IPitomy: Not Just a Cool Product, You Join a Team

In today’s market most companies want you to buy their stellar product or service, yet few actually want to understand your needs, challenges and goals, and then help you tackle them. While products and services are an integral part of a company, it cannot be separated from the company and its employees who stand behind them, essentially holding them up and giving them life. There are many companies out there that have a great product, yet a few negative experiences with a customer service rep, or a refusal to help solve a problem can kill the customer’s relationship with the product. This is why IPitomy has spent so much of its effort building team relationships with its dealers.

While IPitomy offers the state of the art “Pure” IP-PBX at an incredible price, we understand that the product alone does not assure you or your customer’s needs are met, or if the current challenge you are facing can be overcome. Our sales advisers, tech support agents, and engineers however can team with you to offer solutions to these concerns. When you sign on as a dealer with IPitomy you are getting much more than the robust IPitomy IP-PBX that you can actually build your business upon. You actually have chosen to enter into a relationship with our team, so that we can help you overcome the challenges you face day to day. Whether it is needing advice on how to meet the needs of your customer, or finding the answer to your challenging network issue, we are here to help.

IPitomy does not just sign you up as a dealer, send you a demo pack and then push you into the street. We want to help you along as you take your business in an exciting new direction. We have an excellent online training academy so you can learn the system at your own pace. Our tech support is second to none with an average wait time around 60 to 90 seconds.  Our engineering department has actually developed applications upon request, such as our powerful Q-Manager, designed for the specific needs of a florist. It was such a success that it has now become part of our basic system packages.

Our team of sales advisers are always eager to share our company and its product with live webinars. In fact, if you have a potential customer who is not sure about their purchasing decision, schedule them to meet you on a webinar with us and we will be glad to share IPitomy with them. Sometimes it is nice to have another person who can give the customer another perspective when they are considering their next large purchase. Not only does it give them another perspective, it gives them confidence in the product and service they are buying. We want to create a true team experience for you and for them.  When you need help selling, our sales advisers are there to give you a hand. We are not hounding you to meet next month’s quota, since we have no quotas. Instead we are here to help you find solutions to you and your customer’s concerns, challenges and needs.  We know that ultimately it’s the relationship with our dealers, and their relationships with their customers is what really brings our cool, state of the art communications system to life!

Recent testimonial

Hello,

I'm not sure where this email should go, but I just wanted to say a few things about the support staff. So I hope this makes it to the right place. I've been in IT for roughly 17 years now, and I have seen the steady decline of customer/vendor support. These days it is normal to either place an email and hope someone gets back with you or place a call and hope you can understand the person on the other side (Usually very smart individuals, but still very hard to understand). 

You can imagine my surprise when Steve gave me a number to call and someone answered... And not just answered but helped! Every time I have called in, whether it is a basic question or something a little more out there, the support staff has always helped. IPitomy seems like a close knit company so I'm sure everyone already knows how well the support division handles their duties but I felt it important to let you and everyone there know just how great the team has been! 

Thanks again! 

Using the IPitomy Worksheet For Extension Programming

One of the great benefits of using the IPitomy system is its ease of programming. Our GUI interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, and it saves you time and money on your installation. One of the first steps in programming is setting up your extensions. Our IPitomy worksheet allows you to type in all of your extension and email information, and convert it to a CSV file which can be loaded into the system that will set up all of your extensions for you. Just click on the lightning bolt and it converts it for you. On top of that, there are other tabs in which you can gather information from the customer that will assist you in completing the rest of your programming in the GIU.  Below are a few screenshots of the worksheet. For a closer look, click on each image. At IPitomy we make it easy. 

IPitomy Call Routing Configuration

This video is part II of the last trunking video. It covers the configuration of call routing on the IPitomy IP-PBX. 

IPitomy Trunking Configuration

Here is our latest tech video for setting up your trunks on your IPitomy IP-PBX. It covers analogue, PRI and SIP trunking setup. 

Live Seminar June 13th, 2013 Atlanta, Georgia

For those around Atlanta, Georgia who are interested in learning more about IPitomy and its robust IP-PBX system, you are in luck. On June 13th you will have the opportunity to attend a free live seminar that will cover a variety of topics including new features, navigating the programming interface, building your network backbone, troubleshooting network problems, and the installation of soft-phones to name a few. It will last from about 10AM to 4PM and include lunch. Don't wait to register, seating is limited. For more information and registration go to this link. 

Location:

Holiday Inn Express Atlanta Airport

404.324.4184

Disaster Recovery Solutions: IPitomy’s Got Your Back

IPitomy Disaster Recovery

Introduction 

 The IPitomy 'Pure IP-PBX' is a state of the art system which boasts a robust open standards platform that has an array of the latest business telephony applications. With regular software and application development, we keep our product on the cutting edge of technology. This means that the typical IPitomy customer is sure to have the system for years to come since technology is not going to pass them by. However, like any electronic device, failures are inevitable. At some point in the future weather it is 5 years or 10, something is likely to fail, the most common component failure being the hard drive. IPitomy offers many solutions to ensure that you do not suffer a lengthy communications outage. I want to address these solutions in this article.  

