Hotdesking

[Andrew Pickett]

Does Hotdesking exist in Fusion and if so please can someone help point me in the right direction to get started?

The doucmentation throws an error page when you click the link

Kind Regards

Andy

 

[DigitalDaz]

Hotdesking exists but the documentation is not available to mere mortals.

I was going to go through the source and try and document it but someone on here chirped up that they had solved it and was going to post a solution but they never did, maybe they will see this and make a post.

 

[SilkBC]

I have been looking for this for a little while. I downloaded the fusionpbx source from git and grepped through it for strings like:

• hotdesk
• hot-desk
• hot_desk
• desk

The 'hot_desk' search yielded the most interesting: it appears in 'app/devices/app_config.php' and 'app/devices/app_languages.php'. I look in the 'app_config.php' file and looked at every instance where 'hot_desk' appeared but I couldn't see anywhere to enable it (I was hoping to see a binary switch like '0' for disabled and '1' for enabled)

With the other seach strings, there were references in phone-specific config files, primarily the Yealinks. Is the hot desking device-agnostic, or does one need to have specific devices to do it?

Still going to look through the source at what I can find related to hot desking but if anyone has other insights, that would be greatly appreciated!

@DigitalDaz I looked for the post where someone indicated they solved it but couldn't find it. Was it in the "Apps" sub-forum?

 

[s1766333]

The hot desking is taught on the first day of the Admin training. Money from the training helps support the project.
The class is recorded and you can get the last class recording after signing up.
https://www.fusionpbx.com/training.php

 

[SilkBC]

The hot desking is taught on the first day of the Admin training. Money from the training helps support the project.
The class is recorded and you can get the last class recording after signing up.
https://www.fusionpbx.com/training.php

Yeah, that's pretty much the same answer I got when I contacted Support to see if I could purchase an hour of support to be shown how to enable the feature (and basic usage).

$1,000USD is pretty steep at this juncture, and I have been able to figure out quite a lot of it already (experience with other systems translate fairly well), and I have been able to find a lot of what I can't figure out on the forums or other folks' blog posts.

 

[DigitalDaz]

grep for hotel, I found more.

 

[SilkBC]

Hrm, I found a couple references in 'app/devices/app_config.php' and a bunch in the Yealink provisioning files. Nothing that indicates enabling it in the menus or anything like that.

I suspect this feature is vendor/model-dependant, and/or you have to install the app into the Apps directory (the download location of which you are likely given when you take the course)

*shrug* This isn't a deal-breaking feature (for me, anyway; not sure about the OP). It would be *nice* to know how to enable it (if it can be done by mere mortals, that is), but the Provisioner makes it pretty easy to assign phones to specific users, so it's not a *huge* deal (for me)

 

[elderlogan]

The hot desking is taught on the first day of the Admin training. Money from the training helps support the project.
The class is recorded and you can get the last class recording after signing up.
https://www.fusionpbx.com/training.php

Could you share back some of the things you have learned to set up hot desking instead of bragging that you got training. Please SHARE with the community of this amazing piece of software how to do this. Let's not make this an "open source software" with a walled garden built around how to use it.

 

[DigitalDaz]

The forums and training seem to kind of be mutually exclusive. You are asked not to share. IMHO this sort of thing is what will keep it forever on the fringes and never mainstream. I am well aware that I am getting behind now, I have a choice to take the training and 'continuing education' or effectively abandon the forums.

I fully understand the need for the main developer to generate an income but as an example, the continuing education is $100 per month. You can get commercial products for this price, 3cx being an example that give you shed load of documentation.

 

[elderlogan]

The forums and training seem to kind of be mutually exclusive. You are asked not to share. IMHO this sort of thing is what will keep it forever on the fringes and never mainstream. I am well aware that I am getting behind now, I have a choice to take the training and 'continuing education' or effectively abandon the forums.

I fully understand the need for the main developer to generate an income but as an example, the continuing education is $100 per month. You can get commercial products for this price, 3cx being an example that give you shed load of documentation.

no wait a second you are explicitly asked not to share what you've learned?did you sign some kind of NDA about it?

this is stuff that brings open source down.

