vPanel Feedback/Suggestions

[scott2020]

I would agree with previous posts about the contacts. It is pretty confusing and took me some trial and error to get right. Also, the first time I go into call routes, the default "group" is selected. But, no option is available for doing something with "group" until you select something else from the drop down like "contact" and then go back to group. After that, you can see your groups and select one.

[barryg]

You can block numbers for your account under Features - Call Routes.

Thanks! I tried creating an incoming call route type "phone number" with call route action "busy" and it works.

There is a small bug in your Vpanel Incoming Routes table display. Only the first 6 out of 7 digits of a local phone number are displayed. The blocking works, but the VPanel display truncates the last digit. If you enter a full 10 digit number with area code, the entire 10 digits are displayed in the table.

There also doesn't seem to be anyway to fill the Name field of the Incoming Routes table entry unless the entry is added from the Contacts list which really doesn't make sense.

[Huffy]

In the call history can we get some call totals? We have a 3000 minute a month soft cap which isnt a big deal but it would be a good thing to be able to see a total for the month and even the day since the list is sorted by date in reverse order.

+1 on the call totals in the call history.

I signed up (recently) with the intent to go BYOD at some point. But I want to monitor my 14 year old daughter's usage before I take that plunge. I want to see how close we come to 3000. So totals would be nice.

David

[fisamo]

Several suggestions (please take them as constructive criticism!) :

1. When you log into the site, you can keep the 'Welcome to vPanel!' but add a robust dashboard. The dashboard should include information such as (up to 5) most recent voicemails left (with name, number, time/date, and message duration, and link to listen), a digest of feature status (DND on/off, Forwarding on (& destination)/off, etc. Beneath these, an excerpt from call logs would be nice--such as calls from today, or from this week (perhaps give the option to set that in the vPanel preferences?).

2. Voicemail should have its own tab. If you're concerned about real estate, consider moving Contacts into the Features section. If Voicemail has its own tab, the text of the tab should indicate how many new messages are in the inbox. The sub-menus for the Voicemail tab would be Messages and Settings--I agree with the earlier post that it makes sense to put the settings on a separate page from the messages.

3. There should be obvious links to the support and billing websites, perhaps a help tab? If no new tab, perhaps one of the sub-menus under Preferences? Auto-login to the other sites would be superb, but I understand that's not in the plans for this iteration of your billing software.

4. Please, PLease, PLEASE!!! Replace most of your dropdown boxes with either radio buttons or checkboxes. Dropdown boxes are best used when there are numerous (say, 4 or more) options to choose from. For 3 options, radio buttons are nice, for 2 options (on/off, enabled/disabled), both checkboxes and radio buttons work well. Radio buttons and checkboxes are easier to navigate than dropdown boxes and should be used when possible.

5. DOCUMENTATION! (Sorry to yell--it just came out, and I couldn't stop it. ) You really need to explain what each feature is, how it will affect phone service, etc. Your telemarketer block feature is a neat concept, but it's not explained at all (aside from possibly in the alpha forums, which doesn't do new users much good). Call Routes make good sense to VoIP nerds like all of your beta testers (myself included), but to the average new user, it's not clear just what they do or how powerful they can be.

6. Contacts! I've ranted about your entry system for contacts in the Alpha forums, and I still don't like it. Just use a simple form that has last name, first name, nickname (displayed on CID unit), and room for 6 phone numbers. Whether you pre-label those numbers (home, work, mobile, fax, pager, other) or allow free-form labels to be entered by customers (as you do now) is up to you. If you want to allow more than 6 numbers per Contact entry, give the user the option to increase fields (similar to creating an IVR or designating outbound trunks in FreePBX).

7. I'll echo the previous posts (whether in this thread or others) about accessibility and colorblindness. I'm not colorblind, but if you're going to toggle items green/red for active/inactive, why not add the word next to it, as you did for SMS controls?

When I think of more, I'll be back. (I haven't decided if that's a threat or a promise.)

[ksarpong]

Block Caller ID (All Calls) should be included under Basic Features. *30 does not work on PAP2T.

[Smiles]

Block Caller ID (All Calls) should be included under Basic Features. *30 does not work on PAP2T.

Have you tried *67? Because *67 does line blocking on my PAP2T, not per-call blocking (or it appears to).

[KenH]

From my earlier posts in another topic:

Features tab be the default tab displayed after logon to vPanel (or make it user selectable as other poster suggested). I don't think it is necessary to view the blank page with Welcome to Vpanel! each time.

Allow destinations to be created for call-forwarding as they are for simul-ring.

[buckethead]

Just adding to one of the previous posters comments about voicemail - take it out from features and add it to the front page - at least the inbox portion so can view and play messages from front page. Keep the settings in with the features, but allow access to the messages from the front page instead of going 3 deep in a menu.

Also maybe a pop up confirming the message should be deleted. And maybe a trash box for deleted voicemails instead of completly deleting them keeping them for 30 days or so? Not sure if that would be a website request or feature request though.

[ksarpong]

Yes, I've tried *67 per line blocking on PAP2T. It works just fine. However, *30 all call blocking does not work. Anyway, I've put in a ticket to get it looked into.

[VOIPoDylan]

Yes, I've tried *67 per line blocking on PAP2T. It works just fine. However, *30 all call blocking does not work. Anyway, I've put in a ticket to get it looked into.

Some codes match the ht502 star codes, but not all. We'll soon be releasing the official pap2t star codes. Note the star codes here are specifically for the ht502 and are considered beta still.