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How to configure 3CX Central Phone Book

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ziptalk

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I noticed that when I populate the Phone Book on 3CX, that there's a 'GENERATE' button, and upon pressing this, nothing much happens. I cannot seem to find any reference to the Phone Book in the 3CX System manual. I have SNOM 3xx IP Phones, and in the end just imported a CSV file manually to each phone.

How do I use the central mailbox, and is it possible to make it auto-populate with live extensions already in the system ?

I provisioned the phones using DHCP 'option 66' which works great, but despite me having the Phone Book populated, the phones did not inherit the centralised Phone Book.

Thanks for letting me know what I am doing wrong or the simplest way of providing a Phone Book to all deployed phones.

Lewis
 
On my V8 test system the phone book shows up in the provisioning folder as snom_phonebook.xml for snom phones. The provisioning file for my SNOM points to this file for the directory which can be viewed on the phone.
 
The central phone book only works for Snom's and certain other phones that are provisioned by 3CX.
You add all the entries and click the generate button and it will create several xml phonebook files at
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\3CX\Data\Http\Interface\provisioning (for a default 3CX install)

The Snom one is called snom_phonebok.xml and the contents of the xml file are all the current 3CX extension details plus the custom numbers you entered manually

From memory the phonebook is only provisioned once, so if you add extra extensions or numbers to the phonebook you need to delete the file to get a new one generated. I am unsure if the Snom's pick up the updated phone books or if you need to factory default then to get them re-provisioned.

I also seem to remember something about the phonebook only being available on a paid version of 3CX. I'm not 100% certain so someone else will need to confirm or deny that.
 
I just tested this and manually added an entry to the XML file. I only needed to reboot the phone for it to show up.
 
I was wondering how the Phone book tabbed work, as i had generated one, and auto-provisioned SNOMs with option 66, however, i had to manually update the address book. Which step am I missing in the provisioning to make sure the Phones get the phone book automatically. Thanks for clarifying this. Lewis
 
Make sure your provisioning file for the phone has the following in the XML

<setting-files>
<file url="http://X.X.X.X/management/provisioning/snom_phonebook.xml"/> (This may be different if ussing Cassini)
</setting-files>

FYI. I am using V.7 firmware
 
simplesip said:
Thanks for the info - keep it coming.

I'm not quite with you yet: I understand that 3CX generates an XML phone book file but I don't use provisioning at all so is that the only way to deploy it?

The reason I don't use provisioning is that I have no idea what it might change on our phones. Where does it tell you what settings are used for provisioning? I deduce from Comresource:

Make sure your provisioning file for the phone has the following in the XML

<setting-files>
<file url="http://X.X.X.X/management/provisioning/snom_phonebook.xml"/> (This may be different if ussing Cassini)
</setting-files>

...that there is an XML file controlling this but surely you don't have to manually edit the XML file to make changes?

Why would I need to use provisioning when we only have 10 phones? Is there another advantage other than being able to deploy a lot of phones more quickly?

I also noted that the phone book (according to this thread) does not update dynamically. What's the point of that then? Surely I might just as well keep a CSV file and push that out to the phones if it has to be updated manually? Isn't that easier?

All of this is somewhat irrelevant if it is only available in the paid version anyway - can someone confirm that? Any free users out there using the phone book?

I have to say, I'd be pretty disappointed to pay for the full version and not get a proper dynamic central phone book that updates itself.

Regards,

Simple

Dump the current config of one of your phones to a xml file and then compare it against a auto provisioned xml file that 3CX creates - that will show you the differences. you can do an auto provisioned file for an extension with the wrong MAC address and it will never provision the phone so you will be safe from having the settings overwritten.

The phonebook may update dynamically - generate one and then have a look at the contents, add another entry and re0-generate it and see if the new entry appears. As for the free version not having the phonebook, all you need to do is hit "generate" on a free version and see if the XML files appear in the provisioning folder. If they do appear then it works in the free version.
 
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