What would you like to see added in FreePBX 15?

FreePBX
1

As we embark on FreePBX 15, we’ve come up with two main themes which we’ve shared with the community at this past years Astricon event. The first is a completely redesigned backup and restore, making it easier to maintain, more flexible, and allow for between version restores. The second thing being added to FreePBX for 15 is a GraphQL based API allowing for greater integration into FreePBX.

While we work on both backup and restore and the API, we want to hear from you as to your biggest pain points or just features that would make your life easier. So what would you like to see added to FreePBX 15?

2 Likes
3

Backups are indeed one major thing that needed improved upon. With 15 hopefully we will be able to upgrade our backup server to test out a new freepbx version live before moving the main production server. I was happy to learn that would be a major focus.

Some pains:

  1. With freepbx 14 the UCP has become more flexible but now its really confusing to some users who are afraid to try things out on computers. It would be nice to be able to custom design the UCP layout and then give different people a different layout so we can have a “simple” layout and an “advanced” layout. Even the Freepbx 13 layout was almost too much for some users. Heck just having the old Freepbx 13 layout as an option would help.

  2. Better multi-client isolation would be nice. We have designed our own method that works pretty well but it doesn’t isolate everything.

  3. Endpoint Manager to be updated with new models more frequently and to work better with some brands (Snom). This is really big for us since we rely on it big time. Plus updating 50 phones at once seems to put it to its limit, doing 100 phones can time out even on a powerful server. Be nice to be able to update a few hundred phones at once without issue.

  4. People keep asking for ways to remotely toggle follow me’s from another extension so users would like that.

2 Likes
4

It would also be nice to be able to have a “local repository” of phone configs for things that don’t come up a lot (like the PY90, for example) and things that are EOL. It’s not fair to expect EPM to support EVERYTHING on the planet and have it maintained by a single small team. Perhaps adding an “unsupported” phone API could be interesting?

5

In my opinion, the most important addition to FreePBX would be an affordable mobile client for Android and iOS.

It has to have appropriate security solutions built in (tailored to FreePBX), such as with VPN or DDNS and it must be able to do chat and video conferencing.

Everything we can so far custom build with Zoiper and other mobile clients is just too cumbersome to install and maintain if you want it to be secure.

I know you had Zulu mobile in the works. Is it still being worked on?
Last I read it was meant for a beta release beginning of quarter 3rd 2017.
I hope that the pricing on it will come down as well as it gets expensive with a larger install.

I hate to mention the competition here, but 3CX UC (the mobile apps, an extra video conferencing server and easy provisioning) is hugely popular and something we absolutely need for FreePBX as well. The mobile apps are such a huge selling point and very useful.

10 Likes
6

Almost every new Yealink Model that comes out usually takes a month or two to come out on EPM. By that time we have tens of them installed and have to go back and update them (Thankfully we haven’t had 50 or so yet). Snom had a new really nice and advanced wireless phone come out that allows 10 devices to a single base and was listed in EPM as working. However the EPM version was so out of date it cause more problems than it fixed. EPM seems to support a lot of EOL stuff pretty well its the newer stuff that it lags on.

We are so dependant on EPM that I had to learn how to edit the hidden “default” template through MySQL for our 30+ custom edits on yealinks so we can perform mass updates on our 100 templates.

We are really stress testing Freepbx :stuck_out_tongue:

7

Better IPv6 networking support in system admin. Support for DHCPV6 client.

1 Like
8
  1. OOTB support for Office 365 Exchange email that just works.
  2. Backup to Azure
9

I agree that while UCP 14 has become more flexible, it has become less approachable. At the very least it would be great to be able to configure a “default” for new users, and then users can modify from there if desired.

Also, I note that widgets in UCP 14 often seem to be basically just a toggle, with most other settings buried behind the gear icon. This feels cumbersome, and decreases discoverability, which adds to the sense of not being approachable.

3 Likes
10

I have a related wish for Endpoint Manager, which is for existing phones to be kept up-to-date; specifically staying current with firmware updates.

2 Likes
11

This is more of an organizational thing, but: better security acumen. Things should be ‘secure by default’. For example, the SNG7 upgrade instructions instruct us to use non-secure HTTP for both the rpm and the script. Security should always come to mind first instead of users having to poke staffers on forums/issues to hopefully get a securer option.

