Course10:Advanced - myPBX

Book about the UC client myPBX

Introduction

Introduction

What is UC?

Unified communications (UC) is the integration of real-time communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, telephony (including IP telephony), video conferencing, data sharing (including web connected electronic whiteboards aka IWB's or Interactive White Boards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax).

UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types. ...

Source:  wikipedia

So far so good - but what does this mean for an innovaphone based communications platform?

innovaphone UC

With the UC-client myPBX, innovaphone steps into the UC-area and integrates additional new ways of communication into its existing solution portfolio. As you may know, myPBX was already introduced in Version9 but greatly enhanced now in V10.

This book will give you an overview about the capabilities of myPBX, tell you how to setup and of course use the various features it offers. There may be repetitions of already existing features from V9, but due to heavy changes in terms of usability in V10, we'll do a complete new description here.

As always, we refer to other books of this course, to our wiki-based documentation and will sum-up all this with a lesson.

Concept

Concept

In general,  myPBX is a web based UC client.

It interacts with several other devices and applications as shown in this  overview.

myPBX always communicates via an http- or HTTPS-based AJAX connection to an innovaphone PBX - which is powered by firmware Version10 (this is what the book and whole training is about).

As myPBX is compatible to any innovaphone PBX it is independent whether this is an innovaphone gateway or an IPVA.

At the PBX, usage of a myPBX client creates a myPBX session which is always connected to a dedicated user object. By this it can control one or more phones that are registered to this object (including any forking destination when mobility is used). The user needs to own a license to operate myPBX.

Call-control is done via the PBX. Dialing a number from myPBX forces the PBX to signal the call-request to the selected phone and to setup a call to the destination. This behaviour applies for audio, video and chat signalling.

For the video service, there's another HTTP-based connection directly from the myPBX-launcher to the phone. By this, the phone negotiates video-calls with myPBX. Video-streaming is done directly between myPBX-launcher-clients.

As usual any directory services are defined in the PBX and any search results are retrieved via the HTTP connection to the myPBX client. Number resolution of incoming calls is done in the same way - first lookup in directory services, then transmission of results to myPBX for display.

The call list service to keep track on any calls originated or terminated by this user is based on the reporting application, hosted by the Linux application platform. Any call data records belonging to the myPBX user extension are transferred from the PBX to the reporting application. From here myPBX retrieves them via an http- or HTTPS-based connection.

There are 2 operation modes of the myPBX client

• purely web based, only a  web browser is needed and thus it can run on any OS
  
• an installer version called  Windows Launcher, installed at the local Windows PC.

Web-based client

The web-based client offers the possibility to use myPBX at any operating system via a simple browser. This means just opening a administrator-given URL of the PBX gives access to various UC-features to be used on any end-user device.

The URL can be retrieved from the  PBX-menu - by either directly clicking on the Go! button or just copying the URL to your browser.

The web-client does not require any additional software to be installed and offers following features:

• control of any user-registered IP-telephony-device
• call-control (originate and terminate any calls, various telephony-features, etc.)
• access to phone book(s)
• presence handling (set own presence, retrieve presences of other PBX-users)
• emailing
• call-history via call-list feature
• chat
• application sharing
• favourite-list (aka buddy list) management

Remark: In spite of the OS-independence of the web-client, we want to highlight that there's no support for touch-screen-devices till now. You may try to open the URL within your touch-screen-devices' browser, but may encounter some issues in accessing myPBX-functions requiring mouse-over or right-mouse-button actions.

As you may miss some further features which have been mentioned in the previous definition of UC we refer to the

Windows launcher

The "Windows Launcher" is a tool developed for the Windows OS (Windows7 and later). It is not needed to use myPBX but it adds some convenient functions that are not available otherwise.
These functions are:

• video telephony (optional)
• Microsoft Office Integration
• dialling from an application by using a hotkey
• display of a popup notification (e.g. for incoming calls)
• configuration of a standby - URL that can be used in case that the master - URL is not accessible. (standby function)
  

The installation file of the "Windows Launcher" tool uses the MSI format and can be used for a domain wide roll-out of the software. The "Windows Launcher" stores its configuration files in user specific folders and can be used in Terminal Server environments as well.

All above mentioned features will be described in more detail in the following chapters.

Features

Features

In the following sub-chapters, the most important features and their usage are described.

For your end-customer guidance, please refer to the  myPBX user guide.

