Hi Folks,
I’m just curios how big company FreePBX admins (as the rent out admin guys at Sangoma for sure do) handle 5000 extensions 35 locations 250 trunks or what ever?
If I want to compare 2 extensions its an awfully work (clicking around in the GUI and waiting for the page to be loaded many times over) to do. I only run 40 extensions, 22 trunks and 4 locations on 1 server.
For sure they don’t export it by bulk handler, convert the “;” into “,” for excel to edit the CSV file and convert it back, then re import. I’m sure because this just asks for screwed up settings. Cant count on how many times the re import failed due to data row count mismatch due to excel fooling with the CSV format.
so how do you pros do administrate a FreePBX machine?
command line?
I have a feeling that’s the only way to comfortably do it as a professional PBX admin, administrating what ever asterisk based PBX.
unfortunately, that wont work if you don’t work that system 7hoursday / 5daysweek / 40 weeksyear as a PBX admin, but are just a normal guy that isn’t be able to remember all this command line syntax.
for my feeling, while the FreePBX is awesome, the GUI is a total miss in question for streamlined setup work and admin tasks.
that starts as short as the submit button in extensions reloads the extension list while in trunks and routes it goes back to the edited trunk or route and then you need to move the mouse to the side menu, open it, move the mouse again to click list, as the supplied side menu trunk list is not the same order as the main list. so you cant work your way down the list. and since I don’t remember which of my 12 trunks I have already changed this is very important to just work down the list.
also the gui does not remember how many entries it should show. it always drops back (in a new session) to the lowest number and I could not find any post or wiki or setting relating to this.
also, many options are good explained, there are some stuff, like the backup and restore module, that is not intuitively operated, as you have to set some settings at places where in no other part of the FreePBX gui there are settings to be found to set (like you have to use the side menu to switch to restore, servers and templates) in all other places you have it below the top menu like tabs. took me about 3 month’s to figure that one out, and since an other guy that has been asking here was f***ed over by some pros how he could ask such a stupid question, I kept quiet and just didn’t use the backup module until I lost my first server due to me accidentally delete the VM… That made me almost dump FreePBX but then, I, by accident, found the required settings for SSH backups.
Or the bulk handler, who only offers csv files, and only a few things like extensions, but no routes, or trunks could be exported.
what I as a user really would like is this:
first of all, a consistent layout. buttons behave the same, are at the same locations, settings and options are being reached the same way, and list have always the same (preferably system wide adjustable) order.
I also would like a table that shows horizontally all settings for e.g. extensions while it shows all extensions vertically. ideally I could change settings in this table, preferably on several extensions before the need of clicking “submit” that goes for every thing that’s not there once. like time conditions, routes, trunks, what ever. this would make administer the server so much easier.
I also would love, that if I work on several tabs, and I do change some settings (like for e.g. the name of a trunk in incoming sip settings) including clicking submit and the red “apply” button, that the next browser tab, in case it finds some “mismatch” like the same (but already changed) trunk name before informing me about this problem, rather looks up the database to discovers, the matching trunk has been renamed, an my input is perfectly valid, rather than make me reload the tab and enter every thing again.
I also would love a log show option in the gui, so that I would not need to open the cli via putty, enter the asterisk console and set it to debug. rather open the log view in gui and see the same output with drop down verbose level.
Also it would be great if the gui would be smart phone capable.
I also have a big problem with the language in FreePBX. so now, my system is set to de_de and my menu is partly translated. I would be glad to help with that translation, but, well, I could not find a way to do so. what irritates me much more is, that in English its sorted by name, in German, it once was, so new name and new location, that was so messy I got back to US_en. Back a few days I did built a new server, and now its not, its at the same location, but named in German, and I cant change that in the settings. its very irritating. how about you stop showing a partly translated gui until the column is fully translated. and offer a right or long click option to supply a better translation.
The language is also a mess if you want your voice prompts in German. there is some old de asterisk files out there, difficult to locate, I have them, so if some other German speaker needs them, send PM; but the current FreePBX version does use different prompts, so its 50/50 what prompt you get. so you start rerecording with different voice, well that sounds very professional to the caller 
and I cant order a professional voice to do the recordings, as I cant find a list of those recordings required by FreePBX. Since Sangoma offer them in English (only as far as I have seen, so I cant buy the voice prompts from Sangoma in German), I don’t see where the problem is, to somewhere in the wiki post all required voice prompts with filename and the English text for the current version as for sure you do have this list. so we not English user’s could develop a community based local language file.
so that’s it from my side, much longer than I intended to, but not jet with everything that’s annoying in the gui.
I just thought, the developer may want to know, what a user may think
Cheers
Manne