Crazy? Extensions for Rooms, Hotdesk for Users

[nseatonedu]

Let me know if I'm crazy for attempting this...

I work for a K-12 school system and I'm about to deploy 3CX in our environment. I've had a small test server that I've been using for a couple of years so I'm fairly familiar with the product.

I want to set up an unconventional configuration for our phones.

My idea is to create a Hotdesk extension for every phone and then provision a second account on the phone for each classroom. The idea is that each teacher would hotdesk into the phone.

Example: A phone in Room 12345 would have the following accounts:
Account 1: HD00001
Account 2: Ext 12345

Of course there would be an extension set up for each teacher as well, such as "Jane Smith - Ext 09876"

We have a lot of classrooms that are used by multiple teachers and teachers who move from room to room. The purpose of this configuration is so that the teacher can hotdesk into the classroom he/she is currently in. However, for safety reasons I'd also like the flexibility for the front office to be able to call an individual classroom regardless if a teacher is logged in or not.


As far as the "how" this is done. I'm going to let 3CX generate the Account 1 and then I'm going to dynamically append the file with Account 2 based on the phones MAC address. I've set up a small demo with 4 phones and it works, but is this idea too over the top?

 

[dandenson]

I do some schools, so outside of the technical merits, do you really expect teachers to hotdesk in?

I think a call flow app and date & time conditions and some wizardry with forwarding rules might give you a better result.

create an extension for each teacher.
create a ring group per teacher that doesn't include any extensions and just points to the call flow.
call flow has a mapping of times and classrooms. So make a schedule for when a teacher will be in a given room and transfer the call to the right place. Teachers 'extension' would just be that ring group. Their own unadvertised extension would just be where their voicemails live.

One call flow per teacher.

You could go a step further and put a database connection together with that schedule and pull that data in, even using the dialed number variable to make a single very large call flow to handle every teacher so you'd just have a single ring group that fed calls through the call flow.

unfortunately extensions can't send to call flows directly in v16u2

This approach would allow you to also give teachers access to the smart phone apps so that they could have that ring first, then push to the call flow.

 

[AWS2P]

Why doing simple when you can do complicated , the easiest way is always the only way working.

Why not using app on smartphone for teachers and deskphone in classrooms.

In my school life , never see teachers having phones in classrooms, what is the use for teachers to have phones, no idea at all.

 

[dandenson]

I see a mix. Some schools opt for a phone on the teacher's desk. Others, a phone on the wall by the door that doubles as the PA system. Others, PA system mounted up on the wall w/ no phone capabilities.

I have a small school where the teachers actually pick up their phone and take it to the next classroom and are not interested in any fancy hot-desking.

 

[AWS2P]

And finally what is the daily use for these phones ? it's really essential ?

 

[leejor]

I can see there being issues with teachers simply forgetting to hotdesk in or out .

 

[nseatonedu]

We're required by law to have a telephone in each classroom.

I did plan to also provide teachers with softphones via their personal cell phone and their school-issued laptops.

As far as logging in/out. Teachers who don't change classrooms could just stay hotdesked indefinitely.
For teachers who do move, if they forget to logout, the next teacher can log them out or they will be logged out when they log into their next phone.

I'm certainly not opposed to just going the easy route and giving teachers extensions for their softphones and assigning the physical phone to the room extension. I was just thinking the proposed method would give more flexibility when calling a teacher versus calling a room.

 

[dandenson]

A complete different direction here, but you could maybe do the following:

provision all phones statically.
add BLF buttons for each teacher that uses the room.
use a call flow and a ring group to call forward that teacher's extension to that phone's extension.

That way it's a simple button press. Requires a ring group for each migratory teacher and a call flow for each but that's not a huge deal.