I was wanting to find out if there was any sort of trial license available for EPM?
I have been using the OSS EPM for many years now and have been happy with it but finding it seems to be a bit lacking now with some of the latest updates done to it.
Last deployment I ended up just configuring handsets on the handsets as too hard on OSS EPM (Yealink T28P v70). Luckily there was only 4 of them but annoying when i need to make a change.
Without a trial of EPM it is kind of hard to know what benefits I would see and don’t want to drop $$ if not going to help.
I have spoken to a colleague who has installed EPM in his test system and was not overly impressed.
No we only offer trials on more expensive modules. With EPM if we gave trials people would install it and use it to configure their phones and then never go back to it and let the trial expire.
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hmmmm fair enough i guess … I have bought for my system but not installed as i like current config. If i instal on test box then can i reinstall on my system if i like it?
If it is usable for me then i feel this is a good way to contribute in a $ value to the project but need to know it works for me first. From memory you can move a module twice before needing to contact schmooze for a hardware key again, is this right?
With EPM if we gave trials people would install it and use it to configure their phones
and then never go back to it and let the trial expire.
To be honest, but isn’t that a little bit “theoretical fear” ? Whoever is in need to have EPM will not only need provision their phones onces but needs to manage a whole environment continuously.
From a customer prespective, i would like to give a big dislike to every vendor which refuses to offer trial/testing of their products.
i think it’s a little bit short-sigthed to tell that you only provide trial for more expensive modules. i just did a request for a trial for conference pro (i hope i get one) because i don’t see the point to spend money on some piece of software i couldn’t try before to see if it works as promised and fits to the real needs. In IT there is so much stuff being programmed and not suitable for enterprise use because it’s simply crap so as a customer, you don’t want to buy a pig in a poke.
EPM will generate all the config files in one shot and then you don’t need it anymore if your set of endpoints is fairly static. You could make minor changes with vi or nano. It seems to me like the easiest commerical module free trial to abuse.
Point 1 - this is a three year old post. Pricing and support policies have changed twice since then.
Point 2 - as a business owner, I don’t provide trials for the parts of the systems I charge for either, especially software where the primary use is during setup and installation. You don’t need EPM to install your system, and it is, in fact, free when you buy Sangoma phones.
EPM is a terrific tool, you really don’t use it after the initial install. While it might seem like a short-sighted position, the point of the package is to save you hours and hours during installation and maybe a few minutes a year after that.
The FreePBX Distro is free software. The commercial modules are commercial. You are getting thousands of dollars of value from the free parts of the system. Asking for the commercial parts of the system for free sounds really millennial to me.
no reason to feel offended.
you have a view on this from the business owner/producer perspective, but please also try to see things from the customer perspective.
i don’t ask for any commercial part for free or being able to “abuse” it in an unfair fashion. i appreciate what freepbx provides for free is fantastic - but i’m only asking for being able to test a product (or here: a module) before buying it. With EPM, for the trial you could probably limit the number of managed devices to 3 for example…
I like this suggestion - 3 devices and the free trial could be unlimited time. Good for a test lab but not practical for production unless you are running a tiny system.
Our (the community’s) experience with the OSS EPM tells us that anything we can do to fund the continuing development on this is a good idea. There’s a reason why OSS EPM was originally developed, and there’s a reason why it’s fallen out of favor: it’s a lot of work to maintain and is always a source of problems.
I think (I’m not sure, but I think) that just about every other module has a free-trial. EPM, because of the nature of the problem space, doesn’t. I’m actually good with that.
Besides, all you need to do to get a cheap copy is buy a Sangoma phone…
Whether a free trial is time limited or device limited doesn’t change the fact that the configurations generated by EPM are human readable and trivial to copy and edit.
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IMO: This applies to a service like O365 etc, not a common feature like Provisioning which is widely known how Provisioning works… There’s no user experience that would “urge” you to buy it because you just discovered from the trial what Provisioning does…
With that being said, EPM is well documented on the Wiki and on video, you just can’t say that you “don’t know what is included in this package and what options are available in this module”
For my purposes a trial version of the products would have come in handy.
A while back I purchased a couple of the commercial modules but decided against using them in the end.
A test version would have saved me the money but I don’t regret shelling out the money since it goes to the same people who support this amazing project for free.