 

[DigitalDaz]

Absolutely you are asked not to share. No NDA but you will just be shunned and not allowed to take further training, you'll end up in the position lepers like me currently are

I do however sympathise with the developer and just think the business model is wrong. Maybe for example hotdesking should not be an open source module at all.

 

[markjcrane]

For more than the last decade I have given thousands and thousands of hours every single year developing FusionPBX, fixing bugs, answering large amounts of questions. My work combined with FreeSWITCH developers work have made many of you thousands every month, some tens of thousands every month and some have even made millions for some of you have that have won large contracts.

As far as hot desking years ago I told someone in IRC that I taught Hot Desking in the Admin Training. I've simply remained consistent with that statement. Sorry for the inconvenience it has caused some of you. I do have to have a few boundaries.

You should be thanking anyone that has taken Training or is a member of Continuing Education because they have helped this project continue. Without them I would not be working on FusionPBX anymore. It is because of Training and Continuing Education that we have currently 345 pages of Documentation at https://docs.fusionpbx.com. We are still improving the documentation more was just added to it a few days ago. It is because of Training and Continuing Education that I have been able to spend time improving security, fixing bugs and refining FusionPBX.

 

[elderlogan]

For more than the last decade I have given thousands and thousands of hours every single year developing FusionPBX, fixing bugs, answering large amounts of questions. My work combined with FreeSWITCH developers work have made many of you thousands every month, some tens of thousands every month and some have even made millions for some of you have that have won large contracts.

As far as hot desking years ago I told someone in IRC that I taught Hot Desking in the Admin Training. I've simply remained consistent with that statement. Sorry for the inconvenience it has caused some of you. I do have to have a few boundaries.

You should be thanking anyone that has taken Training or is a member of Continuing Education because they have helped this project continue. Without them I would not be working on FusionPBX anymore. It is because of Training and Continuing Education that we have currently 345 pages of Documentation at https://docs.fusionpbx.com. We are still improving the documentation more was just added to it a few days ago. It is because of Training and Continuing Education that I have been able to spend time improving security, fixing bugs and refining FusionPBX.

I am not bashing against training. What i am saying is that ,first, you would see a more widespread adoption. I wasn't undermining any of your work.You did an amazing job and it's an amazing platform. I wouldn't be here if i though otherwise. Freepbx and such others platform are jarring and complicated for the final,nontech users; BUT I do find the lack of documentation from some of the most basic things jarring. Plus, your training sessions are avaible only in the Us in a specific location and they are very expensive.
Even something like pfsense has abandoned the paid documentation business model. As many "ip" driven businessess, i do think that the focus of your training should be on new and exiting features that you implement. Imagine a world where microsoft is forced to release it's own source code every 3-4 years: we would see major features and improvements to windows and office every 3-4 years so that people would be inclined to pay a modern license to stay current and enjoy the new features. Why don't you compromise? you could provide some basic training one on one , let's say a few hours for 200€/$. Even just a few videos recorded by you behind any kind of paywall that would not take much of your time would be fine(work once reap many times)That i would gladly pay: i see the value of that instead of spending weeks as i did looking through the code and testing stuff to learn how it works.

I give you a very easy example: i was trying to implement remote loggin for agents. So i took the destination and added the incoming sip_from_user to the dialplan of the *23. Does not work. Why does it not work? i can't understand it. Is it because the phone number calling is not associated with a user or extension?

 

[Frank]

Mark and others have to make a living. In my case I have not taken the course, but I have paid persons involved in the project when I needed help. Worth every penny I spent. I do intend to take the course in the near future and I am sure it will be worth every penny.

 

[SilkBC]

Maybe for example hotdesking should not be an open source module at all.

I would probably agree with that. Sangoma has done well (as far as I can tell) with FreePBX and having certain features available via paid modules. In the case of Asterisk/FreePBX, agent login/logout is an inherent feature, and can be enabled for free, but Sangoma implements a different (and perhaps more seamless) approach with their paid module.

