Can I do external notification of active calls (via SIP, GPIO, SNMP)?

[JessCat606]

Hey guys,

Working a radio station, I've been hearing requests for various notification systems. 
- People want to see a larger flashing light when the phone is ringing (in an on-air studio, the ringers are turned off)
- People want to see a list of extensions with notification of which are active (i.e., for a phone-a-thon, they want to know we have 6 people on the phone)

It seems like this ought to be relatively easy to implement via software.  I'm thinking of a Raspberry Pi connected to a GPIO to turn on a light when a phone rings or is active ... or set a variable for each active phone line that a webpage can periodically query.

The question then becomes, can the Mitel 5000 send this information to such a system?  Can it set a SNMP variable for 'phone is ringing' or 'extension is active', which the rPi can query?  can I have set up a SIP endpoint that rings at the same time as a certain extension, and set up the rPi as a SIP softphone?  or is there already a GPIO module for the 5000CP?

I saw the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNnzwsZx2Gc - a raspberry pi querying an Asterisk server, monitoring whether an extension is active...

which seems close to what I'm looking for.

Has anybody seen/done something like this?

Thanks!
- Jesse

[dwayneg]

For the second request I think RealViewer (component of CSM, now called MiContact Center Office).  Big tiles on a monitor can indicate if a phone is in use or lots of other things.  It's included in the Historical Reporting Starter Pack, the low-end product.

For the question about light I've had good result with using an analog port set up in HG with the extension.  Then you can use a strobe from Viking or several other devices.  Also look at Viking's VR-1B, which connects to speaker leads of electronic phone and has a built-in light.

[acejavelin]

Assuming your phones are Mitel MiNet IP phones (52xx/53xx) devices, the easiest way to do a flashing light is use the analog extensions and twin them to the studio phones, they can provide normal ring voltage which you can use to flash a device, trip a relay or whatever.

The other option that might involve a RPI would be using SIP extensions and have them register to the 5000 but I don't think the 5000 supports the SIP SUBSCRIBE feature used to monitor other extensions busy/idle status.

The second part is easier, use an approved software solution like Phone Manager, MiCollab Client, or as dwayneg said you can use Realviewer if you have MiContact Center. The issue here is the integration to do "stuff" is done in using the proprietary OAI interface to the 5000.