We have recently been told by management to enable full building emergency paging abilities in our 3CX system. We have our primary campus with roughly 150 phones (Locan LAN - in office) and 3 satellite cities with roughly 10-30 phones each (local SBC) that we need to implement this on.
First off, I am aware that 3CX-managed multicast paging does not work behind an SBC. Multicast can be configured manually within each phone and it's surprisingly easy to implement as long as everyone involved is at the same location (thank you to @craigreilly ). That being said, after successfully creating and testing all of these manual multicast setups for each separate city, the settings are lost when each desk phone is rebooted or reprovisioned. The other kicker is that the custom button to invoke the page is cleared out as well.
My assumption is that there are 3 ways to deal with this:
Option 1: Use conventional paging groups in the cities behind an SBC. As soon as one of these groups is called, it would immediately max out our current call allotment and numerous phones would likely not receive the message. Aside from the fact that this would prevent the home office from sending or receiving calls, since this whole project is primarily for safety/liability reasons this option should be pretty much dead on arrival. This is pretty much the zero effort fix and our primary campus will be unaffected at all other times.
Option 2: The custom template route. We could create an SBC-specific custom template for every model of phone we use (7 different phones) that will prevent phone provisioning from wiping out custom multicast settings. We could also just make the template implement ALL of the building listening addresses to every phone, regardless of location. I would then need to make a separate custom template for each of the cities that would include the manual multicast paging button that would be implemented on the phones of the people that are supposed to have access to that feature. The massive downside (aside from the amount of work and complicating our 3cx system in general) is that I haven't modified any phone templates before, let alone numerous brand/model templates (Fanvil, Grandstream, Yealink, and Snom).
Option 3: Use conventional multicast for our big home office buildings. At each location behind an SBC we will install however many Grandstream GSC3505 speakers are needed and set them up on a conventional paging group and just deal with the added expense and realization that it simply may just not work quite right if call volume is high. If we could figure out a way to keep a custom button on specific phones at all times, we could set up a non-3CX multicast group on these devices and not even have them be managed by 3CX, but if we're going to start messing with templates we may as well get nuts and go with option 2.
Does anyone have any magic bullets for me? Pointers on templates, existing templates, etc.?
Home Office Building 1: 75 phones (Local LAN, own 3cx-enabled multicast paging group)
Home Office Building 2: 30 phones (Local LAN, own 3cx-enabled multicast paging group)
Home Office Building 3: 30 phones (Local LAN, own 3cx-enabled multicast paging group)
SBC City 1: 30 phones (SBC, own manual multicast paging group)
SBC City 2: 20 phones (SBC, own manual multicast paging group)
SBC City 3: 10 phones (SBC, own manual multicast paging group)
First off, I am aware that 3CX-managed multicast paging does not work behind an SBC. Multicast can be configured manually within each phone and it's surprisingly easy to implement as long as everyone involved is at the same location (thank you to @craigreilly ). That being said, after successfully creating and testing all of these manual multicast setups for each separate city, the settings are lost when each desk phone is rebooted or reprovisioned. The other kicker is that the custom button to invoke the page is cleared out as well.
My assumption is that there are 3 ways to deal with this:
Option 1: Use conventional paging groups in the cities behind an SBC. As soon as one of these groups is called, it would immediately max out our current call allotment and numerous phones would likely not receive the message. Aside from the fact that this would prevent the home office from sending or receiving calls, since this whole project is primarily for safety/liability reasons this option should be pretty much dead on arrival. This is pretty much the zero effort fix and our primary campus will be unaffected at all other times.
Option 2: The custom template route. We could create an SBC-specific custom template for every model of phone we use (7 different phones) that will prevent phone provisioning from wiping out custom multicast settings. We could also just make the template implement ALL of the building listening addresses to every phone, regardless of location. I would then need to make a separate custom template for each of the cities that would include the manual multicast paging button that would be implemented on the phones of the people that are supposed to have access to that feature. The massive downside (aside from the amount of work and complicating our 3cx system in general) is that I haven't modified any phone templates before, let alone numerous brand/model templates (Fanvil, Grandstream, Yealink, and Snom).
Option 3: Use conventional multicast for our big home office buildings. At each location behind an SBC we will install however many Grandstream GSC3505 speakers are needed and set them up on a conventional paging group and just deal with the added expense and realization that it simply may just not work quite right if call volume is high. If we could figure out a way to keep a custom button on specific phones at all times, we could set up a non-3CX multicast group on these devices and not even have them be managed by 3CX, but if we're going to start messing with templates we may as well get nuts and go with option 2.
Does anyone have any magic bullets for me? Pointers on templates, existing templates, etc.?
Home Office Building 1: 75 phones (Local LAN, own 3cx-enabled multicast paging group)
Home Office Building 2: 30 phones (Local LAN, own 3cx-enabled multicast paging group)
Home Office Building 3: 30 phones (Local LAN, own 3cx-enabled multicast paging group)
SBC City 1: 30 phones (SBC, own manual multicast paging group)
SBC City 2: 20 phones (SBC, own manual multicast paging group)
SBC City 3: 10 phones (SBC, own manual multicast paging group)
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