Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The Excel template is downloaded from the CUCM server. The administrator then cus-
tomizes the templates for the needs of this BAT operation, populates the required fields
with the correct data, and uploads the resulting .csv file to the server.
Using the BAT interface appropriate for the operation (Insert Phones, Insert Users, create
Call Routing components, and so on), the administrator may need to create a server-side
BAT Template for adding new devices, or in some cases simply select the uploaded .csv
file for processing. If templates are required (as they would be if adding phones, for exam-
ple), the template specifies all the settings that all of the phones have in common, whereas
the .csv file specifies all of the unique settings for each phone, such as DN, Line Text
Label, and so forth.
The only trick to adding phones with the BAT tool is that the MAC address of each phone
must be specified. Using a barcode scanner to scan the MAC barcode label on the phone
into the .csv file makes things faster and more accurate, but there is another challenge
waiting for you: You create a detailed config for the phone, including DNs and other user-
specific settings, and you specify the MAC address of the new phone. Now you must
make sure that the physical phone with that MAC gets to the user it was built for; this is
no easy task if several hundred phones are being deployed at once.
A couple of alternate strategies are available to make BAT deployments easier. One is to
use Autoregistration to get all the phones working, and then use the BAT tool to modify
the phones' configurations after the fact. This approach still has some weaknesses, notably
that you must still be positive of the MAC address of the physical phone that sits on the
desk and match it to the database entry that BAT changes.
Auto Register Phone Tool
The most sophisticated strategy involves the use of the Auto Register Phone Tool (for-
merly known as the Tool for Auto Registered Phone Support, but which is still known as
TAPS because it's a better acronym than ARPT). TAPS goes one step further in the au-
tomation of new IP Phone deployments, as summarized in the following steps:
1.
An IP-IVR server is built and configured to support TAPS, and the CUCM server is
integrated with the IP-IVR server. The IP-IVR functionality is supported by several
Cisco applications, including Unified Contact Center Express.
2.
The administrator prepares a BAT job, specifying a Device Template for all the com-
mon phone settings and a detailed .csv file with all the unique phone settings. The ad-
ministrator runs the BAT job, substituting fake “dummy” MAC addresses for the
as-yet-unknown real ones (a simple checkbox in the BAT interface does this substitu-
tion automatically).
3.
The new phones are autoregistered and receive a DN. They can now place calls.
4.
Using Bob's phone as an example: Bob (or perhaps an administrator if Bob feels un-
comfortable doing so) picks up his new, autoregistered phone that currently has DN
1024 (from the default autoregistration range) and dials the specially-configured IP-
IVR pilot number.
5.
The IP-IVR may prompt Bob to authenticate (this is an optional but more secure ap-
proach). When Bob has authenticated successfully, the IP-IVR prompts Bob to enter
