you are a part of, etc.) or internal call (extension to extension, extension to group, VM to group, etc.), whether you are already on the phone, and so on.)
I understand the frustration that ignorance brings, and the poor results that come from barked complaints to technicians. The system is simple to use when configured to your needs, but if you are trying to engage in further programming you are entering the territory of telephony specialists.
There is no phone system I am aware of (whether software- or hardware-based) allowing the sort of infinite functionality and WYSIWYG user-friendliness you probably want. Until such appears, it is the nature of the beast.
Ron
Your problem with losing programming every time you reboot is ether incorrect configuration or a fault with the system that should have been promptly rectified by your supplier. And if you have the OS7100 it is possible to backup your total configuration phone system and voice mail including greetings and prompts for ACD/AA, in one place. With the larger OS phone systems the VM needs to be backed up separately which is normal for most phone systems.
DND is used to stop all ringing at your station. The Samsung has flexible ring groups that stations can be assigned to as required and groups can be configured to ring in a variety of different patterns and overflows to other destinations, making the Samsung very flexible in it incoming ring programming.
You are obviously not dealing with trained professionals but cowboy techs who do not understand the Samsung system, unfortunately there are a lot of them around giving people uninformed advice about all types of phone systems.
You should contact your local Samsung Communications Centre which there is one of in each capital city who knows the Samsung OS inside out.
The Samsung is also completely flexible with the number plan so any comments on retractions with the numbering were made by people who have been ill informed by cowboys do not understand the system and need to get it professionally setup and then trained on user setup and backups.
Most users should be able to learn how to most of their own changes if trained by a professional for their specific needs. As phone system have gotten more flexible they have gotten more complicated and the user cannot be expected to know it all hence the need for a professional for initial setup and training on changes if needed most setups do require a lot of changing, but the Samsung has a good PC tool for making changes that is not hard to use once trained to your needs.
The good: Flexible numbering plan easy backup of configuration IP extensions on the LAN, WAN or Internet IP networking of systems on LAN, WAN Value for money Great set of features including VM
The bad: Handset display could be larger
Hard to beat from anybody, warranty, ease of use, Ip programming, rack mount, RJ45.. BIX is a dinasour as RJ45 allows customer to arrange what jacks are live, SIP now available and MP10 has been updated,All Good
The good: Everything
The bad: None
An impressive set-up well worth the consideration for any small office looking to bring their telephony systems into the twenty-first century.
RRP: AU$1815.00
samsung, communications, officeserv, 7100, voip, ip, telephony
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These reviewers did not take the time to really review this. Someone set it up and they made a few calls, Big deal.
I have the 7200 and it sucks. Try programming it, you need 2 different programs and they are dos based. One for VM and one for the phones. It is an absolute mess dealing with setting up attendents and groups and UCD.
The manuals are the worst, they provide no examples, just technical data that only a programmer would think is correct. Read them before you buy because you will need to pay someone $100's of dollars to do something simple everytime.
The Call popup program is worse. You cannot send a call to VM after looking at the callerid which works intermittent. So, when you don't want to answer it you sit and wait the 30 seconds while it rings and rings before it goes to VM. Transferring calls to another party is convoluted and about a 5 step process. No tab with users that you could simply highlight , right click and say conference or call.
The good: Phones sound like they should
The bad: Too many to list