Digium Phones Module - support/status, version numbers, send_to_vm

Commercial Products and Partners Digium
1

We just had to replace an almost 5 year old crashed AsteriskNOW 2.0.2 system that used Digium D40 and D50 phones.

We moved them to the latest FreePBX distro, installed System Admin Pro, latest DPMA and the Digium Phones Config module form the Module Admin.

We had the system backup and working in a day - but getting two features the customer really depended on back working is giving us fits.

First two general questions:

  1. Searching for past references I see FreePBX tickets/posts stating that the Digium Phones module for FreePBX is maintained by Digium. Can anyone tell me if that still so? Digium support eventually said they support it, but despite some good effort on their part the answers I’m getting are confusing.
  2. The reference I find on Digium’s website shows the latest version is 2.11.2.1, but the page has not seem been updated since 2014: https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/DIGIUM/Digium+Phones+and+FreePBX
    … but the latest version of the Digium Phones Config module from the FreePBX (distro) Module Admin page seems to be from a completely different numbering range - 13.0.5?
    Is this just a renumbering for including with FreePBX? Or does it represent substantiative change?

Here are the actual two issues I’m trying to solve:

  1. Transfer to VM - when they answered a call before one of the soft keys changed to “Transfer to VM” (an abbreviation I’m sure) and they could send the caller directly to one of the attorneys voicemailbox without disturbing the attorney with 15 seconds of ringing first. There’s a setting “Enable Send to Voicemail” on each Phone entry in the Digium Phones Config module that is set - but they do not see a corresponding softkey. Also the detailed config looking for the “send_to_vm” seems to be in the /etc/asterisk/extensions_additional.conf, though it uses slightly different logic than the wiki page at asterisk.org mentioned above.
  2. Forward to VM - while scrolling through the Digium visual voicemail list they could select a specific voicemail on their phone and forward it to another extension.

Any thoughts, ideas on any of my questions is appreciated.

Thank you - Richard

2

This module is 100℅ built and maintained by Diigium. You will need to work with them on this.

3

Yes

The number was moved from 2.11 to 13 because Digium started using features that are only in FreePBX 13

4

There is an open Digium issue to correct this problem, and it’s currently slated to be a part of the next release of the digium_phones module.

5

Scott, thank you for responding on this. Can you please point us to the open issue description so I can be sure of what’s being fixed.

Also, part of our problem was a misunderstanding. My partner stopped by the customer office and worked a bit more with them. It turns out both the “Transfer to VM” and “Forward VM” soft keys are there but have been moved to a different location than what the customers experienced with the old version of AsteriskNOW and DPMA they were using before. If I understand correctly they are now on a secondary menu page that needs to be accessed by pressing the “More…” softkey.

Is there a way to customize the softkey layout and still use the FreePBX Digium Phones Config module?

Thank you much - Richard

6

The Digium internal issue tracking system is not public, so unfortunately I can’t point you to that.

The issue stems from a change in the XML format that is not understood by older firmware phones. If you’re running on a 1.4 phone firmware, I recommend upgrading - but test one phone with the latest 2.x firmware first to make sure it’s doing what you want without causing any other difficulties.

The softkey layout can be customized, but that is not yet exposed in the FreePBX module.

7

OK, then it sounds like the issue you are working on will not affect us. We upgraded all of the phones to the latest firmware level at the time - looks like it is 2.2.1.1.

Until the FreePBX module handles it more elegantly is there a “xxx.conf” file or other way of customizing the softkey layout, even if it’s a bit cumbersome?

8

Refer to https://wiki.asterisk.org/wiki/display/DIGIUM/DPMA+Configuration for details on the conf file format. However, be aware that there is not a x_custom.conf mechanism for this file, and changes may be overwritten by the digium_phones module.

9

Scott,

I realize it’s been a while since the last reply on this topic. There was some confusion and it turns out the “transfer to VM” was actually not working - at least when trying to transfer an incoming caller after pickup to particular extension’s voicemail.

This weekend we did the following:

  1. Switched from Asterisk 11 to Asterisk 13.17.0
  2. Upgraded all phones to the latest firmware - 2.2.2.3
  3. Upgraded DPMA to the latest - 3.4.1.
  4. Upgraded the Digium Phones Config module for FreePBX to version 13.0.7.1

Still when we answer a call there is no softkey to transfer to the voicemail for a particular extension. There is not “More…” softkey, but we did try selecting Contacts and scrolling to the particular contact - still no option other than a simple transfer.

Am I missing something or is the feature just not there?

Also looking at the /etc/asterisk/res_digium_phone*.conf files the only “_vm” directive we see is in res_digium_phone_devices.conf where each phone has this directive:
send_to_vm=yes

Is there an option we can manually add to one of the config files that will enable this feature? I realize it will get overwritten if we make changes in the UI, but I can handle that I believe.

Thank you much - Richard