I would not object to FusionPBX taking a similar approach. Depending on price, of course, I would gladly pay for a module that just enabled the feature and allowed me to use it.

 

[SilkBC]

The forums and training seem to kind of be mutually exclusive. You are asked not to share. IMHO this sort of thing is what will keep it forever on the fringes and never mainstream.

Well, that, and IMHO the relatively uncertain future of the project. Mark is of course by far the most prolific contributor to the project (based on code commits that I have seen), but what happens if/when he decides to stop or is otherwise unable to contribute code? I don't believe there is enough of a developer base (again, based on code commits I have seen) to continue the project, really.

It's that, more than having to pay for the training, that is keeping us from taking the full plunge and migrating to it from our various FreePBX boxes. We like FusionPBX much more, but it's just the uncertain future down the road that is causing the hesitation and making us think twice and thrice about committing our client base (and ourselves) to it. We undertsand the technology and mostly how it all works, but FusionPBX is by far the best front end to FreeSwitch there is that provides a ready-to-go PBX solution.

 

[Kenny Riley]

I completely agree... I personally have taken both training classes, am an active continuing education member, and pay Mark for 1 on 1 support when needed... I hope that the training and continuing education pays off for the project in the long run to enable Mark to bring on more developers to the project.

I personally have taken the plunge and moved all of my customers to my FusionPBX cluster and I will admit, the fact that 98% of the ongoing development is done by Mark alone, makes me nervous in the event that he were to ever lose interest in the project and/or abandon it because of its lack of profitability on his end.

But... I have faith.. This is an amazing project and deserves to grow and have more people involved development wise.

 

[markjcrane]

Entitlement is a real problem in open source. The Entitlement I'm talking about here is "2: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges" - Meriam-Webster Dictionary. Use a search engine with terms "open source entitlement" and you will read what other open source developers are saying about it. People aren't automatically entitled to my time simply because they use the software. If you were entitled to my time then I would be your slave. Slavery is wrong. The MPL license and BSD licenses and most other open sources license have a limited liability clause with no warranty of any kind.

Part of the MPL 1.1 License
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis,
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the
License.

Part of the BSD License
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

When I open sourced FusionPBX code. I stated the license at the top of each file. Some of the files are BSD licensed some are MPL licensed. And there are some additional code libraries used that have their own licenses. These licenses define your rights to the software. Some of the licenses have requirements that you are required to follow and you should read them. Learn to understand them or get a lawyer to explain them to you. Use of the software means you agree to the terms of these licenses so it is unwise to be ignorant on what you are agreeing to.

If someone has paid for support and not received it they are entitled to my time that was paid for and can bring it to my attention privately and I will help them as time permits. However I have had people pay once or twice and then gain an expectation that they have paid their dues and then acted entitled to additional support for months or years. I bet many of you that have done paid support have experienced this with your customers. I've taught a class to many people on how to use FusionPBX. Each class I work hard to do a good job and to provide value to people that have attended. What I agreed to teach them how to use the and provide software insights on it. Sometimes there has come an expectation of unlimited support or a feeling of ownership of part of the project because of the attending the class. That is not the purpose of the training. The training doesn't include ownership of the project. I do sometimes help people that have taken the class and provided free support or a little additional help for the fact that they have contributed to the project.

In an open source project you can create a unofficial forum volunteer your time and answer peoples questions. However this still doesn't entitle you to someone else's time. It doesn't give you part ownership of the project but you have contributed and benefited others. If you stay positive and supportive of the project it is likely to lead to some benefits to you in some form or another. However if then you use some influence gained to spread some discontent and negativity you will likely find some of the good will and other benefits evaporate.

I could go to Tesla's forum and talk about electric cars and help people with their problems for the rest of my life. I could make a forum about it. I could make a website and talk about it go on youtube and talk about it. I would still not have any right to ownership of their company because of this service I provided as a volunteer.

