Reply With Quotewhat software is ur current control room using?
Technician problems with Controlrooms.
Okay Guys
I have just opened the flood gates!.
If i can answer your questions i will. I have worked in a Controlroom for over 10 years. I started as an operator and have worked my way up.
I am giving you a thread to talk not whinge about what pisses you off about Controlrooms.
By putting constructive thoughts here maybe it will help? Who knows? who may be sitting on the side watching.
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what software is ur current control room using?
Being put on hold for bloody hours. I just finished work today, major issues with certain private networks can't divulge too much info on here, but to get back on topic I have been out since 6am just got home now it is now 10:30pm and in the whole day I have charged my phone 3 times, spent at least 4hrs on the phone to the control room. Of that 4hrs 3/4 of the time it was on hold.
Time to sink a few cans I think.
Without mentioning any names or organisations some problems encountered over the years have been
Poor managerial skills at the top of the organisation that then flow down through to the operators.
Controlrooms that don't answer their phones in a timely manor.
Poorly trained operators that can't follow actioning instructions.
Letting trainees loose too early or lack of supervision.
Controlrooms that have operators with zero people skills and are uncurtious to those that ultimatley pay their wages. Managements inability to reconise these people and take corrective action either by re-training or removal.
Being put on hold for excessive amounts of time.
Insufficient amount of staff to cover amount of lines being monitored resulting in delayed or non actioning of alarms in a timely manor.
Not having technical staff on hand to solve technical issues in a timely manner.
Lack of accountability and trying to sweep problems under the carpet when mistakes are found.
Data entry mistakes or updates not completed as submitted.
A control room that doesn't like commissionings outside of a certain small window of hours.
A controlroom that believes every fault is at the site end and never at their end and then does not have the expertise to modify a generic mask or template to suit a particular panel or situation.
Damm think the longest Ive ever waited was about 5mins.
Never understood, and never managed to get an answer why a fully commissioned alarm will suddenly have a wrong zonelist/template xx months latter....
Surely once a template is copied in it is not linked to the default template?
Had this problem with several monitoring centers primary on concept.
Would love to know of a control room that can properly monitor concept 3/4 panels, reporting in either Standard or SIMS2 map.
clients get calls, Yeah expander module tamper / fail.
Where from
Dont know
haha !
Anyone else have these issues ?
we programme the lan comms, power, fuse fails e.t.c into a system area and most cms's cant even tell where the event is from just a "general" of the activation..
Well I work on both sides of the fence my biggest complaint is ringing the big control rooms and waiting A to be Answered B to get to speak to someone
I understand why a lot of techs just go on site trigger a tamper and wait for the control room to ring site and they then advise them they are on site
2nd complaint control rooms that dont even verify you put you on test with no v/c verification
Sometimes operators can override a data entry by copying data to wrong CID which can cause enormous problems
And templates dont change of there own accord someone has to do it we use ADSW
to really open the can of worms things that annoy operators
Tech testing not notifying onsite especialy Duress Alarms or saying didnt think was going to send you any signals
Techs adding zones and not notifying control room
Techs onsite modifying panel then leave without notifying control room and no updated details recd
Techs notifying onsite then ring 2 hrs later at another site and havent sealed panel or left something amiss at previous site
Techs to lasy or incompendt to program a cancel code or delete cancel code reporting on an open / close panel so that you dont get zone restores
Tech who dont program A/c Restores or low batt restores
Techs who take over a panel and belive the zone list on the keypad is right without checking and then we recive mystery zones
techs who takes weeks or months to look into panels that should be reporting and months to update after hours or fix mystery zones even though you incident report them
Techs who advise panel off line when it isnt or to lazy to deprogram so pull out the phonne cord thewn down the track mystery panels pop up,
Techs who dont check the 2nd reciver number when changing panel to new control room
Techs who dont advise client re Duress activations on Keypads or dont tell Tecom Clients about the Duress function but leave it programmed so you keep sending polkice to a duress when the poor staff member is out by 1 on his code
Tech commissions client then you have to keep sending reminders to get a commissing sheet
i dont know if im the only one, but state gov sec monitoring are sometimes not the brightest and a bit of an arsehole
ive never had much trouble wtih being on hold for long periods, but sitting there for over an hour trying to get the c.r. to get remotely into a panel when you get it to answer first time wtih your mobile really gives me the shits
i have worked on both sides as well and the operators i have met are pretty good and try to help out asmuch as possible, might just be certain companies that arnt up to scratch
Originally Posted by controlroom Op
- you got that right.
My experience is that control rooms think techs are stupid and techs think both the control room and their customers are stupid.
It's amazing how we are all still in business.
Developer of VoIP2Go at ozvoip.net - Alarm compatible VoIP Network
Sounds like a lot of you guys need to take a good look at who is monitoring your alarms.
May need to change control rooms.
