Most Common Mistakes?

General Help
1

This can be categorized under general help and/or installation, feel free to move if necessary.

If you were to install a brand new freepbx system for a small business, what are some mistakes that you have made to avoid on a new installation? Right now my pbx system has been running strong and great for a number of months but it took a little while to configure it just right, but during that time, I learned from my mistakes and corrected based on the outcome. I’d like some input from your installation that you learned from to be able to avoid.
Did you find any SIP providers worse than one another? Did you have a hard time configuring the music on hold, did you have a hard time setting up incoming and outgoing dial plans? Did you upgrade the hardware since it may not have been reliable or satiable enough for freepbx?

let’s hear some stories of things to avoid!

thanks!

2

A little light hearted humor

  1. Test you system in the lab before you deploy.
  2. Test
  3. Test
  4. When you get to this step go back to step 1. Repeat the cycle twice.
3

2 - Start with a Plan
3 - Execute the plan
4 - Document
5 - Call an expert (unless you don’t value your time)

4

Good advice.

One of the primary differences between an expert and someone new is that the expert has failed many times before so they know how to react to failure and repair the issue. Experts are built with their failures and knowing the system, but they did not start out being an expert.

What you two say is right…most people probably do not test and plan enough before implementing the system and are frantic when there is a failure.

5

When I see requests for “step by step” directions my stomach churns. You have to react to what happens and know how to deal with it.

Asterisk21st advice is spot on, when things go awry, slow down, go back to basics. I am fighting a trixbox to distro conversion with DAHDI and DB issues, just have to attack them one at a time. If I posted the entire history buffer it would not help anyone as each situation is different.

6

I recommend you start by reading the instructions you can find here:

http://www.freepbx.org/support/documentation/administration-guide

7

Don’t get me wrong, I have installed and I am running freepbx for nearly a year but I may have an opportunity to install a new one. I just wanted some experts to chime in and explain most common issues when installing a new system.
I think the best advice I have given is to test it and plan prior to actually running it, don’t expect to have it run perfectly by the afternoon with greenfield deployment.
It will probably take a week just to find a SIP provider and about the same time to settle on the hardware.

8

I like this set of rules:

http://forums.digium.com/viewtopic.php?t=78543