Another example Tesla have opened up many of their patents to the electric motor by doing so they effectively open sourced the patents. Is Tesla obligated to offer training on these patents because they shared them? Are they obligated to provide documentation so that anyone can understand the patents they shared? Hint... It is their choice to share as much as they want. They are not obligated to give training or documentation.

For those that want to see this project or any open source project continue. A few tips.

- Don't take the work for granted. Give real appreciation when you get help.
- When reporting issues put some effort into it and provide good details.
- Find ways to reciprocate in ways that are meaningful and make a difference.

I do like to help people and I have done a very large amount of of it. I do have to have boundaries these are needed prevent abuse. Yes there have been times that I have been abused. However I will continue to help people fix bugs and improve things. When I do this remember it is my right to choose when to do it. I have so many people that want my free time that eventually there is no time left for anything else including family time, personal time or sleep. This is not sustainable and I do want to keep things moving forward and be a benefit those that have supported me and overall I want to be a benefit to humanity.

I do consider peoples suggestions. I'm more receptive to suggestions that are delivered in a way that is not demanding or entitled. Sometimes I might need time to come to terms with the good suggestions.

Next some people here have talked about FusionPBX gaining a larger user base. If the demand increases faster than resources to meet the needs of those people this leads to a trail of unhappy people. So I'm working to build resources to be able to meet more needs of people. It takes a lot of volunteers to do this or a lot of money or a combination of both. The Continuing Education and Training are helping with that. Work is being done to refine and come up with other incentives until we have sustainability that helps us help you.

I hope you will join us in being supportive of this project that is providing something your company needs or that provides tools for your company to make money every month. Reciprocate and you will find that open source will give you many times return on your investment.

 

[elderlogan]

Entitlement is a real problem in open source. The Entitlement I'm talking about here is "2: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges" - Meriam-Webster Dictionary. Use a search engine with terms "open source entitlement" and you will read what other open source developers are saying about it. People aren't automatically entitled to my time simply because they use the software. If you were entitled to my time then I would be your slave. Slavery is wrong. The MPL license and BSD licenses and most other open sources license have a limited liability clause with no warranty of any kind.

Part of the MPL 1.1 License
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis,
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the
License.

Part of the BSD License
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

When I open sourced FusionPBX code. I stated the license at the top of each file. Some of the files are BSD licensed some are MPL licensed. And there are some additional code libraries used that have their own licenses. These licenses define your rights to the software. Some of the licenses have requirements that you are required to follow and you should read them. Learn to understand them or get a lawyer to explain them to you. Use of the software means you agree to the terms of these licenses so it is unwise to be ignorant on what you are agreeing to.

If someone has paid for support and not received it they are entitled to my time that was paid for and can bring it to my attention privately and I will help them as time permits. However I have had people pay once or twice and then gain an expectation that they have paid their dues and then acted entitled to additional support for months or years. I bet many of you that have done paid support have experienced this with your customers. I've taught a class to many people on how to use FusionPBX. Each class I work hard to do a good job and to provide value to people that have attended. What I agreed to teach them how to use the and provide software insights on it. Sometimes there has come an expectation of unlimited support or a feeling of ownership of part of the project because of the attending the class. That is not the purpose of the training. The training doesn't include ownership of the project. I do sometimes help people that have taken the class and provided free support or a little additional help for the fact that they have contributed to the project.

In an open source project you can create a unofficial forum volunteer your time and answer peoples questions. However this still doesn't entitle you to someone else's time. It doesn't give you part ownership of the project but you have contributed and benefited others. If you stay positive and supportive of the project it is likely to lead to some benefits to you in some form or another. However if then you use some influence gained to spread some discontent and negativity you will likely find some of the good will and other benefits evaporate.

I could go to Tesla's forum and talk about electric cars and help people with their problems for the rest of my life. I could make a forum about it. I could make a website and talk about it go on youtube and talk about it. I would still not have any right to ownership of their company because of this service I provided as a volunteer.

