Phonebook Issues and Snom Phones

[PeeBeeEx]

Have a mix of Snom D715, D725, D712 and D765 phones and this seems to happen across all of them.

Still in the process of troubleshooting and identifying exactly what's happening, so I'll update this thread accordingly, but for the moment I believe the following is happening.

Any time a user adds a contact to the directory from the phone:

1. The contact always ends up automatically disappearing (every 24 hours? Every time the phone reprovisions? Not exactly sure when/why, but it does)

2. Looking at their "contacts" from the 3CX app, it doesn't appear to add the contact they've added from the phone to any of the lists. (All, Company, Personal)

I suggested having them log into the Web Client and manage their contacts there, which seems to work to some degree, but from what I am told:

3. Cannot open/access the contacts they add in the WebClient from the handset - i.e. They want to be able to quickly find a contact from the handsets to call them.

Will be testing a bit more in my own lab and confirming exactly what's happening, but hopefully this would be a known issue and possibly there's something I'm missing, maybe I just need to modify the phone settings somewhere and have it point to the 3CX directory?

This seems like really weird standard behaviour, I would have expected the "3CX phonebook" would have been the default across everything, this way the contacts sync everywhere.

Any help appreciated.

 

[PeeBeeEx]

- IF A USER ADDS A CONTACT TO THE PHONEBOOK FROM THEIR SNOM PHONE

The contact isn't visible anywhere else other than the phone. It cannot be seen from any of their contact lists (All, Company, Personal, etc) within Web/Desktop clients.

After a certain period of time, the contact disappears from the phone. If you restart the phone manually, go to Maintenance > Sync Setting from the phone, or reprovision from the PBX - the contact is removed immediately, otherwise it seems to remove itself overnight.

Presumably the phone automatically reprovisions itself with the PBX periodically? So it disappears.

- IF A USER ADDS A CONTACT TO THEIR PERSONAL PHONEBOOK FROM THE WEB/DESKTOP CLIENT

The contact stays in the "Personal" list as expected, but it is only accessible from the Web/Desktop client, you cannot view the contact from the Snom phone.

Incoming calls show the contact name both from the Web/Desktop client and the Snom phone, however it shows the phone number first, then the contact name. (Displays different to a contact in the Company Phonebook)

We'd prefer incoming calls to show the contact name first, then the number, or even just the contact name.

- IF A USER ADDS A CONTACT TO THE COMPANY PHONEBOOK FROM THE WEB/DESKTOP CLIENT

The contact stays in the "Company" list as expected and it can also be viewed from both the Web/Desktop client and from the Snom phone.

Incoming calls display the contact name, but they display it differently to the "Personal" phonebook entries. It shows the contact name first, followed by the phone number - which is preferable.

The obvious issue with this though, is that it adds the contacts so EVERYONE in the organisation can the contact.

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What we are hoping to achieve is:

1. We'd like users to be able to use their Snom phone to add 'personal' contacts - i.e. Only they can see them.

2. We'd like these contacts to be accessible from both the phone and Web/Desktop client, in the 'personal' list.

3. We'd like to control the way incoming calls are displayed from these contacts - i.e. We'd like to try have it displaying the name only, otherwise we'd prefer it to show the Name, followed by the Number.

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We do have a Professional license install also, if this makes any difference.

Any help much appreciated.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hello,

I'm afraid there are limitations for the handsets.
These limitations explain the behaviors you have noticed:

- Snom contacts get overwritten when the phone syncs
- The contacts sync one way one only (from PBX to Phone)
- Personal 3CX Contacts are not included. Only the Company Contacts get synced to handsets
- Only contacts that have a "mobile phone" number will get synced

What we are hoping to achieve is:

1. We'd like users to be able to use their Snom phone to add 'personal' contacts - i.e. Only they can see them.

2. We'd like these contacts to be accessible from both the phone and Web/Desktop client, in the 'personal' list.

3. We'd like to control the way incoming calls are displayed from these contacts - i.e. We'd like to try have it displaying the name only, otherwise we'd prefer it to show the Name, followed by the Number.

So for points 1 and 2 this is not doable.

For point 3 your only choice as far as I'm aware is to add those contacts to the Company Contacts list, and only populate the "First Name" and "Mobile" fields. This will display the name of the caller, and the number below it (depending on the screen size and layout of each different model).