Device management

Device management

With myPBX you can control multiple devices

• all devices registered with a PBX object
  
• forking destinations using mobility

In the drop-down list you can select the device to control.

Call handling

Call handling

Outgoing calls

In general, myPBX uses a very easy and simple way to initiate calls.

Once selected the device to be used for outgoing calls, the user just need to select the contact to be called. This can be done either from the buddy-list, or via the  search field.

Entering a name or even number in the search field starts a search within the PBX internal phone book (all extensions connected to the PBX), and - if configured - within an external (LDAP based) phone book as well.

Once a match was found (of course the more detailed one searches the less potential entries will be displayed) the call is setup by hovering over the entry and clicking the dial button.

There are two ways of dialling - direct and indirect:

• Once you select an entry directly from your buddy list, pressing the  dial button means a direct dial.
• When entering text in the search field there's an indication named "indirect dialling" which means that by pressing RETURN on any input the first matching entry will be selected. A second RETURN then  initiates the call.

When using myPBX Windows Launcher, there is a third option to initiate a call: Click-to-dial. To use this feature, a  click-to-dial hotkey needs to be configured. This enables the selection of any number within any text document and by pressing the hotkey the selection is pasted into the search field for dialling (and storage in the favourites if wanted).

Outgoing calls are always  indicated in the main window and offer the possibility to be disconnected before being accepted by the called party.

Address format

myPBX uses the same CDPN format as a phone. This means that you can call any user by typing his number or name.

Dialling by name depends on the called party:

• If it is an internal user (a user registered at a PBX with the same system name as your user, e.g. same company), you can setup the call by typing in the remote H.323 name (e.g. CharlieH) or his FQDN(e.g. CharlieH@yourcompany.com).
• if the called party is an external, federated user (a user registered at a PBX with a different system name as your user, e.g. other company), you must set-up the call by typing in the FQDN of the remote user(e.g. CharlieH@othercompany.com).

Incoming calls

Incoming calls are always  indicated in the main window and offer the possibility to be accepted (green handset) or discarded without acceptance (red handset).

Starting with myPBX10 it's possible to have a pickup functionality as known from  the phones. An incoming call to a buddy-list member can be picked by using the  pickup symbol in the myPBX-buddy list. Note for this is only possible when the call it's on alerting state and we have Busy State visibility enabled from the favorite user.

In-call functionalities

When being in an active call, several options are available - some of them are introduced newly in V10:

• hold the current call by pressing the  hold symbol.
• park the current call by pressing the  park symbol.
• Open a  dial pad to perform an inband post dial (DTMF-digits)
• perform a  blind transfer to a contact from the buddy list
• park the current call on a  dedicated extension from the buddy list

Call diversions

In myPBX V10 it is possible to configure only standard call diversion, similar to the possibility offered by the  Call Forwarding key on a phone. It is not possible to configure a conditional call forwarding (i.e. using Only / Only Not options) or a dynamic call forwarding (i.e. using Boolean objects). A conditional and dynamic call forwarding can be configured only by the administrator in the PBX and is not visible for the user (neither at the phone nor via myPBX).

Within the main window, a menu-slider was added which opens  4 symbols for setting call-diversions always (CFU), on busy (CFB), no reply (CFNR) and - if configured in the user object - a mobility device.

Just click on the pencil to add or edit any number to divert incoming calls to and save the settings. When active, the used function-key and the slider itself appear orange.

CTI functions

Control a phone registered at the PBX object. The features are described in the  Concept myPBX article.

Call list

The call-list shows the  missed and answered calls and can be accessed in myPBX via the  call-list selector. Each myPBX user can see only his own call list(not that of other users).

Precondition is an installed and running innovaphone Reporting Application. Call lists are stored in the reporting application. However, no reporting licenses are required for call lists only.

Each call which was originated or terminated by the PBX-user (also calls created/answered without myPBX) will be listed in here - including date and time of occurrence, call-state and duration.

Also, all involved call entities are listed - by this one can see which hops the call took until it ended at the local extension.

When you have a missed call the  call-list icon appears in red.

With the myPBX Windows Launcher, missed calls additionally will be displayed by a pop-up window.

You can start calls from the call-list and get  details on the different calls by selecting the appropriate icon. Adding extensions to favourites and sending emails is of course possible as well - it's UC .

