Direct SIP trunk line indication / access from BLF / flexible buttons?

General Help
1

I am sorry if this was asked before, but I was unable to find any information on how to set up flexible buttons for direct access to SIP lines.
For example, SIP provider “A” offers two channels per connection, in Panasonic PBX world that would be “CO 1” and “CO 2” - it is possible to assign this to flexible buttons on a telephone, so that if the line rings or is busy the button would be red.

Also, if several calls come in, and placed on hold, a particular caller can be picked up by pushing the “CO 2” button for example (not exactly the same as parked calls)

so, if two providers are set up on the system, one with 2 channels, and one with 10 - there are total of 12 “CO” lines
How can I assign that to BLF/flexible buttons?

Many thanks for any pointers!

2

Asterisk is a PBX, not a Key System - you are looking for a squared system (1-Button for 1-Line) and while there have been MANY attempts at duplicating this functionality, none have ever really caught on.

So, to address the specific questions:

  1. Parking is the way to place calls that can be picked up in multiple locations - and with Asterisk’s ability to have multiple parking lots, this scales to larger systems MUCH better - and you can put the spots on a BLF and it works great.

  2. Outbound Routes are very flexible with having capacity roll-over for outbound calls - so in your specific example, I would set the 10-Channel provider as the first trunk on the outbound route, and the 2-Channel provider as the second trunk on the route - that would keep both of them the most free for inbound calls.

3

Thank you Greg, I have implemented parking, and it is indeed a much better solution, nevertheless, I am still looking to replicate the “CO” buttons functionality, if anything, to see the status of all the lines at a glance

4

There’s the problem.

In a Panasonic PBX, you have two distinct, incoming lines that can be monitored for off-hook/on-hook.

This is VOIP, where you have a trunk that is either connected or not. The issue is that, monitoring “lines” from a BLF doesn’t have an analog here. You can query whether the trunk is active (which it is whether it’s on or off hook) and you can even query the number of active channels on that trunk, but there just aren’t any lines any more.

Now, there are some things that you can do in your dial plan that might give you the blinkies that you’re looking for, but it’s not going to be the kinds of things you were seeing on your Panasonic.