If you can't get thru after the first few rings or get put in a queuing system , there is a problem somewhere.
And the rest I have to agree with Tastech totally.
Iv'e never had any major problems with control rooms. Had a couple of times where the operator couldn't be bothered telling me ALL the events reported by the panel while commisioning. Another monitoring company didn't see fit to advise anyone about a panel that was constantly dialing through alarms from a smoke detector for two days until the customer got a big phone bill.
Time to change Controlrooms dude. Our Controlroom and many others like us have real operators answering the phones and hold duration is a few minutes at most.
Without being smart. Do you supply this information to the controlroom or do you expect them to guess?. The best way we have found is to have the technician supply us a zone list straight from the panel showing area's, devices ( device location) and zones.
2nd complaint control rooms that dont even verify you put you on test with no v/c verification
Sometimes operators can override a data entry by copying data to wrong CID which can cause enormous problems
And templates dont change of there own accord someone has to do it we use ADSW
All controlrooms should use a voice verification to verify you are a tech.
Copying & paste? wow. We have to load all zones manually we have no copy and paste system.
Templates should only be accessed by management or senior Supervisors. If a template has changed then someone has done it.
I supply a full section list yes, but as you should be aware, a concept 2/3/4000 panel sends a different CID event code, as the control rooms dont have a correct zone account, it comes through as a "sensor" tamper.
Same thing with the modules, i may install a main panel, 1 codepad, and 1 mini expander, these all send system alarms, which come through as "general module tamper / trouble"
Control rooms need to get the concept manual, which shows all the strings and map them properly.
Mate, i think your find that all of those faults are related to Tasmanian techs only, mostly caused by rushing to get home and go out on a date with their brother.
Seriously, i agree with everything you say and have seen it all of what you mention over the years.
I will even say that i have been guilty a couple of times of getting extremely frustrated with one controlroom having me on hold for excessive amounts of time and then cut off due to their crap phone system and i did resort to setting off alarms and then waiting for the site to be contacted to vent my anger and book in.
No prizes for guessing which controlroom it was. Unfortunatly the monitoring is under contract and can't be changed at the moment without large penalties as it was signed up as a multi site package deal at a corporate level.
Why can't some larger players employ English speaking data entry staff?
There seems to be a common denominator among many of the complaints listed here, and it comes down to one thing - MONEY.
Too many companies that are too tight, won't spend the money on staff, infrastructure, training or supervision.
Bean counters and management that are greedy and want all the profits for their own pockets.
Not an alarm system, but slightly related - Telecom here have outworked their weekend call centre jobs to Manila in the Philipines. If you have a problem with your broadband and call them up after hours, you will speak with some clown over there whose first language is NOT English, and he/she doesn't even have a screen in front of them that can tell them what's actually happening with your connection. All they have is a list of common issues, which they go through with you sequentially until hopefully your connection starts working!
Why did they outwork their calls to this centre? MONEY. They keep harping on about how they have to return a better profit to their shareholders. Meantime they've sacked all their staff who have any clue as to how things work and how to fix them, and the customer is left in the dark with a non-functional system.
I suspect by the sound of things that control rooms are much the same. I have been out of the alarm industry for nearly 20 years now but it seems that not a lot has improved.
If companies are to provide decent service, they need to:
* Invest in training of local people who speak English as their first language
* Provide a clean and comfortable working environment, staffed with sufficient people
* Have technical support personnel on hand at all times or at least the ability to call them when required
* Have regular reviews of staff performance and analysis of where problems are occurring and how to sort them
* Train people in the art of effective telephone communications and the need to answer all calls within 4 rings
* Emphasise the need to "follow up" on calls and clients - ring the customer back and tell them what's happening
* Have supervisory staff on all shifts who can oversee the processes and identify and deal with any issues
* Pay their staff a suitable remuneration
It seems these days that the focus on "customer service" has all but disappeared. It's rare to encounter a "salesperson" in a shop. Most people that work there are "order takers" and nothing more. You tell them what you want - if you don't know what you want you are screwed - and they *might* get off their lazy asses to go get it for you, once they have finished yapping with their cohorts.
It is no wonder that so many places go to the wall, when they operate in this way.
No Control Room OP
Copying & paste? wow. We have to load all zones manually we have no copy and paste system.
What I meant was our Software allows you after you have amended Area 0 of a Panel to copy the data from Area 0 by clicking on the copy option you can then put in the CID and Areas you want to copy the data to as well as what you want to copy it maybe opnly zones list or new afterhours
but if the operator puts in the wrong CID and then clicks copy and dosent check the little warning screen advising you where the copied is going to you can override a clients data
Mate, i think your find that all of those faults are related to Tasmanian techs only, mostly caused by rushing to get home and go out on a date with their brother.
Thats why we have two heads you never kiss your missus with the head you kiss your brother with XXXXX
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