 

[PeeBeeEx]

Hi John,

Quite a disappointing answer, but thank you for the clarity.

Is there any reason why 3CX has been setup this way? It's a standard/obvious thing that users would want to be able to add/access private contacts from their phone, so I don't understand why it wouldn't be an option.

1. Why can't 'personal' contacts just be brought down with the 'company' contacts? It seems to already half do this, as personal contacts will show up on the CID, you just can't access them from the directory via the phone.

I'm guessing perhaps Snom phones can only hold a single phonebook and the company/personal phonebooks are two separate phonebooks on the PBX? Surely though, 3CX could just give everyone a third phonebook on the PBX that combines both 'company' and 'personal' contacts into a single phonebook - then sync that combined phonebook across.

2. Why can't contacts can't be sync'd from the phone to the PBX? If they can already do this from the UI why can't it be done from the phone?

My assumption is there's possibly a feature or formatting issues here, or maybe security issue. It seems the phones have the capability or writing things to the PBX since you can change status, etc.

3. Why can't the local Snom phonebook was left alone during re-sync/reboots?

Guessing the phone can only hold one phonebook and since sync only occurs one way, it's constantly overwritten. If it didn't, then they'd never get new contacts from the PBX phonebook.

4. Do Yealink phones have the same issues? (i.e. Users adding a contact to the handset, is it removed?)

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For the moment, I've installed 3CX Desktop app onto the users computers.

They can easily manage their private contacts from the desktop app.

Setting the desktop app to dial out on the phone, allows them to search their personal contacts easily from the desktop app and dial them on the phone with a single click which is nice.

Since they're always on the PC while working, this solution will actually work nicely, as it's a lot quicker/easier for them to just scroll through their contacts on the PC screen and click the number they want to dial - but still - they really should be able to access their own personal contacts from the handset.

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Hi PeeBeeEx,

Desk phones are less flexible software-wise than our apps which we build ourselves and have full control over. Hence, desk phones are provisioned with a limited feature set in comparison. This is normal, because the phone has limited resources in order to be cost effective, and its embedded processor is less capable than an average PC that is a powerhouse in comparison. Also, we do not really control the firmware or feature set of those devices, the manufacturer is entirely responsible for that and they just make sure it plays well with 3CX when they interop their products with our system.

The feature set we offer is more or less the least common denominator that covers the capabilities most devices, rather than a highly-tailored, model-specific implementation of what each device model can (or can't) do. You can of course venture into this yourself and find specific capabilities you phones have, match them up with 3rd party management software and build your own solution if you feel up to it and have the time to do so, but this was never in our scope to begin with.

The excellent solution you suggested is exactly what I would have also suggested, as it requires little effort and the functionality is mostly already there: use the phone in conjunction with your Webclient or Windows Desktop App.
Note that our main focus is our apps so there are no plans to expand the feature sets of the deskphones (such as two way contact sync).

Sorry, didn't aim to disappoint, I hope this puts things into perspective!

 

[PeeBeeEx]

Hey John,

Thanks again for the detailed response, this clears up a lot of things.

I agree, using the desktop app + deskphone together is a nice solution and definitely more efficient than trying to add/find contacts from the phone itself - but there's still going to be the odd occasion where its necessary/preferable to be able to just search/add a contact from the handset itself.

I get that there's likely limitations around what can be done coming from the handset itself, so understand why perhaps the "perfect" solution isn't possible, but:

It definitely seems like the functionality is already there to allow for both personal and company contacts to be sync'd down to the phone:

1. The" Company" phonebook already gets sync'd down, so this functionality is already there.
2. Users already appear to have their own "Personal" phonebook on the PBX, so this functionality is already there.

It seems like it shouldn't be difficult give each user a "combined" phonebook which automatically combines the "company" and their "personal" phonebook into one and then instead of having the "company" phonebook sync to their handsets - have the "combined" phonebook sync.

This would still have the limitation of them "adding" or "editing" contacts from the handset, but at least they would be able to search their personal contacts from the handset, which would prove to be very useful in situations where the phone isn't located near a PC.

Anyway, in this instance at least, the users were happy with the desktop client solution as they've all got a PC next to their handset. It would be good to see this "combined" phonebook functionality in the future.

Again, thanks for your responses John, they were very helpful.