Hot Desk Remote Login

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Scubadave112

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Jan 24, 2020
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Hey all, I am in process of on-boarding a new customer with roughly 150 phones all of which use hot desk... I didn't want to leave all the phones logged out so I documented what all the phones were logged in as before factory reseting them and moving them to fusion. Now we are going to go to each phone that was already logged in and log them back in... i was curious if there was a way to do this remotely......

like some how provision the virtual devices with the alternate login remotely....we are already 30% done but figured i would post here incase any of ya'll know
 

whut

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Dec 23, 2022
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That is an interesting issue and question. I have not yet thought of this, but it seems like it would be a useful functionality. Perhaps you could send keys by command line or script. But I think I would start by looking at the device.php code for the Alternate column that appears when at least 1 device is actively in hot desk mode. Without digging into the code I am guessing you could write a relatively simple sql update statement to set devices X, Y, & Z in domain A as 'hot desk active'.

You are probably long past finishing this project by this manually. But you have piqued my curiosity. I would be curious to know if you have come of with any other methods during your process. Now you have me thinking about making an application for hot desking remote control. Squirrel!!!
 

wouam31

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Jul 1, 2022
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Hi, I don't know if this can help:
If on your network you activate the DHCP66 with the right information.
In fusionpbx, Advanced, Default Settings, Provision: auto_insert_enabled -> true
 

Scubadave112

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Jan 24, 2020
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Hi, I don't know if this can help:
If on your network you activate the DHCP66 with the right information.
In fusionpbx, Advanced, Default Settings, Provision: auto_insert_enabled -> true
Unfortunately I am not seeing how any DHCP option would resolve the issue or assist in the slightest. Also auto_insert_enabled, i have never touched this setting, can you add a little more details about your response, really curious as I am struggling to follow the bouncing ball with your suggestion :D

(Morning coffee, hasn't quite kicked in yet)
 

Scubadave112

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Jan 24, 2020
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That is an interesting issue and question. I have not yet thought of this, but it seems like it would be a useful functionality. Perhaps you could send keys by command line or script. But I think I would start by looking at the device.php code for the Alternate column that appears when at least 1 device is actively in hot desk mode. Without digging into the code I am guessing you could write a relatively simple sql update statement to set devices X, Y, & Z in domain A as 'hot desk active'.

You are probably long past finishing this project by this manually. But you have piqued my curiosity. I would be curious to know if you have come of with any other methods during your process. Now you have me thinking about making an application for hot desking remote control. Squirrel!!!
I spoke to mark about some of the issue with hot desking I noticed... I feel like there shouldn't be a need to reboot the phone.. The company that lost this contract had it so the phone didn't need to reboot.

Also if I login to a phone as extension 100 and then in fusion look at the device and see it now has the alternate set to 100, then i unplug that phone from the network and factory reset it... so now the physical phone is wiped out with no configs. I then plug it back into the network and via Yealink DM or via manually entering auto prov settings it will provision without rebooting to fusion as the alternate... so I feel like a reboot isn't required... I am still slammed and when I get some time I will dive into this more but I seriously don't think rebooting is required...

It would also be cool to select a setting for extension that are "Frequent Roamers" and force their extension to logout 2am every morning.. im sure this would be very easy to impliment, but yeah... Hot Desking does seam really cool idea but needs lots of improvement so that it is easier to setup up in bulk and manage remotely
 

whut

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Dec 23, 2022
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@wouam31 those are reasonable suggestions. But not quite what will work. auto_insert_enabled = true allows any device that tries to provision to the server. It can be useful if you have some issues provisioning and want a temporary open door policy.

How hot desking works is a user enters their extension # and a PIN into an already registered device. The device then reboots. On the reboot it re-provisions as the visiting user's extension. It also brings their button assignments (park keys, blfs...). Upon logging out of the hot desk, the phone reboots and re-provisions again back to the original user's extension and pbx programmed buttons.
 

