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606
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IPT Roles

jjoseph01
Level 3
Level 3

Hi all. Im curious about how most services companies do IPT implementations. Im wondering if in most organizations, is there typically a "Unity guy", a "callmanager guy" and an "contact center guy"? Or is it typical that one guy knows all three products and implements all three?

15 Replies 15

gogasca
Level 10
Level 10

Most of the partners I have seen have a "Voice guy" which implements all three.

For really big deployments|customers there are specialists in each tehcnology, for example here in tac we have unity, ccm and ipcc team in different groups

Im responsible for "Callmanager" "Unity" and "Contact Center", there is no need to have a speacialist in each of this Voice Products. What you need is to have inhouse one or two specialists (depends on how big your IPT environement is) who will receive a high level of trainings on those Product to be able to solve problem or to do new installations/Upgrades. Have them also build a Lab environement to test upgrade or to troubleshoot. For really big Environement (ie 5000 user) as gogasca said it may be good to have a specialist for each application.

Kid Dynamite
Level 1
Level 1

In my experience, it is usually one person that implements all 3...

As already noted it depends on size and complexity of the environemnt. Typically CM/Unity will go along togehter, Contact Center especailly IPCC Enterprise requires it's own skill sets and in larger more complex environments this may be a seperate resource as advanced scripting, custome development may be required.

Chris

I agree with chris. I have yet to see a proficient engineer in all three technologies. Typically I find an expert IPCC, but then does not know much about Unity and a enough CUCM to get by. (create JTAPI and accounts and some minor routing). If you truely are an expert in all three, you should be consulting, not workin for the man :) For me, I have an AD background , routing and switching. Then have CUCM, Unity , Presence, OCS, etc. But no way I can squeeze IPCC into my brain. I would have to drop one technology to actually be proficient in the others. Kudos to anyone who can master them all (repeatably)

cheers!

All, thanks for the response you have given. I appreciate them. I find myself in a difficult position alot of times. I can do CUCM and Unity, not saying Im an "expert" at them, but can do them. On top of that, I have to muddle my way through IPCC also. Now learning Presence also. I find my head spinning more than I do anything else really. Thanks again all.

John,

This is a very interesting post. There is no right or wrong answer to this. Different companies have different strategies on how their engineering team tackles projects. Still one big factor that determines what all technologies you are responsible for is the size of the company. I work for a smaller Cisco var, we have grown to about 150 employees now in the last 5 years. I have done projects where you do the whole nine yards from start to finish, presales to installation to post implementation support. I have done CUCM, Unity,IPCC, Presence, Mobility, CER, network infrastructure, firewalls all by myself in certain projects.

Off late we have moved away from that model and tag team two engineers on every project. This help each other cross train each other on specific products. One engineer will take care of all the lan/security infrastructure and the other will be specialized in voice apps or even distribute the installation of the voice apps between each other.

As the size of the company grows and the type of clients you deal with is huge, its almost impossible for just one guy to go in and be an expert in all the technology spaces and get it all done and meet the project deadline in a timely manner. I would suggest that this is a business decision your company has to take or be made aware of, to have multiple engineers be trained and skilled across different products.

HTH

Sankar

Sankar Nair
UC Solutions Architect
Pacific Northwest | CDW
CCIE Collaboration #17135 Emeritus

Hi John,

Great thread here! +5 points for opening up this good dialogue. Gonz,Sankar,Tommer,Chris,Zin and Kid +5 points for all of you as well for adding your insight to this discussion. There are not many engineers who are Expert in all of these platforms that's for sure. I do know that if I were directing any type of "Services" company I would want multiple people trained in each if at all possible. Each engineer might have their specialty and some cross-over knowledge of the other pieces as well :)

The saying "Jack of all Trades - Master of none" comes to mind here .

Just my two cents!

Rob

Rob's concluding line has a great point here. +5 to you Rob!!

Sankar Nair
UC Solutions Architect
Pacific Northwest | CDW
CCIE Collaboration #17135 Emeritus

Hey Shanky,

Thanks so much buddy! You Rock my friend!

Take care,

Rob

This is good. I appreciate all the insight here. I find myself at a company with less than 20 employees. Im the only one that does voice there, and although I feel like I know alot, I also feel like I dont know much at the same time. Im not sure that makes a lot of sense. Anyway, thanks all.

Hi John,

You are not alone here :) With these technologies, the more you know, the more you realise you don't know! There is so much to learn for all of us, this becomes exciting and daunting all at the same time.

Keep plugging away, try to learn something new everyday and things will become clearer and clearer. Just think of how far you have come, not how much farther you have to go ;-)

Take care,

Rob

Rob, thanks for the encouragment. I appreciate that.

When you are at a small company, and overwhelmed with certain technologies, it makes more sense to bring in a contractor to do the work you need. If you are a stretched or small IT shop, you really need to budget time and money for a outside contractor to come in and do some work for you. When you are on the island of IT, we all know you are by yourself. Putting out fires in every area of technology. Even if you are a little comfortable, someone coming to spend a day to check over the system, show you some new things, etc may be well worth your money spent. my vote, budget in next year some time with a consultant. I was on your side of the fence. Working 60 hour works and support 400 employees and 15 sites. It was me and jr person. After 5 years, I moved back to the consulting side of the fence.

good luck!

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