Playa Andaluza EV install

In this project I will be detailing my role in the installation of the new cloud PBX phone system sold by
our company to the Marriott Playa Andaluza beach resort in Málaga, Spain. The prebuild of the install
lasted around 1 week, this being the pre-programming of the phone system, so it is ready and waiting
for the equipment to be installed and activated. As the resort is so large, the physical install took two
and a half weeks, including initial installation, patching and aftercare.

As Part of my company’s health and safety procedures, a risk assessment is made by the Project
Manager and the relevant clothing is required based on this. As I was working on site and handling
equipment, I was allocated a high visibility vest, ear plugs, and goggles. I myself only needed to use
the goggles to ensure dust didn’t get in my eye whilst moving around in small, cramped dusty areas
were the krone strips were located. (See evidence 11)

I will skip the first part of process as this is the sale; this encompasses what the customers’ needs and
wants are based around their budget and what is feasible. I was not party to this, so I will start with
the pre-build. The pre-build side of a project is the programming of the phone system. This means:

 Call flows – where calls will go based on what number is rang, where it the call will divert if
unanswered, unavailable. Will there be voicemail?

 Auto attendant - the IVR (interactive voice response). This needs to be based on the
recording that is made, ensuring each number the caller presses, goes to the required
destination (phone or group of phones)

 Admin phones – these phones are primarily IP phones, this means they will work via the
internet and register with our platform providers TVF. These are programmed on the system,
detailing the MAC address so the system knows what phone the programming details are
being assigned to. You insert the name, extension and service packs. Service packs are
required for functionality, and different service packs allow different services and have a cost
based on the complexity of service. Once the details are input into the system, the phone is
able to be plugged into an internet connection and should be plug and play meaning it will
automatically work, however this is not always the case. –

 Analogue phones – analogue phones are programmed on the system. I detail the extension
number and the port on the Vega (this being our PBX system). As there was an old phone
system in place, we were able to find out where each of the old wire pairs on the old system
went using a method called tapping out. We can then translate this to the ports on our
system, meaning we don’t need to re-cable the entire resort.

 Hunt groups –these are groups of phones which can ring based on different circumstances.
For example, if 1234 is dialled, 4 different phones will ring. The ringing pattern can be
changed to meet needs, EG can ring based on idle time, order in a list, or just simultaneously.

 Pick up groups – if phones are in the same pick up group, they can use the pick-up button to
answer another phone that is ringing in that group.

 Call centre – This install required a call centre to be configured as they had a sales team. A
call centre has specific features that would be required for a call centre team such as the
ability to log in and out, have a comfort message and the ability to queue calls.
As part of the pre-build, the call centre that was programmed required call reporting so that the
customer could monitor details of calls, to ensure the best customer service and to keep track of
everything call related. I configured this myself before the installation began (See Evidence 10)

Once the first phase of the programming is complete, the equipment is shipped to site to arrive a
couple of days before we do.

As this was such a large site, there were 3 engineers (including myself) and a project manager to
oversee everything.

I got a plane on Sunday and arrive Sunday night around 12pm. It Is normally custom to meet the hotel
manager, but as it was so late, we introduced ourselves to the night security guard, the front desk
night manager, let them know what we were here for, and to tell them to come to us with any
questions or requests about their new phone system.

Communication with customers, guests and colleagues. Different levels of communication are
required based on who you are speaking to and the platform you are speaking on.

On the first morning of the installation we made our introductions to the management and let him
know an overview of what would be going on. When speaking to the manager I ensured to be polite
and courteous, to inform him what our plan of action was, the time scale, and our predictions for
interruptions to service or anything that would affect him and his job and the running of the hotel. I
also had to be sure to not be too technical when speaking, knowing the manager didn’t know and
didn’t need to know how everything works, just the details that would affect him.
We then met the hotels IT team, these were the IT managers for the vacation club brand and would
be assisting us in ensuring everything on the network side was configured correctly, as we did not
have access to this equipment ourselves. Speaking to the IT team I knew I should approach this in a
different manner than speaking to the manager. The IT team were technically involved and therefore I
could go into technical detail about everything we would be doing, what we needed them to do on
their part of the system to allow our equipment to work. It is important to remain polite, but I did not
need to be as formal as with the manager as we would be working with the IT team day in and out, so
it is possible to build a working friendship; however, it is important to understand they are still
customers and need to be treated as such.
Another tier of communication was with staff and guests. When speaking with the staff of the hotel,
who would be using the new equipment, I remained polite and always made sure to ask if they had
any questions or concerns that I could relieve them of. As this hotel was located in Spain, the large
majority of staff spoke Spanish. Luckily most of the staff did speak English, however sometimes it was
hard to understand what was being said. In this situation it was important for me to ask clarifying
questions to ensure I fully understood what they were saying. (See Evidence 2)

