Polycom auto-answer config

This page details the necessary settings needed to make your Polycom Soundpoint IP500/600 automatically pick up a phone call placed to it with no user interaction.

You need the latest version of both the SIP software and bootrom to do it (see Polycom Phones for a link).

The latest version of software provides for distinctive ring tones just like the Cisco 7960's have. It also provides for auto answer. It's kind of tricky to do, but you can make your phones auto answer by setting the Alert-Info variable in Asterisk and messing with the XML configuration files, sip.cfg and ipmid.cfg.

In the sip.cfg file, look for the line with these variables:

<alertInfo voIpProt.SIP.alertinfo.1.value="Sales"
voIpProt.SIP.alertInfo.1.class="8"...>

In this real-world example, whenever I set ALERT_INFO to "Sales" in Asterisk, the Polycom matches on that word and calls up class 8 in ipmid.cfg.

In ipmid.cfg, my class 8 line looks like this:

<SALES se.rt.8.name="Sales" se.rt.8.type="ring" se.rt.8.ringer="11"
se.rt.8.callWait="6" se.rt.8.mod="0">

se.rt.8.type="ring" tells the Polycom phone which type of ring to use - which in this case is a regular ring and se.rt.8.ringer="11" tells the phone to ring with ringtone 11 with is the Triplet. I use this one for signaling a new incoming sales call to one of my three sales guys. The secretary transfers it to the sales department and their lines ring with the Triplet. I feel like Pavlov whenever I hear it.

The other ring types are visual, answer and ring-answer. The one you want is ring-answer. Here's how I do it: again in sip.cfg (actually part of the same line listed above)

...voIpProt.SIP.alertinfo.2.value="Ring Answer"
voIpProt.SIP.alertInfo.2.class="4"...>

and in ipmid.cfg (I just modified one of the existing ones to give me a High Double Trill ringtone):

<RING_ANSWER se.rt.4.name="Ring Answer" se.rt.4.type="ring-answer"
se.rt.4.timeout="1000"... se.rt.4.ringer="7"...>

The se.rt.4.timeout="1000" tells the Polycom to ring for 1000 milliseconds (one second) and then answer.

I call it in Asterisk by setting the ALERT_INFO variable to "Ring Answer" whenever anybody pushes 8 plus the extension. It rings in to the extension and voila, I'm on speaker!

By the way, for all you BOFH out there, you could actually use this feature as a somewhat surreptitious eavesdropping device by using a silent ring and a visual type. The phone would answer without any indication except on the console. I haven't tried this myself and if you do this, I don't want to know about it... unless I'm in your office at the time.


These tips have been implemented in my Polycom configuration files:

http://www.krisk.org/asterisk/pcom/

• Polycom Phones

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I found that using SetVar(RING_ANSWER="Auto Answer") did not send anything in the sip headers.
Instead I got the above to work by using this in my dial plan:
SIPAddHeader(Alert-Info: Ring Answer)

---

I changed allcall.agi to work with 1.2.0 and hopefully to be a little more flexible. In addition I added a hangup-page.agi that will hangup extensions in the meetme when the originating caller hangs up.
allcall.agi
hangup-page.agi

My relavent extensions.conf:
[app-system-page]
exten => *74,1,Goto(app-system-page-impl,s,1)

[app-system-page-impl]
; The first variable is the originating caller, the others are phones I
; wish to exclude from the system-wide paging. (Not everybody likes to
; be bothered, don't you know?) The form of the variable
; is SIP/EXT - For example, ${EX-DESIGN} = SIP/7013
exten => s,1,NoOp,${CALLERIDNUM}
exten => s,n,AGI,allcall.agi|SIP/${CALLERIDNUM} ${PAGE_EXCLUDE}
exten => s,n,Wait(1)
exten => s,n,Playback(beep)
exten => s,n,MeetMe(9999,dq)
exten => s,n,Playback(beep)
exten => s,n,Hangup

exten => t,1,Hangup
exten => T,1,Hangup

exten => h,1,NoOp(Hungup from page ${UNIQUEID})
exten => h,n,DeadAGI(hangup-page.agi)

[app-page]
exten => start,1,SetVar(ALERT_INFO="Ring Answer")
exten => start,n,MeetMe(9999,dmq)
exten => start,n,Hangup

exten => t,1,Hangup
exten => T,1,Hangup

The DeadAgi(hangup-page.agi) will hangup the listening phones when the paging phone is hungup. If you change the MeetMe room number (9999) in extensions be sure to change it in hangup-page.agi as well.

Integrating Polycom phones with SugarCRM

SugarCRM has a nifty add-in from VoiceRD http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/asterisk-int which integrates Asterisk with SugarCRM. The add-in allows the user to click the phone number of a contact and have a call placed to that contact. However, the Polycom requires you answer the call first, then the second leg is placed. This becomes somewhat tedious after the first few calls.
Since the polycom does not allow you to turn on auto-answer, there is no simple way to achieve this. The config example below gets it done.

Polycom
The config file macaddress-phone.cfg should contain the following

<alertInfo
voIpProt.SIP.alertInfo.1.class="3"
voIpProt.SIP.alertInfo.1.value="RANR"
/>
     
to enable the auto-answer. This is a global parameter so it cannot be enabled for one extension only.

SugarCRM
The open source add-in from VoiceRD http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/asterisk-int
will add an icon next to the number of the contact. Clicking that icon will place a call, first to your extension, then to the number.
The admin configures asterisk with the Asterisk Context: "sugar"
Each user is configured like this:

For a user on a sip extension 500
   Asterisk Phone Extension: Local/500

On the pbx, the context sugar is added

[sugar]
exten => s,1,Answer
exten => s,n,NoOp(Context: Sugar)
exten => s,n,SIPAddHeader(Alert-Info: RANR)
include => default

default should give access to the extensions. Adapt to your own setup.