Disaster Recovery and Redundancy

Disaster recovery and redundancy are elusive targets.  There are many things to consider and many facets to the cause and solution.  The primary reason for having a Disaster recovery Plan is business continuity.  Avoiding any down time and loss of communications with employees or customers is the goal.  There are varying degrees of disaster from losing the ability to make calls during a minor hardware failure to a complete weather disaster resulting in the inability to occupy your building.

Hardware Failure - Hardware failure can occur anywhere in the cabling, PBX, data switches and Routers, just to mention a few.

Internet Outage – This occurs with less frequency but accommodations must be considered for this potential problem.

PSTN Line Failures – Occasionally carriers have equipment and network failures these can be annoying and costly to your business.

Physical Disaster – Weather, Fire Earthquake and other major disasters can leave your business homeless.  Steps can be taken to develop a plan to minimize business loss during these unfortunate events.

Not all of these contingencies can be covered for all business without some planning and decisions on how much money to spend on business continuity.  What is it worth to your business to stay up and running 99% of the time without business disruption?  The following is a list of options that can be implemented to assist your company in developing a disaster recovery plan that fits your budget and business continuity requirements.

 Making IPitomy Database Backups

Once your system has been properly installed you can set up your IPitomy to make regular system database backups. It is recommended that you FTP it off site somewhere as well as keep a backup on site. This will give you accessibility as well as redundancy. It is also not a bad idea to keep backups going back several months in case one file is corrupted for some reason. Your backup file is relatively small and can be saved on any number of storage devices or servers so don’t be shy when it comes to saving multiple files. In the event your hard drive needs to be reformatted, you can simply load your backup right back on it and recover your system fairly quickly. This is a built in feature of your IPitomy system, so be sure to utilize it.   

RAID (Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disk) Solution 

The first formal disaster recovery solution is the RAID solution. Your IPitomy will have two hard drives installed with this purchased recovery solution. Speaking in general terms, the average life expectancy of a hard drive is around 5 years, with most failures occurring during initial burn in, and then after 5 years of constant use. The primary hard drive of your system will perform every day operation of the system as normal. The second drive is cloned by RAID software and keeps your backup hard drive ready to take over in the event that the first fails. Our RAID is hot-swappable, meaning you can remove the bad hard drive and replace it while running on your backup. Having the RAID solution presents an easy and inexpensive on site recovery option to keep your telephone network intact in the event your primary hard drive fails.  

Redundant Power Supplies

Power supplies are a hardware component that can be implemented at a relatively low cost that can prevent this hardware failure.  Redundant power supplies automatically keep the system up and running in case one side of the power supply fails.

Uninterruptable power Supply (UPS)

Installing an uninterruptable power supply can prevent annoying business interruptions due to short duration electrical power loss.  Be sure to acquire a UPS that is capable of integrating with IPitomy.  This can protect the IPitomy hardware from sudden power loss and power spikes at by allowing IPitomy to gracefully shut down when the UPS is about to run out of power.

IPitomy Cloud Recovery 

There are a few instances where RAID is ineffective, having a backup solution in a Cloud is a compelling recovery solution from IPitomy. In the event that your system is severely damaged or impaired where your RAID solution and redundant power supplies will not suffice, the Cloud recovery would allow your system to run even though your local system may be completely inoperable.

Depending upon the nature of the disaster, several options are available to use the Cloud Recovery Solution. Using a mobile configuration you could still make and receive calls without your local system or local desktop phones using mobile phones. In the event that you still had an internet connection, your IPitomy phones would look to a secondary IPitomy system in the Cloud, and continue running your business until you have replaced or repaired your damaged system.  

The Cloud recovery feature can be implemented different ways. The first being a maintained Cloud backup where you would be instantly routed to the Cloud when your system fails. The second would be where IPitomy can set you up in the Cloud by request in the event of a system failure. The first option is obviously the most desired since downtime is minimized. The emergency Cloud setup is also an option provided you can tolerate a bit more downtime while your database is uploaded and activated. There will also be other variations of this application.  The choice is up to each business owner how much money they want to dedicate to a workable disaster recovery plan.  The most important thing to know is that IPitomy has your back when you need it most. 

Conclusion 

Disaster recovery is an important component of your telecommunications network. From a hard drive failure, a fire, flooding, a tornado, hurricane or an extended power outage; if you follow the simple steps presented in this article you will be well prepared. If you have made regular system backups, have onsite RAID, and you keep a Cloud recovery option open, you will not be caught off guard should a failure or disaster occur.  IPitomy has developed several cost effective solutions that will surely keep your telecommunications network up and running so that you will stay in contact during emergencies, and not lose valuable business should an outage occur.

To learn more contact your local IPitomy dealer or you can contact IPitomy directly so that we can put you in touch with a dealer. 

IPitomy Communications, LLC- 941-306-2200 or Toll Free: 1-800-IPitomy (800-474-8669)

Email: info@ipitomy.com

Written by Matthew J. Bellisario 2013

IPitomy Communications