Additionally you will see an entry in your call list if you  do a call back or somebody calls you back using the call-list.
Note: This works only if you call back or get a call back out of the call list.

Contacts

Contacts

As contacts we define all internal or external numbers/users which may be called or which may call the user. Depending on their importance for the end user or the company, it may be required to store more often used contacts for simplified access. myPBX offers several ways of accessing stored contacts:

Centralized Phone Books

myPBX can use multiple phone books:

• internal - which is the PBX phone book managing all PBX-extensions
• external - which is a phone book service connected via LDAP. It uses the same settings as a phone that is registered at the user object, thus the  directory config of the user must be stored at the PBX.

The myPBX search requests are sent first to the PBX. The PBX will contact the LDAP - directory server and resolve the search request using the LDAP protocol. The PBX will then create an answer for the myPBX client using the data received from the LDAP server.

Similar to a phone, it is not possible to add or modify contacts in the  LDAP directory server. The myPBX client will just read data from the LDAP-database.

Not only search requests performed in the myPBX client will trigger queries to the directory server but also incoming calls. When receiving an incoming call the myPBX client will do a reverse lookup and try to resolve the incoming CGPN to a name.

Favourites

The favourites (also called buddy- or personal contact list) is more or less a user-owned phone book. The purpose is to store more often used contacts under the user directly. Main advantages - beside the quick access - are the possibility to group contacts and to see presence in real-time(if they are part of the PBX or a federated PBX).

For example, a user could have a 'work' favourite-list and a 'private' favourite-list. The 'work' favourites do have a contact list with business contacts(e.g. boss, colleagues) while the 'private' favourites do have a contact list with private entries (e.g. wife, friends, mother-in-law etc.) The user can switch between the different lists using the myPBX client.

Favourites can be accessed in myPBX via the  favourites selector.

Different lists can be selected and managed via the  favourites list selector. One can step into a dedicated list, add a new one or delete existing list(s) via the pencil.

Contacts are added to the current active list by just pressing the  favourites star.

All favourite-lists are stored in the PBX as  Profiles. They can be administratively changed in the  PBX/Objects menu.

The favourites are restricted to 32 entries.

Chat

Chat

myPBX clients can create  chat session between each other. Furthermore the chat functionality includes an Application Sharing feature.

Initiate a chat session

To start a chat session, select a contact from the buddy list or search for a user. After selection of the wanted contact, hover over the contact entry and select the  IM icon.

An  extra message window will open and ask you for a subject of the current chat. We recommend to give one to offer the purpose of the chat to your invitee.

In parallel, at myPBX an  symbol appears for the new chat (and will show the title). This indicator will act as anchor to already active chat sessions in case the message window itself is minimized or closed.

Once the other peer has accepted the request for chat, you will get a  confirmationinside the message window.

It's possible to initiate multi-party chats as well. While being in an active chat, hover over the name of a 3rd party to be involved in the buddy list(or select it from the search field) and click on the  add-to-chat icon.

Invitation of further attendees can be done by everyone who participate to the chat.

Receive a chat request

Chat messages are routed similar to calls to the PBX. As a result the same routing and restrictions as for calls apply.

When using the myPBX Launcher, a  notification window indicating an incoming chat request will pop up.

In any case, incoming chat requests are displayed in the myPBX  event area. Just click on it to open the message window. At this time the initiator will get a message that you've accepted the invitation.

Remarks about chat

Neither the PBX nor the myPBX client stores any chat conversation, so after the myPBX client is closed all previous chat messages are discarded. Incoming chat messages are displayed only in the myPBX client of the recipient, not on his phone.

A chat message that is sent to a  BC Conference object, will be delivered to all members of the group. The group members can then accept the incoming chat session, creating a chat conference.

Application sharing

In a chat, participants can be invited to an  application sharing session from the chat window.
innovaphone supports the integration of:

•  WebEx
•  Office Life Meeting
• and services who provide access via static links (e.g.  GoMeetNow).

You need an account for these applications, that allows to start an application sharing session.

Just click on the  application sharing button to send an invitation link to other participants.

The initator will see  2 links on top of the message window, from where he normally selects the first one for presenters.

The participant(s) will get the  attendee link within a chat message.

Selecting the appropriate URL will launch the 3rd-party-applikation for sharing your screen content.

Presence

Presence

There are 2 types of contacts that display presence information

• users in the same domain (means in your master /slave PBX configuration)
  
• external/federated users (This is discussed in detail in the book Federation).

