Contact PFK busy light

[nihtgalan]

Good morning all,

With my previous issue solved, I've moved on and come across my next question.

I'm setting up templates for the PFKs, and trying to get the contact buttons to function the way we'd like. It's pretty simple, we just want the contact button to display the busy light field for a user where ever they are hot desked to. The PFK configuration for the normal BLF has this note when you set it up:
NOTE
A BLF PFK monitors one particular desk phone (cannot monitor Reach or Allworx Softphone). In most cases, a Contact PFK is preferable because it monitors all the handsets owned by a user.
Which seems to imply that if you set a contact to a user it will light up when they are on a call, and work similar to the BLF in general. However in practice I cannot get this to be the case. The contact PFK never lights up, even when the PFK is used to successfully call that user. I'm wondering if there is an option under the handset preferences, or somewhere else I'm missing. I tried checking the admin manual but couldn't find anything listed so I'd appreciate any help offered

Thank you,

[nihtgalan]

Just in case anyone asks, "Hide user's BLF status" is not checked for any contact in the system under user settings.

[wshrader]

nihtgalan,
You never did say which firmware you're using but let us assume it is v8.2+. Have you tried using the Contact function for the PFK? BLF monitors specific Call Appearances while Contact monitors an extension. If a user logs into a handset not their own (Hot Desk) their Call Appearance changes so a PFK monitoring their "native" Call Appearance won't reflect their status but since Hot Desking effectively makes them the "owner" of an additional handset. The user's extension would be associated with this handset so I think a PFK set to Contact for the extension should do what you're asking. I don't recall the behavior myself since I have rarely used Hot Desking so it might be that what you want can't happen. I would need to test this practically.
In your previous post you said you are using 9224 phones. These act differently for some significant features than the 93xx (Verge) phones do. In other words, don't fully support them. Unfortunately these kind of things aren't documented and are only known by experimentation or experience. I urge you to get your Connect 731 up to the current version (v9.0.6.2) if possible.

[nihtgalan]

Sorry wshradar,

We are currently on v9.0.6.2, first thing I did during initial setup was update firmware. We're trying to use the Contact function pfk, hoping that would be how it works. However, even the user is the assigned owner of a phone, the contact light will still remain off regardless of status. It might be you're right and it's not a functional option on the 9224. I've ordered the rest of our phones, and we have 25 verge 9312's showing up for the providers and admin. I'll have to test the settings on them as well and compare.

Thank you.

[wshrader]

Please do report if using the Verge phones has solved your problem. If not, we might be back to a network issue. BLF is a broadcast, I think, using UDP port 2088. If using VLANs, I have experiened a situation where this traffic was hindered, though I do not recall the fix.

Sorry wshrader,

We are currently on v9.0.6.2, first thing I did during initial setup was update firmware. We're trying to use the Contact function pfk, hoping that would be how it works. However, even the user is the assigned owner of a phone, the contact light will still remain off regardless of status. It might be you're right and it's not a functional option on the 9224. I've ordered the rest of our phones, and we have 25 verge 9312's showing up for the providers and admin. I'll have to test the settings on them as well and compare.

Thank you.

[nihtgalan]

It's been a while, but the Verge 9312's finally arrived. After testing it appears the busy light for contact pfk's is in fact a feature only available on those phones. I have the PFK configured the same on a 9224 and a Verge 9312 but only the Verge will light up when that contact is on a call.

[wshrader]

It's been a while, but the Verge 9312's finally arrived. After testing it appears the busy light for contact pfk's is in fact a feature only available on those phones. I have the PFK configured the same on a 9224 and a Verge 9312 but only the Verge will light up when that contact is on a call.

A few years ago I tested the combinations (x-series with 92xx, x-series with 93xx, Connect with 92xx, Connect with 93xx) and made a chart but I don't have that now. IIRC, x-series should always use BLF and Connects should use BLF with 92xx phones. Therefore in your situation, a Connect 731 with 9224 phones should have the PFKs set to BLF and with 9312 phones set to Contact. It's a potential mess when mixing phones of different generations.