asterisk users - Jul 2012 - Polycom Presence with Asterisk 1.8.12.0

Greetings-

I've got a handful of Polycom IP 550 handsets connected to an Asterisk
1.8.12.0 system. Everything is running smoothly with few problems. However, I
have an issue that maybe someone could shed light on...

Many of the phones have 'buddy watch' enabled for the other phones,
basically Polycom's version of BLF. This works fine when watched extensions
are on the phone, ringing, etc, as the LED lights/flashes appropriately for the
status. However, the phones also offer various presence states such as 'Out
to Lunch' or 'Away from Desk' etc. When a phone is set to one of
these presence states, the other phones watching never show that status. Does
that make sense? Is there any reason why those states would not propagate
between the phones (through Asterisk?) ?

And, on a side note, if anyone knows how to remove the 'thistle'
background from a Polycom phone I'd be especially delighted. It was set by a
user on a device, and there is no option to remove it, or replace it with the
blank background which is the default. :/

--Tim

Question 1 - I think asterisk only supports a limited set of statuses
Question 2 - you could reset the phone and re-provision it or possibly just
tweak the config file and update it.  I have 501's so the 550 is just a WAG.

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Tim Nelson
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2012 3:28 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [asterisk-users] Polycom Presence with Asterisk 1.8.12.0

Greetings-

I've got a handful of Polycom IP 550 handsets connected to an Asterisk
1.8.12.0 system. Everything is running smoothly with few problems. However,
I have an issue that maybe someone could shed light on...

Many of the phones have 'buddy watch' enabled for the other phones,
basically Polycom's version of BLF. This works fine when watched extensions
are on the phone, ringing, etc, as the LED lights/flashes appropriately for
the status. However, the phones also offer various presence states such as
'Out to Lunch' or 'Away from Desk' etc. When a phone is set to
one of these
presence states, the other phones watching never show that status. Does that
make sense? Is there any reason why those states would not propagate between
the phones (through Asterisk?) ?

And, on a side note, if anyone knows how to remove the 'thistle'
background
from a Polycom phone I'd be especially delighted. It was set by a user on a
device, and there is no option to remove it, or replace it with the blank
background which is the default. :/

--Tim

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On 07/26/2012 04:28 PM, Tim Nelson wrote:
> Greetings-
>
> I've got a handful of Polycom IP 550 handsets connected to an Asterisk
1.8.12.0 system. Everything is running smoothly with few problems. However, I
have an issue that maybe someone could shed light on...
>
> Many of the phones have 'buddy watch' enabled for the other phones,
basically Polycom's version of BLF. This works fine when watched extensions
are on the phone, ringing, etc, as the LED lights/flashes appropriately for the
status. However, the phones also offer various presence states such as 'Out
to Lunch' or 'Away from Desk' etc. When a phone is set to one of
these presence states, the other phones watching never show that status. Does
that make sense? Is there any reason why those states would not propagate
between the phones (through Asterisk?) ?
>
> And, on a side note, if anyone knows how to remove the 'thistle'
background from a Polycom phone I'd be especially delighted. It was set by a
user on a device, and there is no option to remove it, or replace it with the
blank background which is the default. :/
If you just want to reset the background on that phone then you want:
Menu, 3, 1, 1, 4, 2, 2, Select (Seems like you should get god mode for 
that too, but alas, no).

If you want to prohibit anyone from setting that particular background 
you could always remove the jpg from the provisioning server.

As for the buddy status, I don't think it works (or ever will work) with 
asterisk. I always turn that button off when I set up my site sip.conf 
to avoid any questions.

-Dave