Another example that I just ran into (though less severe): this site loses the ‘green lock’ due to its attempts to load http://ads.schmoozecom.net/www/delivery/avw.php and http://community.freepbx.org/uploads/default/original/2X/3/3ab8337e1df405f88cf5b1033dd7e713e6a0efc4.png.

12

User Manger
I would love to see a revamp of how groups work and interact in User Manager. I would like “allow” permissions to be cumulative; e.g., if a user is part of more than one group, he/she receives access to the allowed items for both groups, not just the one with higher precedence. Currently, if I have a group for A and a group for B, and want a user to have access to A + B, I need to create a completely new group C. If I alter the access for group A, I need to also go and make the same set of changes to group C, which can be time consuming and error prone.

Duplicate/Clone and/or Base Config for Extensions
It would be really handy to be able to duplicate an extension. A similar idea would be to have an editable base config for extensions. This case seems to the general idea: https://issues.freepbx.org/browse/FREEPBX-4439.
Related, there are times when I want to be able to compare two extensions (or other objects). I would be really handy to be able to be able to quickly run a diff on them, and even better if individual differences could be quickly pushed from one to the other.

Improved Call Flow Navigation in Admin Interface
Building and modifying call flows can be somewhat cumbersome. I would love to see more links between steps in the flow. There are some really useful ones going up the chain already (Time Conditions have “Used as Destination by” links), but going down the chain is harder; destinations are listed, but as selection boxes, not clickable links.
Related, but more complex, would be a way to view additional related information. An example would be showing a summary of the Time Group configuration within the Time Condition page.

4 Likes
13

To answer your question on Zulu mobile, yes it is still being worked on.

6 Likes
14

Would love to see something more intragrated for Avaya IP endpoints. Like the 96xx series. A lot of SMB have these phones, and being able to easily manage their existing hardware would be a huge plus when considering FreePBX.

Better support for agents. A lot of the commercial GUIs are really intuitive and easy to use. It would be great if there was some module that would allow a more simplified approach to creating and managing agents.

CTI pop ups in Zulu. The pop ups actually appear on the screen through Zulu. The integration with CRMs is nice and it’s also nice that you could drop it right into the browser, but something neat and clean right out of the box would be amazing for groups that have limited technical knowlage and a CRM that’s more basic.

This might be a WebRTC constraint, but your work with the phone app is amazing. It’s very straight forward and opens alot of possibilities. It would be amazing if there was the ability to have multi-line, call waiting, transfer and conference. If the protocol could support this. Your phone wherever the browser can reach. It would be amazing!

Non queue call backs. A module that you could send calls to that collects a number from the caller (and an option to use caller ID), and has variables that you can set for when to call that number back (I.e. 30 minutes), and where to send the call on callback.

Thanks for listening.

15

I would really love to see a multi-tenant solution under the Sangoma/FreePBX banner.

I 2nd/3rd/4th having faster turnaround for firmware in EPM on common brands (Yealink/Cisco/Polycom/Snom).

I’d also like to see some easier Sangoma-backed methods to get the official distro on AWS and other hosting providers.

Thanks!

1 Like
16

AI, IOT, TTS are good features.

17

Given the amount of Caller ID spoofing that takes place nowadays if would be great to have some enhanced blacklist / whitelist capabilities, particularly user-specific blacklists and whitelists. So when a call comes in, it could be routed to any of three different destinations, depending on whether the call is blacklisted, whitelisted, or neither. Generally you’d want to reject the call if it’s blacklisted, pass it through if it’s whitelisted, and maybe apply some type of “I’m a human” test if it’s neither (maybe require the caller to enter a random pair of digits or something). Also the ability to blacklist/whitelist using dial patterns rather than just individual numbers, and to blacklist by Caller ID NAME would be helpful. If nothing else, it would be at least be helpful if you could specify the blacklist check context for each inbound route, so that by default it would use the built-in blacklist logic but you could change that to use a custom context, in much the same way that the default context for extensions is set to from-internal by default but can be changed under the advanced tab.

The existing blacklist logic is pretty limited and hasn’t changed much since the inception of FreePBX, meanwhile the junk callers have figured out that people can block individual numbers so they spoof the numbers of other people at random. In the past month I have got calls from two different angry people claiming I had just called them when I hadn’t, and similarly I’ve received junk calls that appear to come from numbers the same as mine except for the last two to four digits. So it appears the existing blacklist capabilities are no longer adequate to stop the junk callers.

