Lock/unlock a phone from another phone

[lundah]

Got an application for a mental health treatment center that I'm not sure how to accomplish. They need a courtesy phone for patients, but want to be able to enable/disable the phone from the staff phones in the treatment unit. Patient phone would be an analog phone fed from an Audicodes MP-118 ATA, and the staff phones will be 5300 or 6900 sets (I have both on hand). Any ideas?

A bit more detail on the use case:

• Patient phone will not take direct incoming calls, any inbound calls would be transferred from the staff phones.
• Want to be able to restrict the patient phone from placing calls during specified time periods, so something like an account code wouldn't work, as those usually only apply to a single call.

[ZuluAlpha]

Would the staff be able to physically unlock/lock this phone? I can think of PIN locking it but I don't think that can be unlocked from another phone and that would be with an IP phone not an analog.

Could make it a Hotline and have the destination transfer it, but that could get very tedious depending on how often it's used.

[johnp]

Toll plan and cor would be how I might do this

[lundah]

Toll plan and cor would be how I might do this

Sure, but how do I allow the staff to change it on the fly for more than just the next call?

[ralph]

How about this:
1) Set up an account code with a restricted COR/COS. - export it to CSV named "Restricted.csv".
2) Change the COR/COS to be unrestricted. - export it to CSV named "unRestricted.CSV".
3) Set up a schedule to upload the "Restricted.csv" file at start of times when it should be restricted.
4) Set up a schedule to upload the "unRestricted.csv" file at the start time when it should not be restricted.

You'll still have to use an account code but the schedule will change the COR/COS based on time so it can only be used during certain times of day.

Ralph

[ZuluAlpha]

How about this:
1) Set up an account code with a restricted COR/COS. - export it to CSV named "Restricted.csv".
2) Change the COR/COS to be unrestricted. - export it to CSV named "unRestricted.CSV".
3) Set up a schedule to upload the "Restricted.csv" file at start of times when it should be restricted.
4) Set up a schedule to upload the "unRestricted.csv" file at the start time when it should not be restricted.

You'll still have to use an account code but the schedule will change the COR/COS based on time so it can only be used during certain times of day.

Ralph

This sparked something in my mind. If it's just a single devices it could be on a Business Schedule that kicks it to a restricted COR based on time of day. I guess that's not really explicitly allowing staff to lock/unlock though. You could have the staff phones be able to put the system in day/night mode which would allow use of the device on demand - if nothing else depends on that feature.

[lundah]

How about this:
1) Set up an account code with a restricted COR/COS. - export it to CSV named "Restricted.csv".
2) Change the COR/COS to be unrestricted. - export it to CSV named "unRestricted.CSV".
3) Set up a schedule to upload the "Restricted.csv" file at start of times when it should be restricted.
4) Set up a schedule to upload the "unRestricted.csv" file at the start time when it should not be restricted.

You'll still have to use an account code but the schedule will change the COR/COS based on time so it can only be used during certain times of day.

Ralph

This sparked something in my mind. If it's just a single devices it could be on a Business Schedule that kicks it to a restricted COR based on time of day. I guess that's not really explicitly allowing staff to lock/unlock though. You could have the staff phones be able to put the system in day/night mode which would allow use of the device on demand - if nothing else depends on that feature.

That's all a great idea, but this is not a set schedule, it needs to be able to be allowed/blocked on the fly.

[ralph]

That's all a great idea, but this is not a set schedule, it needs to be able to be allowed/blocked on the fly.

Do have have a normal day/night schedule?
If not, then you could have a phone dial the day/night schedule to change the room's COR.

Ralph

[lundah]

That's all a great idea, but this is not a set schedule, it needs to be able to be allowed/blocked on the fly.

Do have have a normal day/night schedule?
If not, then you could have a phone dial the day/night schedule to change the room's COR.

Ralph

We don't. As far as I know, the primary vMiVB is running in Night1 all the time. I guess I could do a day/night schedule. Would be nice if I could separate that out by zone or something, I need to put these phones in their own zone for CESID and CPN Substitution anyway.

[ralph]

We don't. As far as I know, the primary vMiVB is running in Night1 all the time. I guess I could do a day/night schedule. Would be nice if I could separate that out by zone or something, I need to put these phones in their own zone for CESID and CPN Substitution anyway.

You could put the phone in it's own tenant. You'd also have to put any phone that's going to be able to control day/night in the same tenant.  That shouldn't affect CESID or CPN as far as I know.

Ralph

[lundah]

We don't. As far as I know, the primary vMiVB is running in Night1 all the time. I guess I could do a day/night schedule. Would be nice if I could separate that out by zone or something, I need to put these phones in their own zone for CESID and CPN Substitution anyway.

You could put the phone in it's own tenant. You'd also have to put any phone that's going to be able to control day/night in the same tenant.  That shouldn't affect CESID or CPN as far as I know.

Ralph

That's a thought. Though, in nearly 20 years working on this stuff, I can't recall if I've ever actually used tenanting. Moot point, turns out for this application they don't need to be able to enable & disable the patient phone as they control access to the room where the phone is installed.