Presence can be set and displayed.

Set presence

You can set your own  presence state and see the presence state of contacts (if the access rights are enabled for presence).

Display presence

myPBX shows the  phone and IM state of each contact in the buddy list. The presence states & icons include:

Phone state
questionmarked grey icon	no phone is registered / no IP-phone / external contact
colored icon (here: green)	phone is registered - you can call this contact (except it owns dnd-presence)
shaded colored icon	status unknown - could be that this contact doesn't allow you to see his status or does not run myPBX

IM state
no icon	no myPBX client active
grey icon	myPBX client active - you can start chat

Additionally, call information for contacts in the buddy list is  shown - if allowed by the corresponding users.

Dialog info (call state)	with Ids and Dial rights	without Ids access rights	without Dial. access right
a call is active*	Hookoff-icon - callers name (or number)	Hookoff-icon -
a call is active, and there are more calls**	Hookoff-icon - callers name (or number) ...	Hookoff-icon - ...

* the buddy list shows differences in the call state (alerting, connected, parked, ...).
** It shows exactly one call, if the contact has more then one call then it shows the connected call. To see the the other calls, you can scroll to the call with the mouse. Then the other calls will pop up ( tool tip information).

Presence in MS Office applications

With myPBX launcher, it's possible to distribute presence of PBX-users to own  MS Office applications (starting with Office2010 at least). Mostly, it will be Outlook where  presence states of other users are useful by offering colored bubbles in front of the user names indicating their presence.

The colours provide real-time status. By hovering over them a pop-up appears giving more details. From the pop-up it's even possible to initiate a call or chat to these destinations.

This feature is included in the myPBX launcher without any additional software nor licence. The list of MS applications and some basic features are:

Microsoft Outlook 2010:

• Presence integration for people in the “To/Cc/Bcc” line within e-mail messages, the Global Address Book property dialog box, task assignments, Journal entry, Outlook Contacts property dialog box e-mail field, meeting requests and the Contact Card

• Activation of IM entry points on the Microsoft Office System contact card

• Activation of IM entry points on the Ribbon on Outlook e-mail and meeting items

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010:

• Presence integration for people in a SharePoint list

• Activation of IM entry points in the Microsoft Office 2010 contact card

Microsoft Word 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Powerpoint 2010

• Activation of IM entry points on the Contact Card

Presence from Exchange Calendar

As already mentioned in the presence book, with V10 innovaphone introduced a possibility to retrieve presence information from the Microsoft Exchange Calendar via the innovaphone Exchange Calendar Connector - which is an application running on top of the Linux Application Platform. This information is just for completeness in mentioning all potential presence sources - configuration is discussed in another book...

The Exchange Calendar Connector will retrieve the Availability of users from their Exchange Calendar and convert it into a  corresponding presence activity and note. The presence activity is stored in the PBX and distributed to all end points - including myPBX. It is not possible to "write back" any presence to the Exchange calendar which was set on myPBX or an IP-phone.

At the end all these different possibilitites of setting and retrieving presence states may lead us to the question on how one can influence the visibilty of his presence:

Access rights

Basically, the administrator can set general  access rights at the PBX which apply to all users. These rights define which and how much personal information(presence & dialog information) is visible to other users or user groups.

Access rights are part of PBX-objects and are therefore stored in the PBX. They can be deployed via  config templates to a large number of users(similar to call filters). Config templates(and their access rights) can be  nested/merged making it possible to define specific access rights on top of the general ones (e.g. a user belonging to the board of directors may require other rights as the rest of the company...).

By using the  myPBX visibility options, each user can define his personal access rights within myPBX on his own and by this further define the settings received via config templates.

A second way of defining Access Rights is by using PBX groups. Access rights are implicitly assigned to active users of a PBX user group. Active group members can see the presence and call information of other users in the group.

Access rights assigned to users/groups/domains by means of a Config-Template or by the user himself, overwrite access settings inherited by groups.

The recommended way of granting presence access is by setting the access rights under "Access" on the User Object via Templates or manually by the user himself, instead of setting this through PBX groups, to avoid collisions with other group based functions, like Pickup etc.

Email integration

Email integration

myPBX users can  send emails using the contacts stored in the buddy-list.

Sending emails is not only possible for PBX-internal contacts. As long as any contact within the PBX central phone book (LDAP) has an email address, the envelop-icon will be displayed here as well.

