We recently got a SoundPoint IP Expansion Module to give to our receptionist to use with her Polycom 650. We wanted to know if it’s possible to put our staff extensions on here and to show our receptionist when that particular extension is on the line or not. Meaning the phone is off-hook and someone is currently on the phone.
We tried the shared line option when configuring the extension but it seems like the first phone to register with the pbx gets the extension and it does not ring both parties at the same time.
If anyone has been able to do what we just described above and know where we can find some help in setting up line appearance on asterisk and freepbx?
We are running 2.10 of freepbx. The share line option was done directly on the polycom phones themselves. I misspoke when I said it was done from the server itself. The phones have a shared line option, which is what we tried.
We have had success with the following configuration added to the phones:
feature.urlDialing.enabled="0"
call.directedCallPickupMethod="native"
attendant.resourceList.1.address="1234"
attendant.resourceList.1.label="Bob"
attendant.resourceList.1.address="5678"
attendant.resourceList.1.label="Alice"
This is proper BLF functionality including call pickup, not “presence” which only shows if a phone is on the line or not. I assume you’re using a reasonably modern firmware and Asterisk verison.
Sure would be nice if I could edit my posts. Meant to say:
feature.urlDialing.enabled="0"
call.directedCallPickupMethod="native"
attendant.resourceList.1.address="1234"
attendant.resourceList.1.label="Bob"
attendant.resourceList.2.address="5678"
attendant.resourceList.2.label=“Alice”
After re-reading your post, I thought I’d clarify something. “Shared line appearance” is an emulation of an older technology; back in the old days SLA lights would show you the status of each trunk line. I believe this is possible on Asterisk but I’ve no experience with it. If you’re dealing with SIP trunks the old “line 1, line 2, line 3” model is not much use.
By contrast, what the config I posted does is set up “busy lamp field” which shows the status of an extension, allowing a receptionist to pick up incoming calls going to someone else’s phone. My apologies if that’s not what you were looking for!
it is really very simple to set this up. it will give you exactly what you want, youi can see when an extension is busy and when not busy the button functions as a speed dial to connect to that extension. it, under the hood, does use the polycom attendant function with is similar to blf on other phones.