Using FreePBX 12.0.76
We have several brands of phone : Digium, Polycom, Aastra and Grandstream.
Some of them have nice BLF, for exemple the Digium D70 and Grandstream GXP2160 have a list on the side with lights that can turn green or red.
The BLF will show when the extension is active (on the phone).
What I wanted it to do is light up also when the extension is on DND or extended leave.
How do I do that?
Thanks!
You get this behavior by default if you use the FreePBX DND feature code (or UCP, or presence, or Rest Apps). How are you enabling DND?
I’m using the phone built-in “DND” button.
For example, on a Digium D70, if I press the status, then DND button, there will be a DND icon on my extension and others will see it too (in the contact list, or if they have a screen like the D70 does, the icon will be there)
Using the DND feature code (*78) doesn’t seem to have an effect:
if I press it, the screen of the DND’ed phone will not show it, which is annoying.
It will also not show it in the contact list nor on the BLF screen.
Finally, the BLF light of other phone which shows this extension will not be lit.
What am I missing?
So… anyone has a gentle spirit and willing to help ?
Nucleus,
You’re fighting a couple issues here, I believe. I’ll stick to the Grandstream since I’ve got working knowledge of 30/40/60 sets.
Since FPBX/Asterisk is what is generating all of the hints that your BLF keys monitor, it’s what is responsible for changing the color/status of the light. So, it needs to know when a feature is invoked, to them mimic that across the system for anyone who may be monitoring (a subscription to the BLF hint). As you point out, when you do it this way, the actual end-user of the phone in DND doesn’t know DND is active.
When you do it the other way (use the phone’s DND feature), the phone shows a nice big DND icon (on 1.0.5.18 firmware, at least - smaller icon on older firmware). But, the system doesn’t “know” DND for the user has been activated, thus it doesn’t update the BLF keys for other users. This method of DND is actually not very good because although it has a great icon in the display for the user, it’s the actual phone that’s doing all the DND work (this could also be true with the CallFwd feature, depending on how you instruct your users to invoke that feature). This means, if the phone becomes disconnected, the features you’ve activated locally are now disabled (in some cases, may not even reactivate upon boot-up).
So, how do you get the best of both worlds? Easy. These instructions are for 1.0.5.18 (prior releases had the setting in a different place). Under ACCOUNT X>FEATURE CODES, you want to DISABLE the option “Enable Local Call Features”. Make sure when you do this that you have told it all the feature codes to activate/deactivate DND and the various CFWD options, because now that you’ve told the phone not to handle features locally, it will use the pre-programmed codes to invoke the features - all while providing status to the user as if they were operated locally. In other words, if you do this, activating DND on the phone will make the phone dial (on speaker) your DND ON feature code (I recommend setting the advanced optionin FPBX to only play a beep tone for feature code confirmation, since that could get annoying now that you have the phone showing status).
There are a handful of other settings I disable on GS phones, to ensure it’s handing off ALL call control to Asterisk, but for the issue you’re looking to correct, this should take care of what you’re needing.
Sadly, the endpoint module doesn’t auto-fill all the feature codes. I had to make a ton of P-value mappings to the feature code variables, which sucked, but at least the mapping worked. 
Hope this helps.
Thx.