General questions

Q1. What Phone Xpress is for, and what are the benefits of its implementation?

A1. Depending on the nature of the company and its departments, as well as its organization structure, Phone Xpress can be used for:

• Monitoring, analyzing and optimizing the load on its phone lines or streams.
• Reducing communication costs by reducing the amount of non-business-related calls (it is significant that the very existence of an embedded solution that employees know about greatly cuts the number of irrelative phone calls).
• Controlling and analyzing communication charges.
• Controlling and analyzing certain business processes that are relaetd to making phone calls.
• Controlling and spreading communication charges between subdivisions or other structural units.
• Selling telephone services to third-party organizations or individuals (for example, tenants or hotel customers).

 

Q2. How accurate are the results provided by Phone Xpress?

A2. The accuracy and number of call properties provided by Phone Xpress depend solely on the model and settings of the particular PBX. Phone Xpress simply receives and parses data data provided by your PBX. If for example, like LG Starex VSP, powered by some editions of its firmware, does not return data on incoming calls, the program also is not going to have any data about them.

 

Q3. What are the unique features available Phone Xpress? What makes it different from other similar solutions?

A3. Here are some of the features that make our solution unique:

• Receives data over slow (Internet) and/or asynchronous channels (modem).
• Periodically transfers data from remote PBX (dial-up).
• Works with different SQL servers; can work with customer’s existing SQL server.
• Unlimited number of modules, does not require additional licenses for the additional modules.
• Simultaneous operation with PBX of different types and models.
• Protects data and prevents data loss on failure of connection between the recording side and the application server.
• Does not install anything outside the installation folder.

As for the comparison with the other products, Phone Xpress features an advantageous combination of:

• Modern, convenient and fast interface.
• Three-tier operating model, which allows building up a convenient and flexible data processing scheme.
• Flexible licensing policy, which minimizes your expenses on purchasing and implementation.

 

Q4. What PBX models are currently supported by Phone Xpress?

A4. See the current list of supported PBX on our website at http://www.apslab.com/phone-xpress/supported-pbx/

 

Q5. Is it going to support Unix, Linux, DOS, MacOS, etc.?

A5. We are going to implement the Recorder module for Unix/Linux. The database server can run under operating systems other than Windows already. Implementing the support for other operating systems with GUI modules is not on our agenda, as those systems are not widely spread at this moment.

 

Q6. What are the minimum and recommended system requirements?

A6. To run the Recorder, your computer must have at least a 486-66 CPU with 16MB of RAM and run under an MS Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 operating system. For the other modules, that’s a Pentium 100 computer with 32MB RAM under MS Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP.

Recommended operating systems are NT-based ones (Windows NT/2000/XP/2003). The recommended hardware for running the Recorder could be the same as specified in the minimum requirements. As for the other modules, it all depends on the amount of data that are going to be parsed in the reports.

 

Q7. What Phone Xpress deployment structure options are available?

A7. Depending on the company size, number of PBX in use, etc., the structure of the solution may vary. If you are a small company with one PBX and place a small number of daily calls, you can install all the modules on one computer. If the company is large, makes a large number of calls through several PBX, and you are expecting to handle large amounts of data, you can scatter the Recorder, Server and SQL server modules over different computers. The Administrator and Analyzer modules are clients, so you can install them on as many computers as you need.

 

Q8. Which database server should I use?

A8. If you do not currently use an SQL server, such as MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, etc., we recommend using Firebird SQL Server, which comes with the software.

 

Q9. Can Phone Xpress modules run as Windows services?

A9. The modules Phone Xpress Server, Phone Xpress Recorder and FireBird SQL server, if it is used, run as Windows services when they are used under an NT-based operating system (Windows 7, Windows8, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 2003 server).