Lync Hacker: Step by Step Native #Lync DoorBell Using #snom PA1

 

Lync administrator Daryl Sensenig is using full Enterprise Voice at Tents for Rent and wanted to extend Lync as far as possible so he put his hacking skills to use to turn the snom PA1 into a complete native Microsoft Lync door bell. I appreciate Daryl giving permission to repost his solution and if you have any ideas to improve or if you have a low cost external/weather proof door bell to suggest, comment below.  Here is what he did…

I spent a lot of time figuring out how to build a door phone for Lync 2013. The documentation was very poor and fragmented. So, I thought I'd share how I did it so that others could benefit.

1. I started with the Snom PA1 and updated it to the UC edition firmware.
2. I purchased an AIPHONE LE-A and a mini mic from Amazon.
3. I setup a ring group for the doorbell in Microsoft Lync
4. I entered the UC account data into the PA Web UI.
5. I setup speed dial "1" to be the doorbell ring group.
6. I set auto dial to "after 2 seconds" It is located in Advanced > Behavior > Auto Dial
7. I set it to auto answer in Identity 1 > SIP > Auto Answer. This allows me to call it if necessary.
8. I inserted the mini mic into the "mic in" jack.
9. I opened the AIPHONE and soldered wires from the AIPHONE speaker and connected them to the "Speaker" connectors on the PA1.
10. I connected the wiring harness to the KBD (keyboard) port of the PA1 and soldered the white and purple (6 and 7) wires onto switch on the board in the AIPHONE. Thus by pressing the button on the AIPHONE, it dials the number 1 and after 2 seconds, speed dials my doorbell ring group.
11. I connected the wiring harness to the I/O 2 port of the PA 1. The black wire is ground, brown is always 12 V (good as a power supply for a relay). Yellow is pin 3 and purple is pin 4. These can be connected to a relay for a door strike, door opener and etc. I haven't done this yet, but I plan to. The first PA1 unit I had did not supply 3.3V to pin 3 and 4 when activated. So, I had to get another unit.
12. You can turn these pins on by dialing 3# or 4# when in a call to the PA1. You can also turn them on in the web UI: Preferences > PA1 controls > Pin 3.

There were numerous other steps and dead-ends that I ran into before I came up with this simplified list. I've eliminated all my "wrong" steps to keep it simple.

Please let me know if I've missed anything. I hope this is helpful to those who would like to do the same thing.

My total costs were:

• $105 for the PA1
• $24 for the AIPHONE
• $5.05 for the mini mic
• Total out of pocket $134.05
• Lots of time, hassle, forum reading, posting and soldering

My next project is an outdoor doorbell. I'm looking for an affordable weather resistant door bell. If you have any ideas, please post.

Connecting the Call Switch (below)

Call switch connection

snom PA1 and

snom PA1 Connections

Attribution:
https://twitter.com/djtentman
http://paevent.com/tfr/

More discussion:
https://forum.snom.com/index.php?showtopic=12303&hl=video
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/lync/en-US/d99ef94b-0f17-4f94-83d7-0cf36006516e/compatible-door-entry-systems-for-lync?forum=ocsinterop

Understanding Microsoft Lync and Telco Caller ID Number and Name Handling

Microsoft Lync 2010 can set the Caller ID Number. It can set the caller ID as the extension calling or an alternative number. For more details click here.

Caller Name in PSTN Cloud Scenario

The first step in making sure Caller ID Name works correctly is your telephone company needs to submit your Name to a (one or more) database(s) used by the destination telephone company's.

If the call is traversing the PSTN cloud, the Caller ID Name (or display name) is the responsibility of the person being called’s telephone company. Their telephone company looks up the number provided in their database and displays text accordingly to their customer.

NOTE: Remember that many PBX’s and mobile phones do contact name lookup, overriding the telco’s name presentation. Because of this, the best way to test Caller ID Name presentation is to call a plain-Jane, vanilla Caller ID phone.

Caller Name in Federation/SIP Direct Scenarios

In these scenario Lync is responsible for passing on the Caller Name.

More LInks:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398898.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID

Microsoft #Lync Simple Ring Group for Small Work Groups That Avoids Answer Delay and Is More Survivable

 

In a small departmental or branch office scenario, users may be averse to the small delay on answering introduced by Lync Response Groups and Lync Phone Edition devices. (more details on the RGS delay: When Can I Say Hello;  RGS Delay Fix Suggestion; )  If you want a very simple ring group with no bells or whistles that avoids the RGS delay on answer, the below might be a work around for you.

1. Setup a Lync User to use as your Hunt Group SIP address that you will send calls to (name the user what you want: huntgroup1@lyncdomain.com)
2. Login to the user using the lync2010 client and Options | Call Forwarding | Edit my Team-Call Group Members and add those you want to ring at the same time.
3. How soon to "0-at the same time"
4. Now set "Simultaneously Ring" to "My Team-Call Group"

You can use the Lync/Exchange/AD user to set the hours via Outlook (or Outlook Web Access)

Using a Response Group to Add Flexible After Hours Scheduling

Commentor @AL has made an excellent suggestion on how to use a placeholder Response Group to get around the limitations of Outlook after hours schedule. Basically this methods uses RGS to get scheduling, but bypasses the inefficient RGS group ringing processing. Below are the steps:

Create a Response Group “Group” with no agents in it.

Now create a “Queue”, place the empty “Group” in it, and configure the below settings

• Enable Queue overflow = enabled
• maximum number of calls = 0
• call action = forward to SIP address
• SIP address = huntgroup1@lyncdomain.com (<-or your “hunt group” lync user)

Now create a Workflow/Response Group and place the above “Queue” in it. Now you will have the snappiness of TeamCall “huntgroups” plus the afterhours configurability of Workflow/Response Groups.

Note that using a Response Group to control your after hours is a benefit in that you have flexible, server based schedule, but it is a failure point if this is a remote branch.

Some Notes/Pros/Cons About The Work Around in this article:

• Only the member of the Team-Call group that answers gets a call record (good)
• the Ring Group "hunt group/dummy" user does not need to be logged in (good)
• Actually avoids some survivability issues that might come with Response Groups  in a SBA WAN down scenario (good) (Read more: Click Here)
• Avoids “trombone” in a SBA scenario where PSTN comes into remote branch but RGS is hosted on Front End at main site. (good)
• Simplest way to administrate is log into user using Lync 2010 client (no web administration or Powershell) (not so cool)
• No dynamic login and logout of Ring Group by group members. (not as good)
• Open hours will depend on Outlook work hours which are quite a bit more limited than Lync RGS business hours and cannot be administrated via Powershell. (not so cool)
• There is a hard 20 end point limit in team call. (if a user has an IP phone and Lync client that is 2 end points)  (See: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ocsvoice/thread/9523eeae-4182-47f8-a2d7-28d987c81026)
• We have tested having the TeamCall “Unanswered Calls” going to an Exchange UM Attendant and this scenario seems to work fine.
• NOTE: TeamCall Group members cannot transfer TO a TeamCall Group they are a member of. So this means someone who is a part of our “hunt group”/teamcall can NOT transfer or forward calls to this number (not good)
• NOTE: If the Lync User with TeamCall is not logged in, and call transferred to this user will goto Voicemail.
• Finally, be very careful and make sure all your objectives are met before implementing and/or recommending this work around.

I suspect there might be some other cons I didn’t think of, so feel free to comment!

Source of Idea:
TechNet user emu78 in this post: Click Here
Thanks to commentor AL for the Response Group idea.