As the hotel was open, there was also customers using the hotel. Whilst testing the rooms we
interacted with these customers a lot. We had to (with the assistance of a member of staff), knock on
each door, and request access inside to be able to make changes to the phone to support our new
system. Each person was treated with respect, and some were more conversational than others. It
was important to read the situation and communicate accordingly. For example, some customers
were happy to speak about their day and what we were doing, and others were not interested and
would prefer us to get the job done and leave as soon as possible, both being perfectly acceptable.
On reflection, I believe I could’ve communicated with the manager more throughout the install, to
keep him up to date. We did provide updates when we ran into him or something that would have
effect on operation would happen, but it may have been beneficial to actively seek out the manager
and let him know what was happening and where we were up to more times that I did. (See Evidence
1)

To be able to access the communications room at the hotel where all the network and phone system
was set up and stored, we had to sign out a key every morning at the security hut and had to sign it
back in every day after we were finished using the room. We also had to ensure the communications
room door was always locked, whether we were in or out of the room. This was to keep in line with
the security policies of the hotel.
On the basis of security, It was also imperative to ensure my laptop is always locked when I am not
using it, especially whilst on an install. My laptop contains sensitive information that needs to be kept
secure in line with our company guide lines, as well as data protection laws, as I have applications
open that may contain hotel guest data.

The first task I gave myself was to configure the EV one clients. This is a Mobile phone application
that allows you to sign in with your user account. This meant that the users who bought this were able
to make internal calls from their mobile, have calls charged to the hotel and have people contact their
mobile phone via a work DDI; it is the same has having a desk phone, but it is located on your mobile
device. It can also be linked to a desk phone so that they will ring at the same time. See Evidence 9
for how I configured this whilst on the installation. I took it upon myself to program these as I normally
work on the tech support desk and had a lot of knowledge on how the clients work and how they are
programmed, whereas the other engineers were unfamiliar.

Some installs conduct the tapping out of the old system before the install begins. In this install it was
to be conducted on site. To do this we set up a phone in the communications room; this is the room
containing all the network and phone equipment, and where our new equipment would be being set
up. I spent a large portion of the two weeks in this room. To access this room, we had to fulfil a
security procedure by visiting the guard hut, signing out the key and then signing it back in at the end
of the day. We also had to ensure the communications door was locked when no one was inside.
Once the phone is set up, we used a butt phone, insert it into each pair on a krone strip, check for dial
tone, and if there is, call the phone in comms room and see what number comes up. We then detail
this out on an excel document for the entirety of the krone strips, and we can then program our Vega
in the correct order. (See evidence 12)
Once the tap out is completed, we connected the old MDF (main distribution frame) to our new one,
and then attached each pair from our Amphenol cable to the panel in the order of 1-50. There are 50
pairs on an Amphenol cable and 50 ports on a Vega so once this is reached, you start with a new
Amphenol cable and a new Vega until all bedrooms are wired. We can then plug the other end of the
Amphenol cable into our Vega’s (once programmed) and the bedroom phones will work, providing the
Vega is registered. This is based on the Vega configuration being correct and the network details on
the Vega being correct based on the network set up. This whole process alone took around 4 days as
there were around 400 bedrooms. I punched down about half of these wires until I was given the task
of allocating the admin phones to the staff members

There were around 100 admin phones to put out throughout the entire resort, so this took me around
3 days whilst completing other tasks. Each phone had to be unboxed, put together and put next to the
old phone on each person’s desk. The reason these couldn’t be replaced straight away is that the old
system wasn’t due to be disconnected until the Sunday. Until the ‘cut over’ time, the old phone system
is still in place and the new system cannot be removed. These phones would work with each other,
and for outbound calls, but inbound calls would only come to the old phones as the direct dials only
come to our system on cut over. To combat this issue, we patched the new phones in next to the old
ones, so the users could get a feel for the new phones, but still be able to receive calls. Throughout
my task I spoke to hundreds of people, who all had questions about the new system and how to the
use the new phone. We did hold training sessions for these phones, which I was part of, however
these were scheduled for the day after cutting over and I was happy to answer questions and
demonstrate features of the new phones such as transferring calls, accessing voicemail and anything
else they wanted to know.
Another issue I came across was even though the phones were getting the correct IP address, the
weren’t getting any service, which means they weren’t registering. To trouble shoot this I used the IP
address to browse to the phones WEB GUI and check if the provisioning details (the details the phone
uses to register) were inserted. They were not. As this wasn’t the case it was likely the MAC address
of the phone wasn’t on the Yealink redirection server. The Yealink redirection server is the server
Yealink brand phones go to once booted up, you can then use this server to direct the phone to your
own server to allow it to register. Once the mac of the phone was inserted to this server, and the
phone factory reset, it was then able to each the correct server and register.