 

Video

Video

This feature is available with the myPBX Windows launcher version only.

Starting with V10, the myPBX windows launcher offers the possibility to do video telephony.

Concept

In general, an innovaphone phone (hard- or softwphone) has to be used in order to make it possible to use video-telephony. The phone acts as signalling endpoint for audio and video.

The myPBX launcher recognizes an active web-cam on the used PC and communicates this information via a HTTP-based connection to the selected phone.

When having established the audio-connection between both audio endpoints, the phone will negotiate the video settings to be used by the myPBX Windows Launcher. If the far-end is able to do video as well, an RTP-based video media-stream will be setup between both myPBX clients (PCs). Video data is transmitted using the H.264 video coding standard.

The  Concept myPBX Video article has more details on that.

Requirements

• PC
• Windows7 or later
• Webcam
• Innovaphone IP-phone with V10 firmware or later

As mentioned in the V10 news book, there are different new versions available for V10, all video-capable - but of course V9 firmware will not work.

Usage

Once the myPBX Windows Laucher is installed, the connected web-cam will be recognized and can be configured via the  myPBX setup menu.

When having selected a video-capable end-device, a  video window will pop-up on an incoming or outgoing call - if the other people is also video-capable.

A grey screen may appear if video capabilities were successfully negotiated, but the far-end is not able to send video data(because of technical problems, e.g. a firewall blocking the sent Video RTP-stream).

Within the video screen, a PiP (picture-in-picture) is embedded to control your own appearance. This PiP can be moved to another corner of the main window or even removed by double-clicking.

Video allowance can be given either via the  myPBX config menu in general or on-demand before a call via the  video-button in the myPBX main window.

Mobile integration

Mobile integration

It's possible to setup calls from a mobile phone using the myPBX client.

At the PBX-object you must define a mobility-enabled forking destination and assign it a Device name. With these settings it's now possible to select the mobile device in myPBX and to initiate calls by simply dialling the desired number in the myPBX client.

The PBX then will first call the mobile phone and after the call is picked up on the mobile phone, a second call to the originally dialled number (the destination) will be initiated. Finally, the PBX will connect both calls, so the mobile phone can talk to the desired destination.

External applications

External applications

This  feature is available with the myPBX Windows launcher version only.

The myPBX windows launcher offers the possibility to connect call activities to external applications for reference purposes.

Potential usecase may be to e.g. open a CRM-application upon call setup.

Configuration

The feature can be configured by the user itself within the  myPBX config menu at the External application tab.

Following a short description on the available field and their meanings:

• Name: Random name for the application to be displayed in myPBX
• Path: Exact path to the executable application
  Application name only is sufficient for applications which are located within the MS-Windows searchpath.
• Parameters (optional): Definition of dynamic parameters from the phone connection to be forwarded to the application:
• $n: calling number
• $u: URI of incoming call
• $d: displayed name of caller (if available)
• $c: conference id
• Example for connection to notepad.exe: c:/contact/$d.txt
• Start on call: Start application automatically when accepting an incoming call. If this option is deactivated, one can start applications by using the desktop notification

Usage

If the relation to an external application is configured, a  new symbol will appear in the desktop notification on an incoming call. One can open the application by clicking here even before accepting the call - e.g. for making any notes before starting the conversation.

The same symbol will appear as well on incoming calls in the myPBX-UI and in the call-list.

Configuration

Configuration

Depending on the used myPBX client, you may need to configure only the PBX (web-client) and also the user (launcher version). Following subchapters will provide you with an overview how to do so and which are the most important issues.

A chapter about general rollout completes this section.

Administrator configuration

Configuration by administrator

First of all, the PBXs need to have an sufficient amount of myPBX licenses at all for myPBX usage in general.

Second, the dedicated users need to have an active myPBX license ticked at the  user object.

To enable myPBX for the PBX users, you only need to click on the  enable myPBX check-box.
You must enable myPBX on each PBX, having registered users that want to use myPBX.
The myPBX AJAX connection terminates always at that PBX where the user objects Parent PBX is configured. When a myPBX user starts the client using a link from another PBX, the AJAX session will be redirected to his PBX.

Device definition

As the user can choose the device for call control (phone registered at the user object and/or forking destination), it is recommended to give each device a unique and self-explaining name. This device name is then displayed in the myPBX  drop down device list.

