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VestaLink "Obi Easy Setup Tool" Surprise

Started by REC25, June 19, 2014, 11:12:05 AM

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REC25

I have an Obi 200 and signed up for a VestaLink  free trial. I used their OBI Easy Setup Tool for the setup. There was a popup stating that I would lose control of the Obi-talk portal and I decided I would use it and see what happens. The VestaLink  service set up fine but I did lose control of the Obi-talk portal and lost my Anveo setup on SP2. I accessed the web interface page and saw SP2 Anveo setup was gone, VestaLink setup on SP1 fine, and VestaLink credentials in IVR slot in Device Admin page. I was a bit upset at losing my Anveo setup so I did  ***81 reset. Back on the Obi-talk portal I see SP1 empty with a red ERROR msg. and strangely SP2 with Anveo also with the ERROR msg. I clicked on the SP1 error msg. and was taken to the service setup page and proceeded to set up Vestalink manually. Saving the setup and back to Device Configuration I clicked on the SP2, Anveo error msg. which in this case took me to the Anveo Account page, which was still filled out. I just clicked SUBMIT and then back to Device Admin. page. After a few seconds both accounts showed as Registered, all was well.
  I suspect the takeover was done to make troubleshooting easy on VestaLink as they could easily check your setup if there is a problem, and to keep you from tinkering with their settings. This would be a good thing if this is going to be your only service. On the other hand, if you have a second service or are thinking about getting another service you are out in the cold.
  I did check on this forum before trying VestaLink but did not see anything about this subject, but I probably was looking the wrong forum and have since found a post containing some info on it. I did this post to get the problem/annoyance into the subject line to make it easier to find. I did check VestaLink's support page on the Obi Easy Setup Tool and there is no mention of the changes it makes to your device outside of just setting up your service.
    EDIT:
    If you go to Vestalink.com and click on Help at the top you will go to their support page which does have instructions for Advanced Obi Configuration, which is just setting up their service using the Obi-talk portal. This way you can keep an existing service or add another later if you want. There is a post about this in their Feedback area, but you don't see that link until you are signed in with an account.

ceg3

The easy setup tool allows Vestalink to configure your OBi.  While there might be some advantage to having the setup more or less be done by their system, as you learned, your device becomes dedicated to Vestalink. For all practical purposes it might as well then be a Grandstream ATA you would order from them.

You can still run the advanced setup in OBiTALK by selecting Vestalink from a group of approved services.  Doing that eliminates the need to copy over your information from your Vestalink web portal, except for your user ID and password.  Using that tool might better insure everything is as it needs to be and is definitely helpful for newer users, not wanting to run the easy setup tool.