A tool I used to analyse if a phone was registered, diagnose and troubleshoot issues and gather call
flow and IP information is ‘Palladion’. Palladion is an operations monitoring tool that allows me to
monitor all phones connected to the server our phones use to register. There are two of these
servers, one for Europe and one for America. The tool uses Wireshark and port mirroring and puts
into a clean user-friendly client, allowing me to filter out what I need.
One example of me using this whilst on the installation was to see why a phone was registered and
could make calls, but no sound could be heard. I used to the tools ‘user tracking’ tool to get more
information on the device. I then put the users sip profile name into the search bar, knowing that the
phone was registered as it could make call I knew it would be visible through the tool. The tool then
shows me information such as IP address, WAN IP address, device type etc. Using this information, I
was able to determine that the phone was in the wrong VLAN, one not meant for VOIP phones, which
meant the voice packets couldn’t reach the other phones it was making calls to and therefore no
sound was produced. After discovering this, I informed the Marriott IT technician to tag the port in the
correct VLAN for VOIP phones which then resolved the problem (see evidence 7)

I also used this tool due to not all phones working the way they were supposed to, and throughout the
task there were different reasons as to why this was. This required troubleshooting to work out and
then fix. My first go to would be Palladion, but if a phone wasn’t registered, this tool would not be of
much use.

One issue that didn’t require Paladion was when the phones would not boot up from POE. This meant
the port the phones were plugged into weren’t patched into the switch. To combat this, I retrieved the
keys for the communications room that this port was wired on and then found the patch panel the port
went back to and then patched it into a free port on the switch. The phone would then boot up,
however I then had to ask the IT team to ensure the port was configured in the VOIP VLAN to allow
the phone to collect the correct IP address and be able to register.

I was also tasked with adding a few new bases to a true Ascom Dect system (as opposed to Wi-Fi
DECT). Neither myself or my colleagues were familiar with this system, but having dealt with similar
systems in the past, I took it upon myself to try and figure it out. See Evidence 8 for the process I
went through to configure these new bases.

On every installation we do, there is a template ‘Master Document’. This is an excel sheet that
contains tabs on every aspect of the install. This document is uploaded to the sites specific folder on
SharePoint, which allowed us to consistently keep it up to date as we went on. As the excel
document is uploaded to an online platform, it means that any changes made are live, and the
document is updated for everyone. This is a very useful feature as it meant everyone had up to date
information. An example of this would be the ‘New Hardware IP Details’ tab. This tab contains
information on what hardware is installed (not including the phones themselves), IP addresses of the
equipment, usernames, passwords, and locations. Having this information live updated as it was
configured meant that all engineers could retrieve the information and connect to the equipment no
matter where they were on site, helping resolve issues and re-configure as needed. (see evidence 5)

During this installation, I was able to demonstrate my ability to work flexibility and under pressure by
agreeing to work overtime when necessary. This included spending most of my Saturday continuing
working on the installation to ensure everything was ready for the cutover point of the new system on
the upcoming Monday. (See evidence 6)

To gain access to our equipment remotely once we have left site, or whilst on site but not connected
to the network, we need to ensure our Marriott VPN and Remote desktop was configured to allow us
to browse to reach our equipment. To do this I needed to allow it on the Marriott multi-layer protocol
switches firewall to allow access through the Marriott remote desktop servers as a company we do
not have access to this, so we had to ask Marriott to do it. Once this was confirmed I could connect to
our devices to make changes and fix problems remotely. To connect using this method I first needed
to open the VPN client. Once the correct details were inserted into the configuration side of the client,
such as the IP address, user name and password of the VPN, which are provided by Marriott, I was
then able to securely connect to a host server using a remote desktop connection.

To connect to the host server, I needed to open the remote desktop connection and input the IP
address of the server or host computer. I was then be prompted for a username and password. Once
these are inserted I was connected to the server and was able use this remote desktop to browse to
our equipment, using the documented information we have about the IP address, username and
password of our own equipment. These are standardised by us for each install (see Evidence 4)

Once the installation was finished and I started working in the office again, I made sure to take any
faults associated with this hotel, as I had better knowledge of how everything works, and I had spoken
to the hotel staff in person, so it was good practise from a customer service point of view.

For the project, I feel as though I could’ve done a better job at preparing for what id be doing. There
was some equipment I wasn’t very familiar with and it would have been a good idea to learn more
about thing before I got to the hotel, rather than learning as go.