Scubadave112

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Jan 24, 2020
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@wouam31 those are reasonable suggestions. But not quite what will work. auto_insert_enabled = true allows any device that tries to provision to the server. It can be useful if you have some issues provisioning and want a temporary open door policy.

How hot desking works is a user enters their extension # and a PIN into an already registered device. The device then reboots. On the reboot it re-provisions as the visiting user's extension. It also brings their button assignments (park keys, blfs...). Upon logging out of the hot desk, the phone reboots and re-provisions again back to the original user's extension and pbx programmed buttons.
Yeah.. I just really feel like I can just send the provision without the need for a reboot. If the other company was able to do it, I am sure I can find a way.... right now though it is like number 5 on my list... my biggest project i need to focus on is the Call Center Features like wallboards when i have a lot of queues, agent user group should have permission to update their status, advanced call back features etc..... once im done that stuff ill tackle Hot Desking without reboot....
 

whut

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Dec 23, 2022
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hot desking uses the provision dialplan which includes reboot=true. The simple test would be to disable these 2 reboot=true. But then the lua script for provisioning has
Code:
if (not reboot) then reboot = 'true'; end
so I am guessing the phones will reboot anyway because you are initiating a provision action. You could temporarily comment this line of code out too in testing if the first test is rebooting. You could also have different results per manufacturer as they provision differently. Some require reboot.
 

hfoster

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Jan 28, 2019
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If the other company was able to do it, I am sure I can find a way....
They probably used the Yealink's built in Hot Desking method, which isn't the best really as it requires giving the SIP credentials to the end users. You can mitigate these issues with a Trusted ACL/VPN/Local Network only... but it just gives me the ick knowing the password for the account will sometimes end up being 1234 at the request of someone.

If not, they are probably only merging the credentials part of the config which increases complexity quite a bit and may come with limitations like 'everyone must use same settings for handset volume' or something like that which needs a reboot.

Or it might just be one of those old digital phone systems like an Avaya IP Office.
 

Scubadave112

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Jan 24, 2020
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They probably used the Yealink's built in Hot Desking method, which isn't the best really as it requires giving the SIP credentials to the end users. You can mitigate these issues with a Trusted ACL/VPN/Local Network only... but it just gives me the ick knowing the password for the account will sometimes end up being 1234 at the request of someone.

If not, they are probably only merging the credentials part of the config which increases complexity quite a bit and may come with limitations like 'everyone must use same settings for handset volume' or something like that which needs a reboot.

Or it might just be one of those old digital phone systems like an Avaya IP Office.
Naw they aren’t using yealinks hot desk feature as that IMHO is very insecure. Like I mentioned above, I believe you can kinda do this right now in fusion....

According to one of my techs

If I were login to a phone (*11) and let the provision and reboot. You go to WebUI look at devices and you now see that device has its' alternate login now. You then take that phone offline, hold "OK" factory reset it and wipe it completely out. Then plug that phone back into the network... you can simply provision that phone and it will provision as the "Alternate" user without rebooting at all. So, I believe this can be done

The other company that was doing this was using Bicomm which is asterix i believe.

i personally have not deep dived into this but it makes sense to me logically why this should be simple to do. I mean honestly it is no diff then provisioning the phone. Without hot desking, if a customer called me up and said user david and john have swapped seats can you update their phones, I would simple go to their extension remove and swap their devices, go to their devices and click provision and it would work just fine, without the need to reboot anything. so... I dunno seems like this should be easy to do.
 

hfoster

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Yeh, you certainly can reprovision without rebooting. However there's a ton of parameters that Yealink's use that require the reboot, so it would come with a whole host of caveats. If you're happy with that, you should just be able to edit the provision/index.lua script so it doesn't send a reboot action (also what 'whut' said above):

event:addHeader('event-string', 'check-sync;reboot='..reboot);

Never done it myself personally, so it would all be new territory after this.
 
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