user portal features

now that asterisk supports the calendar feature, it would be cool if we could add more scheduling to the find-me/follow-me code so that different times of day can invoke different rule sets. This is a feature already implemented in switchvox. The calendar feature should avoid the ladder-logic of all those gotoiftime entries.

now that the outlook plugin is only for versions prior to 7.x, a new outlook plugin is needed as its become the most commonly requested tool, to date.

look into the possibility of migrating the directories into LDAP as its becomming the universal API phone vendors are rolling into the phones. This will allow for those entries to display on the phones.

perhaps time to re-tool the provisioning engine to support structure templates based on the phone models, so that different models can let you apply customizable features specific to their design. From there we could define which features a user has the ability to alter for his phone behavior. This is also something incorporated in switchvox as well as freepbx. I have some ideas as how to handle that.

We are likely going to enable outlook plugin for Communications Manager 7.x.

Any other suggestions?

Other feature, which is really on demand: the ability to restrict the drop-down list "Run script" for the tenant admin. For example, when I create a hunt list there is a "Run script" drop-down menu with plenty of options. I need them all, but not our customers. What I would leave, depends from the customer setup.

Most often used:
tl-go-to-userextension
tl-go-to-voicemail
tl-huntlist
tl-menu

Again, it depends from the setup. Sometimes you need only a hunt list, sometimes you need a menu, a hunt-list, a queue and something else, so we can't strictly restrict it.
A lot of customers which have 5-10 phones are small businesses without technical knowledge, which just need to reroute main number from a huntlist (IVR menu) to cell phone. If I provide them access to the hunt list drop-down menu, I should explain what other features do and what they need to select for re routing. Now for me is it easier to create an additional extension, a feature code and explain how to do the routing there. Bad side that it is not obvious and customer should memorize the feature codes.
For customers who has 20-50 phones and the technical person on board I can provide the access to the admin interface, but again, I would like to have the precise control which options to display in the list.

Another feature is the ability to route call on time-redirect not only from inbound route, but from everywhere. Sometimes I need it after an IVR menu.

time dependent features everywhere would be something we will probably add

as far as scripts' access permissions - we will also consider that but it would be hard to make the implementation flexible enough without "general" permissions implementation. flagging scripts as "available to tenant admins" will probably not be good enough.

I've been running across a few customers whose users are on thin clients running terminal server and as a result have no sound devices. This invalidates VM -> Email as well as the User Portal section that lets them play a VM directly from there. One simple to implement feature that would add functionality is the ability to dump a recording straight to the phone or a cell phone.

Lets start with the deskphone..
we already have code that does intercom functionality by using SIP headers to auto-answer a call. The same code can be recycled to get a deskphone to auto-answer on an origination command where the destination is a Playback() of that recording instead of executing a remote number to dial. This would let them click to play an audio recording, and if they are not already on the phone, listen to it from the speaker of their phone. This could be an extra option next to the Play icon currently displayed.

Now onto the remote phone:
similar to the previous code, but without the auto-answer, allow the user to specify their cell number (perhaps stored in their user portal as a reference object for this and other features like multi-device-exten and FM/FM).