.. _adding-phone-types:

Adding phone types
--------------------

New phone types (brands) can be created by creating a new phone type definition.
This phone type defines behaviour of the Admin Portal when adding a phone, and
defines sample configuration files and configuration templates to apply to this
configuration file. 

The sample file provides the layout of the phone configuration
file but does not have values specific to each phone. Values such as the telephone
number to apply are populated with a default value. 

The configuration template allows access to any parameter in the sample file, and can be used to set the
correct value for each phone, such as setting the telephone number.
VOSS-4-UC has sample files and configuration for the SNOM D120 and D717 phones.
This provides full configuration for these phones so that a new "out of the box"
phone can be connected to the network and reach an operational state with
no user intervention.

Adding a new phone type requires firstly creating a sample file.
Many SNOM phones allow the export of the configuration which has been previously created
through the phone web interface. This file can be used as the sample file, although values
should be changed to make the file anonymous prior to uploading as a sample file.
Once loaded, a configuration template can be created or cloned from the existing templates.
This will allow modification of any value in the sample file, setting a value suitable for each phone.
Using this technique, new phones types may be evaluated and added to VOSS4UC without
the need for software updates or patches.