[asterisk-users] Free sitting

[Anselm Martin Hoffmeister]

Am Freitag, den 10.08.2007, 09:02 +0200 schrieb Olivier:
> Hi,
> 
> My question is more "what should be done" than "how should it be
> done".
> I could say :
> "If you were a teacher, teaching and preparing your courses once a
> week (as you can't be called while teaching, can you ?)

Well, yes. It always depends ;-) In an English or Arts course you could
probably answer the phone to internal calls - those calling you will
know you are in class and keep it as short as possible and just call
instead of knocking on the door, which probably disturbs pretty much to
the same amount. Getting external calls should then be turned off, or
silent-ringer with a display showing "external call" and the "send to
voicemail button" available.

I assume that answering the phone while teaching the usage of circular
saw and all those tools in a "woodworks" course or while teaching
martial arts would be a bit too disturbing to make it happen ;-)

>  would you prefer your phone system to log you in or out 
> 1- automatically according a schedule stored somewhere,
> 2- whenever you turn your PC or or off,
> 3- when you dial something (for login) and logout) is done during
> nightimes,
> 4- when you dial something (for login and logout). 

3/ and 4/ are compatible. You could further reason wether a user shall
be logged out when the next one logs in. Logging the user out from a
place when he logs in somewhere else is also reasonable (as you write
below). Those two are even compatible with 2/ if only the login
procedure shall login the phone, or only with 4/ if the logout is also
coupled to the phone.

> My vote would go for the last one as it somehow keeps users
> responsible for themselves.
> A colleague prefers the third choice.
> Which would you pick ?
> 
> If someone logs in from one place and logs in once again from
> somewhere else, then user previous log shall be replaced by the new
> one : incoming calls rings new phone. 
> 
> I'm wondering whether or not, 2 people could "share" the same phone
> but beside calling features, many supporting features such as MWI, BLF
> wouldn't it easily.

Right. This depends on wether it will be a very seldom or a common case.

Example a: There is a teachers' room where they usually sit in their
non-teaching time and prepare lessons. Every place has (possibly a
computer and a) phone.

Example b: The same room has only one phone.

Thinking about the computer coupling, that probably also depends on
wether they regularly use the PC (all the time, part of the time,
sometimes...)

> What do you think ?

I would go for a combination of your 3/ and 4/ settings above. Allow
them to logout, and if they do not, autologout after 3 hours or so
(teachers probably not too often stay within the same room for more than
three hours) or whenever they logout manually.

You could combine that "someone (you) is logged into this phone" with a
lamp on the phone (although you probably need a patch to asterisk to
support non-regular presence/status settings) - perhaps making that lamp
blink for 15 minutes before auto-logout, or depending on the number of
states that the phone supports, signal message-waiting or one of about
1000 others things.

You could also designate "conference room" phones such that multiple
users can be logged in (without MWI and further features) while
teacher's room phones and classroom phones could be strictly single-user
and therefore offer extended features.

Depending on the phone it can display both CALLERID(num) and
CALLERID(name). You could tweak that to change CALLERID(name) to "for
Mr. Peters", for example, so that the display will tell both the caller
number and the callee name. With 1000 more options of course.

Users often lack the ability to know what they want and precisely be
able to tell that. Asking them about their usage habits, with well
formulated questions, might reveal which of the methods is best for your
setting. I am not a teacher, but have lots of them in the family, so I
know that between schools there are huge differences in work habits and
so on. As an external consultant you will have to ask those who will
(have to) use the system you design.

A friend of mine says, "Linux is all about choice". Same here for
asterisk, and you are the one to choose.

Best regards,

Anselm