Busy Lamp Field (BLF) vs Buddy Watch List

[KL]

What are the differneces between Busy Lamp Field (BLF) vs Buddy Watch List? I have already seen the post here http://community.polycom.com/t5/VoIP/difference-between-BLF-and-buddy-list/m-p/69281#M11690 and read the response.

From what I can tell BLF allows you to see user's presence and pickup a call going to that user. You can also see who a user is talking to if you hold down the BLF for that user if their BLF is red meaning they are on a call. BLFs fuction as speed dials to that user. 

Buddy list seems to show presence only, but has more presence states/colors than what BLF provides (out to lunch for example). They also fuction as speed dials to that user. I am not sure if Buddy Watch lists allow you  to pickup a call going to that user or allow you to see who the user is on the phone with.  

Which one does Polycom prefer? Which one is more of an open sip standard? What are the differences? 

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello KL,

I had a similar discussion on this => here <= with another user. If you require additional details please work with your Polycom reseller to be brought into touch with a Polycom Sales engineer.

There is no preference from Polycom, we simply offer both methods and let our customers decide which one to use based on their SIP switches supporting the feature in the first place.

Please ensure to provide some feedback if this reply has helped you so other users can profit from your experience.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

Polycom Global Services

[TylerCMS]

In regards to the differences to these two functions, I have a follow up question that I cant seem to find an answer to after reading through many of the replys and FAQs that you have posted.

Is there a way to use the Attendant BLFs via asterisk with the basic "online/offline" functionality of the Buddy Watch?

In my applications, BLFs are easier to setup than Buddy Watch as they do not require the users to be in the phone directory and can be easiliy added via provisioning. I would love the ability to use Attendant BLFs but for them to ONLY show status of the extension. I dont want them to flash when their phone is ringing, I dont want the ability for users to pickup those calls.

The issue I run into is that when i use Attendant BLFs on Asterisk. If those users are in a ring group, every single one of those monitored extensions flash green, ring ( if configured to, and even if there is no audible alert, it still places the phone in a strange "BLFs are ringing" state, which then wont allow me to change the volume or start a new call)

I have attempted this using the following parameters in my configs, but they still monitor when the extension is called and alert. I just want to see whether or not users are on the phone or not.

attendant.behaviors.display.spontaneousCallAppearances.automata="0"
attendant.behaviors.display.spontaneousCallAppearances.normal="0"
attendant.behaviors.display.remoteCallerID.automata="0"
attendant.behaviors.display.remoteCallerID.normal="0"

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello TylerCMS

The two features are not the same and cover not the same use cases.

I can only suggest to work with the Asterisk community on the Asterisk Source Code and then work with a Polycom sales engineer on a feature request providing a business case so a change on our software could be requested.

At present what you are after cannot be implemented as far as I am aware but feel free to raise a support ticket via your Polycom reseller

Replied via a mobile device