Polycom phone book struggles

[cfive]

I'm struggling with polycom phone book provisioning, and could sure use some help understanding it relative to the part 3cx plays.

When, and how, is the 000etc-directory.xml created, and updated?
When, and how, are the phones updated with this?

When, and how, is the mac_addy-directory.xml created, and updated?
When, and how, are the phones updated with this?

On a polycom phone, say 601, the 6 line buttons are configured with lastname sorted. Which -directory.xml are they getting this from, and how are the getting it?

Basically, this is undesirable behaviour in some (probably most) cases. In a 10 phone organization, let's say, having 5 or 6 extensions on the buttons doesn't provide any value. What I'd *really* like to do is have these 6 line buttons populated, system wide (aka company phonebook) with some dial codes - or whatever I want ;-). And, I'd rather it not be completely overwritten via provisioning ;-).

I can probably piece it together by trial and error, but hopefully someone can spare me the pain ;-).

I have read the manual, and looked for documentation. If this is covered somewhere and I have't found it - a pointer is all that's required! (I see some forum discussions around this, but I've not been able to get an understanding from them).

Thanks - Les.

 

[pjr]

Hi Les,

Here's some notes I took whilst setting up 3CX with Polycom Phones that may help

-

Provisioning Notes

The default Polycom Provisioning Template has the Dir.local.volatile.4meg - value left at the default (0)

This causes the following behaviour

On first boot a box fresh phone will check to see if a macaddress-directory.xml file exists on the provisioning server. If no file exists (and by default one doesn't), the phone downloads the 000000000000-directory.xml file and uses it's contents of current extensions for it's directory.

When the user adds a personal phone book entry via the myphone portal and clicks "Update Directory", this causes a phone specific macaddress-directory.xml file to be created. This macaddress-directory.xml is created by merging the contents from the entries added by the user with the most up to date version of 000000000000-directory.xml and is loaded on the next reboot of the phone.

However; if the default value for memory volatility is left at 0 - Unless a user adds a personal phone book entry via the myphone portal, the phone will never download the 000000000000-directory.xml again. This can lead to users having out of date company directories on their phones.

This only affects users who never create personal speed dials, but I know there are users out there who won't bother and will be the first to complain about an out of date phonebook.
Of course the easy way around this is to have the user add a personal phone book entry and reboot but this is a little cumbersome.

We have found that by amending the default value in the Polycom Provisioning template from "0" to "1" forces any phone without a corresponding macaddress-directory.cfg file to automatically download a copy of 000000000000-directory.xml on every reboot - So a simple reboot would fix the problem in the situation where a user finds their phonebook to be out of date.

We also noticed that if a user were to delete all their speed dials and click "Update Directory", nothing happens to their macaddress-directory.xml file, so their phone will continue to use the 0000etc.xml file for it's phonebook. (I think this bug has now been fixed in the latest release though)
-----------

The speed dial/line button issue is a bug bear of mine with 3CX. The entries displayed are from the 00000000etc-directory.xml file as they are assinged speed dial locations from within the file (indicated by an SD location within the file) by default. Amending the SD locations in the 0000etc.xml works but as soon as you add another extension to the system the file is recreated and the original SD locations are put back in.

The other way around this is to stop 3CX from distributing the company phonebook contained in 0000-directory.xml completely. To do this go into Settings > Advanced > Custom Parameters and change the PERS_PHBK_ONLY from 0 to 1.

This works as follows

Using PERS_PHBK_ONLY==1

What this does is tell the PBX to deliver, inside the <mac>-directory.xml file, ONLY the entries in that user's Phone Book page in the MyPhone interface. The phone, during the reboot sequence, will find this file and it should COMPLETELY replace any previous contents on the phone.

So, in brief, the procedure should be:
1. Set PERS_PHBK_ONLY==1
2. In the MyPhone Phone Book page, make sure that there is at least 1 entry, then click the "Update Directory" button 3. Reboot the phone

And expected behaviour should be:
1. Phone reboots
2. Directory contents should have *only* the entries in the MyPhone Phone Book page

This would mean you would have to add your desired speed dial/feature codes via the myphone portal for every extension (a manual operation).

It's not perfect yet but hopefully improvements are on the way, if you could add your voice to my feature request it would be appreciated?

http://www.3cx.com/forums/improved-polycom-speed-dial-provisioning-11955.html#p64304

Hope all that info helps?

Paul

 

[cfive]

Hi Paul,

Yes, it helps - thanks. Over the past couple of days I've discovered most of what you list here, but your post organizes it nicely.

It's pretty useless in a small org to have internal lines mapped to buttons. In my mind, better to use those for something else. Can be done, but it's currently manual/repetitive work that computers are supposed to eliminate ;-). And it's frustrating to have your work overwritten - until you get an understanding of how/why it's overwritten. I think I'm getting close to that understanding.

Thanks - Les.

 

[cfive]

Ouch.

After a complete restart of the 3cx server, and all the extensions:

the phones retain their phonebook entries i.e. speed dial (and their placement on the keys)
in the user portal, the phonebook for every extension is now EMPTY!.

There were entries in all the phonebooks. Where have they gone, and how do I stop this from happening?

I think I need to read Paul's post again.

- Les

 

[awakener]

Is there any solution to have the company's phonebook but not the speed dial buttons displayed on the phone? Because when I have 20 users the Polycom is provisioning all the extensions to speeddial buttons on the phone display (No matter what type of Polycom phone). I don't want this at all or if this is not possible only for a couple of users. Is this possible and if so, where can I change this?

 

[pjr]

we have exactly the same problem

Where we use IP330's we have resorted to adding a dummy extension with a first and last name of * as that doesnt look too bad on the phone display.

This doesnt work well for phones with more than 2 lines though.

3CX need to sort this out - all they need do is amend the software not to assign a speed dial location to phonebook entries

The problem is the Polycoms automatically assign unused line keys to speed dials. As you can only provision one extension per phone with 3CX you end up in the situation we are in.

Paul

 

[awakener]

What is 3CX saying about this issue? I am testing this program so I can't raise a support ticket. This is a very important issue for me so if there isn't a workaround then I think I must wait for future updates to see if this issue is solved.

 

[pjr]

the response I received from support was:

"This is the way things are right now. Anything else will be a feature request. It's already quite complex as it is, so I'm not sure how receptive we might be to complicating this further, but it depends on how many requests we get for this."

Feature request logged here

http://www.3cx.com/forums/improved-polycom-speed-dial-provisioning-11955.html

Paul

 

[pjr]

Is there any solution to have the company's phonebook but not the speed dial buttons displayed on the phone? Because when I have 20 users the Polycom is provisioning all the extensions to speeddial buttons on the phone display (No matter what type of Polycom phone). I don't want this at all or if this is not possible only for a couple of users. Is this possible and if so, where can I change this?

We have now found a workaround.

It is possible to configure the buttons on Polycoms to perform any function - this is achieved in the template file. We have found that the default template assigns non used Line keys as speed dials - but the behaviour can be changed to assign zero function to these keys by specifying a value of "null" in the relevant template file.

This process and the exact syntax is explained in the Polycom SIP admin PDF.

Paul

 

[12459]

i found the "Dir.local.volatile.4meg" setting in my provisioning template file but I do not see the "PERS_PHBK_ONLY" anywhere. Can someone please advise the syntax to add that to the provisioning template file?

I have the latest version of 3cx and the provioning template.

 

[pjr]

The PERS_PHBK_ONLY is not within the Polycom template. It's found within the 3CX interface under Settings > Advanced > Custom Parameters, and you can then search for the required parameter.

Thanks

Paul