Password definitions

Phones must register with the  PBX password. This is because in the myPBX client it is possible to change the user password (this feature cannot be disabled), resulting in the myPBX user password being stored at the user object  password setting. If a phone would be configured to use the user password for registration, the phone will fail to register after a password change in myPBX.

Access Rights at User

For presence and dialog monitoring access rights have to be configured at the individual user objects. The admin can do that in the  PBX/Objects - menu, at the "Access" column. As discussed before config templates can be used for mass deployment of Access Rights.

The administrator must keep in mind that access rights are implicitly assigned to active users of a PBX user group. Active group members can see the presence and call information of other users in the group.

Phone book definition

myPBX can use centralized phone books, the PBX phone book and an external phone book (via LDAP). It uses the same  settings as a phone that is registered at the user object, thus the users directory settings must be stored at the PBX. The myPBX client uses these settings (directory setting must be stored at the user object or on a template) to retrieve the Directory and Dialing Location settings. Dialing Location settings are important to normalize numbers being retrieved from any central phone book for dialing purposes.

Call-List configuration

For the call-list service, an innovaphone reporting application is needed - running either on a IPxx10 gateway or Linux Application Platform. myPBX gets its call list from the reporting application. This has the advantage that you can initiate/receive calls from different devices (that are belonging to one user object) and always have a centralized call-list.

You need to configure where to get the  call-list data from , means where the reporting application is running.

Even though the Reporting Application is used to store the call lists, a Reporting License is not needed for this service. Therefore the  reporting license flag at the user object should not need to be ticked for call list service only.

User Profiles

Each myPBX user has a  profile, you can set various profiles per user.

The myPBX client can choose from that profiles.

For each profile buddy lists (aka contacts) can be configured via myPBX and contacts can be added to these lists.

You can administratively add contacts to these lists, they can be members of the PBX or can be external contacts.

Notes:

• To add internal users either use name or number, never set both.
• For adding external contacts, you can either enter the number (including trunkline access-code) or a SIP-URI. Storage of an external SIP-contact will only work if the contact exists (PBX will try to "ping" it if a connection is available).

Email integration

myPBX also supports sending emails out of the  buddy list. The client creates the recipients email address using this procedure:

• if ticked, the  email of the  user object is used as local-part (everything prior to the @) of the email address.
• the  System Name is used as domain-name if the Use as Domain option is activated.
• if in the users email field the user name is not ticked, anything configured in the email-freetext-field is used as either the local-part (together with the system name as domain), or even a completely different email-adress including the domain.
• definition of external email recipients only works via the  profile settings, where a SIP-contact has to be defined using the mail-address as contact name (this could not be done via the client because of unreachability during definition).

Correct definition of email-adresses is important for proper function of the  Microsoft Office integration . Email adresses of MS-Outlook-users need to be defined here as well.

Application Sharing

It is possible to integrate a third party application sharing solution (Webex, OLM, others with static links) to myPBX. Therefore a account is needed that can create a application sharing session.
For inviting people to an ad-hoc application sharing session via chat you need to configure the  application sharing settings.
These application sharing settings must be configured on each PBX. Otherwise the icon does not appear in the chat window of myPBX users from other innovaphone PBX, and thus they can´t use this feature.
These settings are general for all myPBX users, it is not possible to individually enable/disable the feature per user.

Mobile Integration

As mentioned in the feature overview, the mobile device needs to be added as a  mobility device to the dedicated user.

To enable mobility at a dedicated user,  mobility license needs to be ticked at the user object.

To displayed the dialled number on the mobile phone when initiating a call, Clip no Screening has to be configured and also activated at the mobile-provider-side. Otherwise, the call will show up as a call from the local trunk number + the dialled number (for calling to internal extensions that's ok but when calling to an external destination one will need CLNS to overwrite the number).
There are 2 drawbacks:

• Because of the mechanism how myPBX calls for forking destinations are handled, the entries in the call-list of the mobile phone may be confusing. Remember that when using myPBX to call a number from a mobile phone, there will be an incoming call from the PBX (not an outgoing call from the mobile phone). As a result entries in the call-list for such type of calls seems to be inverse, means they will appear that you were called by someone and not that you called this person.
• When calling a name via myPBX, it does not show the extension on the mobile phone, only the subscriber number. When calling a number, external or internal, it shows the full number including the extension

Video

The PBX needs to have an sufficient amount of video licenses at all, and second the dedicated users need to have a video license activated at the  user object itself.