3 Likes
18

As a separate request, please give us desktop computer users a way to avoid the tabs at the tops of pages and display all of the settings for an extension, route, etc. on the same page. I know that some users, and particularly mobile device users, may find the tabs helpful, but for many desktop computer users they are a real nuisance at times.

19

add a module to support kamailio .

2 Likes
20

First off, i want to start by thanking the FreePBX/Sangoma developers, it’s been three years since i was first introduced to FreePBX and the experience just becomes better every day. so Thank you guys!!

So here’s my suggestions…

Administration
I believe there’s two ways how to setup admin access 1. through the Administrators Module, 2. through User management.
I think that most PBX admins will agree with me - if you give your client full access to their PBX you’ll probably end up in more trouble than opening your PBX to the world wide web…
So we had many times clients asking,"Why can’t i change a extension name on my own? Why can’t you give me access to reset voicemail passwords?"
So here’s the problem: no. i don’t want to give access to the Extension Module, a client that has access to that module and he thinks he knows what he’s doing he’ll only mess up badly.
Therefore, if there would be an option to restrict access withing a module it would make our admin life much easier… I would give access to things like, making extension name changes, same access to voicemail & follow me as a end user has in UCP etc, and not more than that… (maybe also to set a outgoing CID number)

Backup

  • If possible to add some advanced config to keep the channel alive when saving to a remote FTP, especially with large files and not the fastest speed.
  • God i wish there would be a way to dump a backup on a local Windows Machine…

Bulk Handler

Would be nice if import/export all config from mdules that can have multiple entry’s, such as Queues/RingG Groups/SetCID/Misc Destinations, etc. it just makes it easier when migrating.

Class of Service
I believe tons of people asked it in the past - being able to block extension to extension.

Feature Code Admin
Custom Feature Code Groups, meaning: if i have 3 time conditions or call flow control with feature codes which allows remote changes in case of weather or emergency closing, you should be able to have a parent feature code that would change the state of it’s child feature codes.

User Management
Adding a FQDN which will be displayed in emails that are being sent to users instead of the PBX IP

Ring Groups/Queues
A BLF key to monitor Queues or Ring Groups and be able to press that key to take the call.

UCP
This module is a blessing. but i wish it would had the following features:

  • Contacts: Allow user access to edit/add contacts for public contact groups.
    Allow user to sync contacts with Google or Microsoft.

  • Voicemail: User should be able to create/rename folders.
    Retrieve accidentally deleted voicemail’s (maybe voicemails shouldn’t be permanently deleted before 5 days? or recycle bin idea?)
    Enable/Disable temporary greeting in UCP.

  • A wish UCP would allow more call control, such as answering, transferring, placing on hold, Queue Login/Off.

  • Would also be nice to have a widget which allows a user to change feature codes state they have access to.

  • Finally, remote access:
    I saw it mentioned earlier, but i think we all need this!
    I know that it’s a security risk, but DDNS VPN or 2 Factor Auth would eliminate “public access”.

(In fact, we built a custom application that connects to the PBX using Asterisk User Manager which pulls Queue Data, Extension Data Etc, this displays a public webpage and authenticated users can Login/Off from Queues, it monitors extensions, becomes red when talking, blinks when ringing, green when free etc. it also has a Queue call history log with caller information, call duration, and who answered the call. nothing more than that.
This is a public webpage for the last 2 years, if it’s 100% secure? probably not, but other than logging in/off from the Queue you have zero control on the PBX. and i believe that it can be more secured.
We made this application, for a client that has a emergency dispatch line - all cellphone users, and they had to be able to login/off remotely at their dispatching shifts. Having UCP as a app on a mobile phone, or mobile supported webpage would help users like these… )

Also, placing calls externally would be much easier, just enter a phone number, press originate > rings your FM number, once you pickup it rings the number you entered… a wish.

Alerting:
Would be nice to have alerts when asterisk stopped, or failed to start.
Also be able to set alerts for important extensions when it becomes unreachable.

That’s it for now…

I know that not everything is possible, but i’m just airing some requests iv’e collected over the time.

Thanks again for delivering such a powerful PBX.

4 Likes