vPanel Changes: Voicemail

[VOIPoTim]

Tim, now that voicemail is working correctly, will we be able to add multiple email and sms addresses ?

For the time being, we're back to singles.... Here's why...

We use Asterisk strictly for voicemail. It has a buitl in notification engine which is reliable and works well...very tightly integrated.

With the multiples, we had a PHP script which was collecting info from Asterisk and handling the notifications. The new developers did not feel this could scale well and wasn't stable enough.

So we're back to using the proven method for notifications...which only supports single without spending a week or so writing C code to add the functionality. We'll do this a little later, but for now, it's not a huge priority.

[fisamo]

For the time being, we're back to singles.... Here's why...

We use Asterisk strictly for voicemail. It has a buitl in notification engine which is reliable and works well...very tightly integrated.

With the multiples, we had a PHP script which was collecting info from Asterisk and handling the notifications. The new developers did not feel this could scale well and wasn't stable enough.

So we're back to using the proven method for notifications...which only supports single without spending a week or so writing C code to add the functionality. We'll do this a little later, but for now, it's not a huge priority.

Tim,

While I understand and agree with the "tried and true" philosophy, you had mentioned at one point that you were eventually going to use (or were at least considering using) a VM system that's NOT based on Asterisk. Is that still in the plan, or do you think you'll be running * voicemail for the foreseeable future?

If you do plan on migrating to either a homegrown or other off-the-shelf voicemail package, is that something you'd think would be done, say, within a year or two of launch, or farther out? (To be clear, I'm not looking for any kind of promise here, just trying to get an idea of what you're thinking. Even if you said, "Definitely within a year of launch, I'm 100% sure," I wouldn't hold you to it... )

To me, your decision to use Asterisk VM is definitely a minus in your column, but it wouldn't necessarily drive me away from your product (e.g. cancel during a trial period as a new customer)

[VOIPoTim]

It's something we've looked at moving away from for sure.

Right now though, we're in a launch mode and ready to just make sure what we do have is stable and ready to go.

Then we have a whole list of things to enhance...this being one.

Tim,

While I understand and agree with the "tried and true" philosophy, you had mentioned at one point that you were eventually going to use (or were at least considering using) a VM system that's NOT based on Asterisk. Is that still in the plan, or do you think you'll be running * voicemail for the foreseeable future?

If you do plan on migrating to either a homegrown or other off-the-shelf voicemail package, is that something you'd think would be done, say, within a year or two of launch, or farther out? (To be clear, I'm not looking for any kind of promise here, just trying to get an idea of what you're thinking. Even if you said, "Definitely within a year of launch, I'm 100% sure," I wouldn't hold you to it... )

To me, your decision to use Asterisk VM is definitely a minus in your column, but it wouldn't necessarily drive me away from your product (e.g. cancel during a trial period as a new customer)

[fisamo]

To be honest, that's the answer I expected, and you have my full support (for what it's worth... ) . The most important thing is a stable system, especially at time of launch.