TIPS Phone Hoteling

[fang0654]

One of my clients has a feature with their Broadsoft phone system that they love - having the ability to 'take over' a phone with their extension. I've looked at how to set this up for asterisk, but haven't had much luck finding anything. While setting up provisioning on a phone system, I realized how simple (functionally at least) it would be to build this out. I figure it'd work like this:

Phone system A has 5 phones with 3 active users:
100 - Bob
101 - Mary
102 - Dave
900 - empty
901 - empty

Mary goes to the phone that is 900, and decides she wants to take it over. She dials in an extension, which then changes the assigned extension for that phone to 101, and looks at which phone she had and changes that one to 900 (in the provisioning configs). Both phones get sent the command to reboot, and viola, she has taken over the new phone.

I'm not very versed in PHP or I'd try to tackle it myself. Maybe I'll give it a shot in python when I get some free time. It seems like it'd be a very cool feature to have, and doesn't seem that complicated. Am I oversimplifying it, or is it a feature that has existed forever and just goes by another name?

 

[myitguy]

Maybe this is what you're looking for?
freepbx.org/support/documentation/module-documentation/freepbx-users-devices

 

[fang0654]

That looks perfect! I've got another system to build out (with 30 phones, woohoo!), so I'll give it a try and see how it does. Hopefully this works with the Freepbx's Endpoint Manager (Have to use theirs for the GXP 2200s).

 

[rossiv]

Device and User mode has been present long before EPM. Basically you'd provision the devices with a static number, and the users with another. So User 101 (Jane) is logged into Device 201. The EPM would just provision the device as 201. At least that's how I understand it. I'm perfectly happy with Aastra's implementation, myself.

 

[hbonath]

We live by the Aastra XML implementation of this - still works *mostly* well. It basically works by sending HTTP requests and runs PHP scripts in the back-end that talk directly to Asterisk, create and update config files, etc. And allows for users to Login/Logout from their phones using the LCD screen and softkeys.