Another example Tesla have opened up many of their patents to the electric motor by doing so they effectively open sourced the patents. Is Tesla obligated to offer training on these patents because they shared them? Are they obligated to provide documentation so that anyone can understand the patents they shared? Hint... It is their choice to share as much as they want. They are not obligated to give training or documentation.

For those that want to see this project or any open source project continue. A few tips.

- Don't take the work for granted. Give real appreciation when you get help.
- When reporting issues put some effort into it and provide good details.
- Find ways to reciprocate in ways that are meaningful and make a difference.

I do like to help people and I have done a very large amount of of it. I do have to have boundaries these are needed prevent abuse. Yes there have been times that I have been abused. However I will continue to help people fix bugs and improve things. When I do this remember it is my right to choose when to do it. I have so many people that want my free time that eventually there is no time left for anything else including family time, personal time or sleep. This is not sustainable and I do want to keep things moving forward and be a benefit those that have supported me and overall I want to be a benefit to humanity.

I do consider peoples suggestions. I'm more receptive to suggestions that are delivered in a way that is not demanding or entitled. Sometimes I might need time to come to terms with the good suggestions.

Next some people here have talked about FusionPBX gaining a larger user base. If the demand increases faster than resources to meet the needs of those people this leads to a trail of unhappy people. So I'm working to build resources to be able to meet more needs of people. It takes a lot of volunteers to do this or a lot of money or a combination of both. The Continuing Education and Training are helping with that. Work is being done to refine and come up with other incentives until we have sustainability that helps us help you.

I hope you will join us in being supportive of this project that is providing something your company needs or that provides tools for your company to make money every month. Reciprocate and you will find that open source will give you many times return on your investment.

Ok. I know i am not entitled to anything, but sometimes it betrays the spirit of open source when you develop stuff then hide functionality behind a paywall. I have nothing against paid functionality. Just choose one of the 2. You are doing an amazing job.

I would like to hire you to change/fix some stuff:
Set up hotdesking.
Fix how i dont have page count on many settings. I am missing stuff and i have to go to the search button.
Talked time does not count correctly. Especially if the extension/agent talk for more than 24 hours in total.
Plus, for the last 2 i want you to place the fixes upstream.
Contact me in private so we can talk business. Thank you.

 

[yukon]

Wow.. When I saw a post about hotdesking this is not what I expected. (I was really hoping there would FINALLY be a good explanation of how it works)

But I want to throw my 2 cents in here as well.

First on the hotdesking. I've taken the admin class, at least three times. I have no idea how to do hotdesking because 1) It's very complicated and 2) He's never gotten through it in the class without tangents that just add confusion to the process. The classes are GREAT, but the "squirrels" need to be stopped and class is NOT the time to fix bugs.

Second on the rest of this thread. This is EXACTLY why I stopped contributing to FusionPBX. The attitude Mark has taken in this thread is defensive and unacceptable, IMHO. He has rejected people's attempts to help because he always seems to know best. One of the most recent examples I can think of is that someone committed a change to make searching non-case sensitive. It was rejected with a message along the lines of 'I don't see a need for this". Tell me, what other software out there is CASE SENSITIVE searching this day in age? Also the retaliation you get if you try to document some of his "hidden" features such as hotdesking (just look at where this thread went based on a simple question). Or the retaliation he had against people who were logging the IRC channel, which was INCREDIBLY helpful because we can't all sit around 24/7 watching for the resolution to something. Or the retaliation he has against people who post/ask questions in this forum (look at his response in this thread!!). Every other open source software I have seen has a FORUM and has active developers answering questions on the forum.

I totally understand that he needs money to support the project, but at the same time you can't beat back on people who are trying to help, be it in contributing documentation, creating forums with their time and money or contributing code. On the other hand. I've asked to PAY him multiple times for support/features and I never get responses unless I hound him for help and then when he does help, it's almost half assed because he's "too busy" with other things.

Also, to point out one other big thing.. "- When reporting issues put some effort into it and provide good details." Last time I checked, he removed the primary way of reporting issues!