Update 18 June 2010

Andrew the developer of the FreePBX endpoint manager has come on board to help us build the new endpoint manager. He has already added support for the Linksys/Cisco handsets for those out there using the Linksys SPA range. We will keep moving forward with the development, however with very few donations and no vendor support it will be a rocky road ahead.

 

Original Post 

For a long time Elastix has lacked a good endpoint manager. The current endpoint manager is very good but it lacks a lot of settings which could make the endpoint manager a valuable tool to Elastix. Many Elastix users out there waste hours and hours of time provisioning their endpoints. Going into every phone and configuring each phone is tedious and is time we could be out making more money. Setting up the endpoints is normally the most time intensive part of building an Elastix system. With a good endpoint manager we can put all this behind us.

I am looking to develop a new endpoint manager. It will look to include the following features

• Provision many different vendors such as Linksys/Cisco, Snom, Aastra, Yealink, Polycom
• Provision all functions on each phone. This includes extension, all BLF buttons and regional settings
• All settings held on the Elastix machine in a mysql database
• Phones will grab all their settings TFTP
• Endpoint manager will be able to scan for extensions and provision
• Endpoint manager will be able to create a TFTP file so that the phone can be sent to site and it will be completely provisioned remotely
• Multilanguage support

 

What does this mean for you?

Vendors

With a good endpoint manager this will mean less support issues for vendors. It will make it easier for users to setup and use their IP phones. Vendors will have to do less support and the users of their phones will not have to have high end technical skills to use the best features of the phone.

Elastix Users

This will save you time, whether you are installing 10 phones or 100 phones. It will also make setting up phones very easy.

 

What is needed from Vendors and Users?

We need you to contribute. To build a decent module that will support many different types of phones we are looking at a budget of about $10000.00. If everyone can get together we will be able to build this and it will make installing Elastix better for everyone. All code developed for this project will be given back open source to the Elastix project.

 

Contributors

I have put together a scale of contributing. Not everyone can contribute a lot of money but if everyone can put in then it will help us get to the goal of $10000.00. The following sponsorships are available

Gold Sponsorship – $1000.00

Silver Sponsorship – $500.00

Bronze Sponsorship – $100.00

I am behind this project 100% and have put up $1000.00 to get the ball rolling. To donate to the project you can contribute to the paypal account – elastixprojects@mbit.com.au. Once you have contributed please let me know via email on mark@mbit.com.au

Total remaining – $8900.00

 

Contributors

MBIT Technologues – $1000.00

Sunshine Networks – $100.00

Hitec Solutions – $100.00

 

 Thank you for all who contribute. We are looking to make a great new feature for Elastix that will benefit everyone.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 12:15 am and is filed under Elastix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.