Extensive BLF

I wanted to kick this one out to everyone to see what type of opinions I get back on how to address this issue. I have a request to install a phone system to replace a current Avaya digital. Overall straight forward I, but a large number of extensions (between 300 and 400 extensions).

On the Avaya, the operator console has a side car that provides the BLF for each extension on the system, and a button to page though the various BLF’s. I don’t recall the exact count, but say for example there is 50 BLF positions on the panel, they can see 1-50, hit the next page button and then it shows 51-100, again for 101 to 150 and so on so that ALL extensions on the system can be checked on the BLF for a busy state, or to transfer a call to that extension at the press of a button.

I know phones like the Aastra’s have side cars that will show BLF, and it’s simple to create a BLF for say 30 extensions, but is there any way to provide this for 300 extensions? I was even thinking something like FOP2 to show the state of each extension, but wondering how many I can get in the display, and I guess that means the attendant would have a screen dedicated to BLF information.

Thoughts, suggestions?

Have a look at iSymphony or Xactview. You can find them both on the Schmooze Com web site. They are commercial modules but I really don’t think FOP2 would be up to this size of job.

I haven’t really gotten into iSymphony yet, and like I have seen others mention here before, the licensing seems a bit unusual, but the product looks interesting. As to Xactview, I have not seen that yet, but went and took a look. It seems Xactview is part of PBXact, and I don’t see anything that says it’s a separate module that can be added to FreePBX.

I really wish there was a way to use the expansion modules on Aastra to do this, but it looks like the hard limit is 180, which is not enough…

There are FOP2 installations with up to 900 extensions. You can style buttons to take less space to fit many on one screen with no need for scroll. The filter box lets you filter out in real time the display if you want to search for a particular extension in a sea of extensions. However, it is up to you to decide if its a good way/tool to replace a BLF sidecar, as FOP2 is much more than that.

using fop or isymphony also work, but i am not aware of any asterisk supported phone that works like the avaya system (side car that pages through the extensions)