So, I ran into a situation yesterday with the config templates for Polycom phones...
I have a user who is an admin assistant to an executive. As is quite common, the executive has a phone extension which also rings on the admin assistant's phone in addition to his own. I set this up by creating a "Special Line" for the admin assistant's phone to log in with, and adding that line to the provisioning config for her phone, and adding it as an "Also ring this line" on the main extension.
The problem I wound up with is that the line button on the assistant's phone is now labeled with the device name of the special line for her phone, instead of with the extension number. In this case, the most appropriate label would be the internal caller ID *number*. I was digging through the list of variables we can use in the line templates in the wiki, and can only find caller ID name, not number. (separate topic while on that point - there's no "External callerid" field on the special line config, and this executive has a DID number which should be used on the admin's callerid for outside calls)
${VOICEMAIL_NUMBER} and ${EXTENSION} both appear to contain the device name, rather than the actual voicemail number or extension. ${LINE_LABEL} would be an easy workaround, except that auto-creating a provisioning device from the "create a new SIP extension" appears to put the user's name into the label field in the provisioning config, by default, not the extension number, which means we'd have to manually fix it every time we created an extension if I change the template to use that (not to mention having to fix the hundreds of existing extensions).
Thanks!
Any thoughts on the best way to proceed?
Right now I have her phone set up correctly by manually editing the config file generated for that phone before rebooting it. But that's immediately going to break the next time anyone touches the provisioning stuff and it autogenerates again.
That looks like a nice way to
That looks like a nice way to do it. Can you make the Polycom actually play a sound when a BLF button is showing ring state, or do they have to watch for the light?
oh it rings, you just have to
oh it rings, you just have to look at the display to realize its a pickup line thats ringing. I do this with the expansion modules and had to train someone that when they see an unusual To: sip:102@some.ip that thats not their call but the green blinking extension.
another way to handle this is instead of saying 'all lines' (pretending its a 550) is to select registration 1 and span 3 lines
then add another button, select type BLF and watch his extension.. if your running 3.2.x firmware and asterisk 1.6.2.x or higher then her phone will blink green when its in the ringing state and she can fetch the call that way. Of course your directed call pickup would need to be adjusted or tested working.