Customer Site #
You will have made some key observations regarding the customer’s site during the site survey process. The initial review of the site’s overall requirements should be commenced in tandem with the ‘Access’ review package.
Cabling | Horizon requires full CAT5/6 structured cabling to be in place and of good quality with a suitable maintenance contract in order to operate. |
Ports | Gamma recommends that all service user access stations are equipped with 2 separate cabling access points for voice and data usage. |
CPE | The site will require sufficient space to host the access router & any PoE equipment in their chosen location. There should also be sufficient power to this location. |
Building | You will need to be able to gain access to the site in order to deliver the service to a lesser or greater extent. If you are delivering a new access service and/or LAN cabling, you will also need the authority of the building’s manager to complete on-site works (to pull cable through etc). You should consider what this means now as it could significantly extend your project lead times if there is a 3rd party involved (eg. landlord, served premises agent), and even more so if the building is listed and a consent application needs to be made to the local authority. |
If the customer environment does not meet the required specification, you will need to ensure that it is brought up to standard prior to bringing the Horizon service live.
Gamma recommends that the on-site cabling work is completed as early in the project plan as possible in order to mitigate any risks concerned with unexpected delays experienced during delivery of the cabling works
However, if the site is small and/or the scope of cabling works to deliver is relatively minor, you may choose to complete these activities on the morning of the Horizon installation and/or customer number porting dates in order to cut down on engineering costs.
Grouping activities in this way reduces the cost and potentially the lead time involved, but also reduces the time available to test at each stage of deployment and increases the risk of failure/loss of service.
Any works required within this section will need to be arranged by the Gamma Channel Partner or the customer themselves as this is not a service Gamma provides. We can, however, suggest some credible Gamma partners who deliver on-site cabling solutions should you require a recommendation. Please contact your Gamma Business Development Manager for further details.
Horizon Service #
The Horizon Service is provisioned on the Gamma Portal and then managed on the Horizon Portal, and changes are quick and easy to implement.
It is however prudent to review your customer’s general requirements at this stage and look for any obvious indications that they are requesting features or services that the service will struggle to deliver or that may only be available at an additional cost.
Pay particular attention to their expectations surrounding handset functionality and call management. Also, consider what support or training they will need pre-deployment to enable them to hit the ground running with the new service.
Some common ‘gotchas’ are as follows:
Existing handsets | Is the customer expecting to ‘recycle’ some or all of their existing handsets? This is potentially achievable, but it does require reformatting and unlocking of the devices and an overall compatibility check. |
Bolt-ons | Does the customer require any bolt-on services? Particularly Akixi call reporting. There is an additional process for this 3rd party bolt-on which needs to be considered. |
Training | Does the customer require formal training on site, or will webinar sessions be sufficient? Who will deliver the training and at what cost? Who do you need to train? Just administrators, or other users too? How will you tailor training packages to make them relevant to the users? |
WAV Files | Does the customer have any bespoke music/announcement requirements and will they be supplying the WAV files themselves? Make sure you obtain them from the customer in good time for building the platform. |
Horizon Portal User Access | Who needs access and for what purpose/at what level? |
Password Criteria #
For the Horizon Portal a password must be:
- Alphanumeric
- Contain a mix of uppercase and lowercase
- A minimum of 8 characters
There is no timeout on the initial password emailed to a user, but passwords for the Horizon Portal need to be reset every 60 days. Soft client passwords do not expire.