Can Polycom VVX500 Group Contacts/Directories?

[wcafranklin]

I'm new to Polycom, please excuse my ignorance, but I am working with a Polycom VVX500, and I have been pushing some files via TFTP off my Provisioning Server.

We have a lot of Employees split into certain departments, so I was wondering if I can put phones in certain Groups? For Example: If Jeff, Mary, and Bob were in the Billing Department, I can put their Contacts in Group 1, and if Billy, Mark and John were in the Porting Department, I can put them in Group 2 etc.

I am aware of Grandstream GXV Series have soft keys that can do this on their phones, but Polycom uses files either uploaded, or pushed from a server to get their features going, and I'm not entire sure on the format. Any Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Hello @wcafranklin 

Welcome to the Poly Community.

Both the communities Must Read First and the FAQ reference the basic minimum information a new or follow-up post should contain.

This ensures the questions having to be asked are limited and any new or follow-up post contains the right amount of details to ensure any voluntary participant within the community does not spend additional time chasing basic information.

From our FAQ:

Jan 6, 2012 Question: How can I create a local contact directory/phonebook or what is the 000000000000-directory.xml used for?

Resolution: Please check => here <=

Jan 30, 2012 Question: Can I use a central Phone book or is LDAP / Corporate Directory supported?

Resolution: Please check => here <=

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

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[wcafranklin]

Hello, sorry for the late response, over the past week and half we have been trying to use our provisioning server, and while the link you provided does help for understanding how the phones work when it comes to provisions. It doesn't help for the question I had about Grouping.

When making ~directory.xml, is their a supported field (Ex. <ln>, <fn>, <ct>, <sd>, etc.>) that's for grouping? Maybe a <gp>1<gp> to indicate that this contact is assigned to be in Group 1?

I'm also trying to understanding if it's at all practical. What if we had 100+ phones and we have to change the Directory to each phone in order to be accurate. We would probably have to edit 100+ files with the correct MAC address to ensure that they all get the right files. And even then, some phones just fail to read/write to the Provisioning Server. Or we have to restart it, to get it connected again.

 

[SteffenBaierUK · Accepted solution]

Hello @wcafranklin 

I provided two solutions. LDAP is an industry-standard and will do what you want.

A local directory is a workaround and you can use the 00000000000-directory approach as explained in the FAQ for all phones.

We are all volunteers here and if you need official support please work with our support team in your region.

Best Regards

Steffen Baier

[wcafranklin]

Oh, I see, so I would need to use the LDAP, which would need some tinkering, as we do Cloud Based services like Azure Directory, which we don't have direct access to. 

I can try to mess around with what I have now. Thank you for the help.