As video requires a non-negligable bandwidth (approx. 500 kbit/s), routing of video streams via the PBX will be prohibited to avoid overload situations. By this, activation of  RTP Proxy is not allowed.

Multi site - master/slave - installations

Multi Site installation

In a multi site setup the myPBX client has to be logged in at the registration PBX of the phone that it will control. If the myPBX client registers at the wrong PBX, the connection attempt is redirected to the master PBX. The master PBX will then check the Parent PBX attribute of the user and redirect the connection to the correct PBX. In case that the master PBX is also the Parent PBX of the user, it will accept the registration by itself.

 Redirection scenario

Example: When you use the master PBX for login (and your parent PBX is the slave, like in the picture above) and the slave breaks down, the phone will register at the master and thus the myPBX still works.

The redirection of the master PBX requires that the master PBX knows all users in the PBX system. This will not be the case in a installation were the slave PBXs don't replicate their users from the master PBX but have own user databases.

Notes:

• When in the case above master breaks down myPBX-webclient usage will no more be possible as the link does not work even when the slave is up. By using myPBX Windows Launcher, this circumstance can be fixed when using an alternate URL - see next topic.
  

The redirect feature also works for the myPBX Windows Launcher.

Standby PBX

Standby PBX

This feature is only supported with the myPBX windows launcher.

Within myPBX launcher configuration you can define an  alternate URL

, that represents the standby PBX for this user.

As myPBX connections do have a time-out of 30 seconds, upon timer-expiry due to no answer, the Windows Launcher will switch to the alternate URL. If both PBXs are not available, the launcher will try to reach both URLs in a round-robin mode, until it is connected or the launcher gets closed.

Assuming that the standby - PBX is available, the myPBX connection remains active until the master PBX becomes active again. As soon as the standby - PBX is able to register at the master PBX, it will close all its myPBX connections. The windows launcher will then try the primary URL and connect to the master PBX.

User Configuration

The user will get a link where to connect with a user name and password. When using the Windows Launcher, the user needs the install file, the link, the user name and password to login.

You get the link when enabling myPBX as administrator and  click on Go!. In a master slave scenario each myPBX user can use either a link to the local PBX or to the master PBX(as the myPBX - client gets redirected to the Parent-PBX of the user).

Login

For login a user-name and password is needed, this  settings are done by the administrator at the user object. The user can change  his password in the myPBX client and thus changes the password setting at the user object. This cannot be disabled.

Profiles

The myPBX user can set up to 4 different profiles. This  profile settings are stored at the PBX. For each profile the myPBX user can have up to 32 different contacts in his buddy list.

Diversions

The myPBX user can configure standard diversions(no dynamic or conditional diversions). You cannot restrict the myPBX user to not configure diversions.

Access Rights

The myPBX user can pro-actively set the  access rights for a certain user, a group or the whole domain via the  client UI.

If access rights are set via a template the user can see them in the myPBX client and can overwrite them using his client.

Miscellaneous

As maybe not generally used and required, we want to mention here an additional V10-myPBX feature for end-user - implemented protocol handlers. 

That is setting up a phone-call or chat directly from the browser using a dedicated protocol tag:

tel:xxx - will start a h323-phone call to extension xxx
sip:xxx - will start a sip-phone call to extension xxx
sips:xxx - will start a sips-phone call to extension xxx
im:xxx - will start a chat to extension xxx

As this implies proper registration of applications to these tags, we just want to mention the possibility about its usage.

For questions concerning installation issues, please refer to the  corresponding article

Roll-out

Roll-Out

Centralized configuration roll-out can be done with the  config template, you can set:

• the  directory settings with phone config stored at the PBX
• the  access rights
  

To roll-out the client you can :

• mail the myPBX URL to all clients
• roll-out the windows launcher via  Active Directory group policy for software roll-out.
• the windows launcher supports to run in the autostart - refer to the  correspondig wiki article.

Note: When you run the windows launcher, it opens only with the Microsoft IE browser, even if you have set another browser as standard browser. myPBX supports the Internet Explorer from Version 8.

Softwarephone

Softwarephone

The innovaphone  softwarephone is an own product without user interface. For controlling purposes (call control) a CTI software is needed.

It can be  controlled with the myPBX client or with any other third party CTI software.

