SLA - Shared Line Appearance - Polycoms

I also have the MTE verison.

Everything is SIP based. I do not have ZAP/Dahdi/etc.

I really want it in the following manner:

6 IP650 phones.

line keys 3,4,5,6 will be emulating the Key System with line keys 1 and 2 be set to have their extension.

A call comes in, it rings SLA_line 1 ( line key 3) on all phones. If I pick up, that line is now active on all phones. If another call comes in, it goes to SLA_Line 2 ( line key 4 ). If I put SLA_line1 on hold, it shows on hold for all phones. A coworker then picks up SLA_line1 and continues to the conversation from their phone.

I do not necessarily care if they can call out on the SLA_line(n)s since they will have line key 1 and 2 set to their personal extension.

If this cannot be accomplished, any variant will suffice.

Please help me through this.

That's NEVER going to be a feature of MTE

what is preventing it from happening?

I would really like this feature to get implemented as well eherr. Some clients no matter how you try and explain Hunt Lists and every other alternate ways of phones ringing in still don't want to change from their old ways.

I'm curious as to why the Thirdlane development team is against this feature as well?

I too would benefit from this feature. Several customers have inquired as to if this was possible.

apparently you dont actually know how to implement SLA in asterisk.. thats not the kind of thing thats going to scale to 10000 handsets. Each and every tenant, with an average of 8 handsets would see an exponential increase in sip.conf entries and sla.conf entries for every 'line' that shows up on the phone. the whole purpose of MTE is to be _scalable_ .. if they want SLA, sell them STE and modify the sla.conf file.

that would be a correct assumption. i do not know how to implement sla and all documentation i have read are not entirely clear as to how to do it.

and I dont want hunt groups really because i want an "open hold" system where they can see the lines.

Also, it could be a higher selling point by being able to implement a legacy feel with the benefits of cost savings and more features.

As for the scalability, i understand your philosophy of scalability for thirdlane however i am not talking about huge installation nor am i talking about giving this feature to everyone. it would be nice to know how to do it for 1 or 2 tenants.

As an alternative, has the ability to allow parked extensions be monitored and picked up from other phones been implemented?

if by "open hold" you imagine some sort of party line where two different people can press line 2 and both talk to the same person.. that's not accurate.

since when does someone feel good about a "legacy feel" when spending high dollars on the latest and greatest? I just don't get it. People made due with a key system because they couldnt afford a Cadillac. Now I've seen people restore an old Cadillac because they were stuck with a yugo piece of crap. I see plenty of beat to hell honda Civics from the 70s but Ive never seen someone nostalgic for one.

"hey buy this BMW for $85k.. it feels JUST LIKE your old piece of shit Yugo from 1988 that you paid $6 for!!" when I get a new car, it better have bluetooth, and integrate with my iphone, and have every sort of damn feature I hadnt even thought of :-)

Also, it could be a higher selling point by being able to implement a legacy feel with the benefits of cost savings and more features.

I think a bigger selling point is to be able to give them the features of the Avaya and the Cisco at a cost savings. Show them the outlook integration. Show them the simplicity of move/add/changes. Show them how with iSymphony they can conduct calls in ways they never dreamed of before. If you make your product look like a key system.. there are plenty of even cheaper, crappier, systems out there doing the same thing for less than $2k completely installed by a service technician. Why would they pay for your system, your PoE switches, and your pricy phones; when they appear to only do the same as the $35 handsets and $600 NEC cabinet?

with your question about BLF on parked calls the answer is yes, as long as your phone supports it. The multi-parkinglot addition to MTE brought with it dialplan hits for 701 - 704. A BLF monitored keypad should light up red and you can press it to un-park it. This is how it works on Polycom 650 + Expansion module

as an example of what i mean by exponential entries in sip.conf and sla.conf.. take your typical 8 handset scenario. Normally that would be 8 entries in sip.conf, one for each extension. Now lets say you want to do SLA with a fake '4 line' system. Now for every handset you need 4 unique sip registrations, all that get bound together as a 'line' in sla.conf. So you're now at 32 unique sip.conf entries instead 8 (see why I said exponential).

Suppose you wanted more than 4 'lines'? This requires the purchase of a phone that supports actual phone registrations on the sidecar, not just BLF keys. AFAIK thats only the polycom 650 and 670. Thats like $500 or more per handset.. to mimic a behavior that NEC still sells for less than $35 a handset and $600 for the cabinet for the first 4 lines, and then another $400 for the card to span to 8 lines and 16 total handsets.

So after discussing this with you, I decided to try and implement a Hybrid solution.

BLF on parked Calls.

For the sake of clarity, all users would have a 650. 3 or 4 line keys on all phones would have a BLF for the parked extensions. At least with this, we can give them the ability to say "Rick, call on Park 1"

Is there any documentation in the forums regarding the implementation or programming of BLFs on Parked Extensions for an MTE or STE; preferrably MTE? ( I could not find any ) Or should I start a new thread?

thanks,
--eherr

if your asterisk and thirdlane are up to date and were created after the feature was created; your task is as easy as doing a BLF on any other sort of extension, only now its extension 701 702 etc. If your system predates these changes, then theres a couple changes you have to make to dialplan and asterisk/thirdlane will need to be brought to current versions as well.

i installed the thirdlane and asterisk iso last month.

but things prevented me with messing with it too much and now the license has expired.

which versions do i need?

asterisk 1.8 branch