FreePBX Community Documentation

Hello FreePBX Community!

How often do you use wiki.freepbx.org to find information when you’re trying to build a PBX solution? Do you wish there were more step-by-step guides? Do you think it needs more short how-to articles that describe how to configure a given setup? We do, too!

We’re looking to make the FreePBX Wiki THE place for documentation and troubleshooting on common issues, modules, and set up for all things FreePBX. To that end, we’re committing to getting new and updated articles published more regularly and filling out gaps in the wiki so it can become a full-fledged knowledge base!

While we work to make this a better platform, we need your help!

I’d like to announce the FreePBX Community Documentation Project. FreePBX can be implemented in so many ways, and there may be scenarios that even our technical staff haven’t encountered. But looking around this forum, there is a ton of experience and knowledge that can be invaluable to the whole community.

When you create articles for the wiki, we will acknowledge your contributions. Get your name immortalized as a contributor, earn Forum Badges to show your dedication to the community, and even get Sangoma Swag! In fact, we’ll send you a Sangoma coffee mug or a Sangoma USB stick for your first article approved and published!

Additionally, to get us started the first 5 contributors who create an article that gets published will receive a $25 Amazon giftcard!

You can pick a topic from our Most Wanted list here, create an entirely new article, or suggest a topic you’d like to see covered! If you’re interested in helping us with this effort, either reply on this forum post and we’ll reach out to you, or email [email protected]

Have an idea to improve our documentation process? Open a thread here, or email us and we can open a discussion!

Thanks in advance!

BrianG

8 Likes

Perhaps of interest to some and worthy of a wiki article: Nginx for FreePBX

How does one get permission to edit/modify/update Wiki articles?

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I can email you at the address associated with your forum account, or you can shoot us an email at [email protected] and we will create you an account!

My $.02

I went through about 3 years ago and revamped all the documentation. 95% of the work in there is stuff I wrote. Much of it is still valid.

That said it took a lot of effort as it was kind of the wild west. It was random docs in random formats with various qualities of content. It was to say the least awful.

There should be some attention to quality of content.

Sometimes the smartest and most knowledgeable folks are terrible at documentation.
The other problem with knowledgeable folks is the documentation may be too advanced. Sometimes you have to ELI5 (Explain like I’m 5). This is a skill that makes technical writers big bucks.

Edit: clicked the link and there is a style guide.

5 Likes

I personally like pfSense’s Documentation page. The page looks neat and clean and the documentations are written like a book/manual. Think of a car/TV manual. You will have all what you need in one place (the left-side menu) to get up and running.

Introduction >> (I would put Hardware recommendations higher) >> Installation and Upgrading >> configuration of different services. FreePBX Security Best Practices, How-to articles, etc can be placed at the end as a separate sections when the user finish building the FreePBX and now need to perfect it. I might nest sections inside each other but use links to reference to the complete documentation, such as:

  • FreePBX Security Best Practices
  1. System Update / Upgrade (See reference to main documentation)
  2. Firewall (See reference to main documentation)
  3. HTTPS Certificate (See reference to main documentation)
  4. Fail2ban (See reference to main documentation)
  5. VPN (See reference to main documentation)
  6. etc

This is definitely a focus. When folks choose to submit an article I’ll be reviewing and editing them to make sure they’re in line with the style guide, and to try and get us a unified look across the wiki.

Appreciate the feedback!

Great feedback Moussa. I know there are currently contents pages on certain spaces in the wiki, but a step-by-step guide linking out to everything in one unified place would be great. I’ll look into that.

Bam. Done.

https://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FDT/How+to+setup+FreePBX+to+work+with+Office+365+Exchange+Email

3 Likes

Awesome! I’ll review and reach out.

Email me at the forum account address.

Don’t know how soon I’ll work on one, but I will.

I’ve not been much of a fan of the wiki, and used no access as an excuse.

It would be useful-I was just going over some things and realized they while they were usable in overview, they were either quite outdated in the screenshots or in the actual process due to interface changes.

Also, it would be great if PBXact could be included as addendums (just things like where to find settings in the monolithic menu, or what might be superseded there, like Extension Routes by Class of Service).

You’re set!

One of my plans for the future is to have a 1-1 documentation page for every page in PBXact, so hopefully that will help with some of this.

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And apparently an even poorer excuse. Because my email was already in the wiki system. Whoops :wink:

PBXact IS FreePBX.

The differences are:

  1. Branded (with a unified menu)
  2. Some included commercial modules
  3. Support and SLA
  4. “simple mode”

All functionality including fields should be the same. Even in the simple mode the fields that are not hidden are the same. You can also toggle to advanced mode to see everything.

Hi guys,

What about other languages?
We have a FreePBX book that is in Persian (Farsi). So you can add separate pages for each title in Persian.

Regards,

1 Like