[asterisk-users] Learn some terminalogy before mounting thistask.

[James FitzGibbon]

On 8/5/07, James R. Stevens <jstevens at athensdistributing.com> wrote:
>
> In the design of an Asterisk system using Cisco 7900 series SIP phones
> we are struggling with giving the reception folks (3) hardware that can
> tell them the status of everyone in the office (10 or so) (On the phone,
> out of office etc) Something that would register each of the extensions
> we choose and give status of that ext.
>
> What hardware (Phone or other) could we give the receptionist to do
> this?


You're probably looking for something like this:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/phones/ps379/products_data_sheet09186a008008883d.html

I have no experience integrating this specific piece of hardware with
Asterisk, but I've done what you're trying to do with the Grandstream
equivalent for our front reception:

http://www.grandstream.com/gxp2000.html

and

http://www.grandstream.com/gxp2000ext.html

As I understand it, so long as the device can do a SIP SUBSCRIBE for each
extension you want to monitor and you configure hints in your Asterisk
dialplan for those extensions, it should work.  You may need to set
'subscribecontext' (in sip.conf) for the phone that will be watching the
extensions unless your hints are in the same context as the phone uses for
outbound dialing.

Of course, what the device does with the various payloads contained in the
SIP NOTIFY messages is going to be different for each phone.  On the
Grandstream I can see 'not in use' (solid green) and 'ringing' (flashing
red) distinctly, but 'unavailable' and 'in use' are both mapped to a solid
red, which makes it somewhat useless for transiently connected user agents
like softphones.

Hopefully someone with experience will speak up and confirm that the 7900
series does interop properly with Asterisk for SUBSCRIBE and NOTIFY.

If that doesn't work, you could always go with a software solution, like the
Flash Operator Panel.  voip-info has a list (look at the "Operator" section
on the page): http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+GUI

-- 
j.
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