The innovaphone softwarephone is an .exe file and currently supports only Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Its installed using a MSI-package and comes with a setup wizard for  configuration settings.

A  softwarephone license is needed to run the softwarephone. Additional to the softwarephone license a port license is needed to register the phone at the PBX (if not already obtained for this user).

ToS mappings via Policy-based QoS

The signalling and media data packets sent by the innovaphone myPBX and innovaphone SoftwarePhone applications should be marked with corresponding ToS value, as it is done on other innovaphone Hardware. This is required to be able to prioritize the voice traffic before other non time critical heavy traffic on WAN connections.

Also, the calls in local network to WiFi phones IP62 and IP72 rely on the correct mapping of the RTP packets, to be able to implement WMM PowerSave (U-APSD) on the WiFi equipment.

However, the direct marking of the IP packets on the modern Microsoft Windows operating systems must be done by usage of the Policy-based Quality of Service (QoS) mappings of the local computer.

In the wiki article  Set Type of Service (ToS) DiffServ DSCP Values for innovaphone Windows Applications (SoftwarePhone, myPBX Video) you will find the way how to configure the policies and which ToS values can be used as default.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting in myPBX can be done by different roles which should be escalated in the following order:

• tracing by the administrator
• tracing at the users PC

As myPBX is an end-user application we recommend in any case first to try finding out any problems by checking from administrator side before disturbing user with such elementary tasks like tracing.

So - how to do this?

Tracing by the administrator

This setting is for administrator usage only.

Status overview

Active myPBX applications for all users can be monitored with their status via the  PBX/myPBX tab.

Correct activations of video are shown via the  PBX/Registrations tab. Within  column Video, one can see if a dedicated user has an activated video license [Activted] and if a video device is connected by use of myPBX [Connected]. There's no status about an already active video call.

Tracing

To trouble shoot user interaction and capture any potential errors, it is useful to switch on the myPBX and Administration logging in  Maintenance/Diagnostics/Logging:

 Logging Settings for myPBX

All user interaction will be logged under the Administration logging. Look for lines like

20120508-092518 PBX_CLIENT 0 (0590493282:CLSD) created
20120508-092518 CMD - mod cmd PBX0/MY pbx-client-message /message login /username ckl /nonce 73870806 /session 590493282 /seq 997840753 /digest d5401a9232ec7427779cbe5389c206c1a5571bac
20120508-092518 PBX_CLIENT 0 (0590493282:CONN:ckl) login

The /session parameter ( /session 590493282 in the sample above) will show up in each interaction for the given user session, so it can be used to find all relevant CMD entries for a single session (as all sessions running on this particular PBX will be shown in the log). Likewise, all the relevant PBX_CLIENT messages will share the same session id in round braces (such as in (0 590493282 :CLSD) in the above example).
Here is a sample logging where a user (ckl) logs in, creates a chat session ( im-add ), invites another user ( im-call-initiate /name afi ) in a chat and then creates an application sharing meeting

20120508-092518 PBX_CLIENT 0 (0590493282:CONN:ckl) login
20120508-094015 CMD - mod cmd PBX0/MY pbx-client-message /message im-add /pseudo im-null-afi-13740 /session 590493282 /seq 997840759 /digest b3fdfec066b14e48d3b6a26988cf1acf4fb35681
20120508-094015 CMD - mod cmd PBX0/MY pbx-client-message /message im-call-initiate /im 1 /name afi /session 590493282 /seq 997840760 /digest 2bbc30b6f4f781e64653e0577470e7188d9a3855
20120508-094016 CMD - mod cmd PBX0/MY pbx-client-message /message im-meeting /id 1 /session 590493282 /seq 997840761 /digest 3f9facd61e7a6988d2d4f205599c40d847532767
20120508-094017 PBX_CLIENT 0 (0590493282:CONN:ckl) create meeting

Tracing at the users PC

This tracing option is for myPBX windows launcher only.

If the  checkmark "Write trace" is enabled in the launcher configuration, the launcher writes a rotation of trace files to the folder :\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\innovaphone\myPBX.

To access these files, just click on the link below the trace button - an explorer will open showing you all available traces. They are numbered in ascending order - the latest trace is contained in the highest numbered file!

myPBX call list

First of all make sure the Reporting Application is configured correctly.

In case you see an error message instead of the Call List like received auth 21f...9ced does not match, check if the User Name and Password configured fot the  Call List Service are correct.