Flexible Line Key Assignments for Polycom Phones

These instructions are written for FreePBX 10.13.66 with SIP 5.4.0 and tested with Polycom VVX 410 phones with VVX Color Expansion Modules. They will probably work for other systems and Polycom phones as well.

By default, on Polycom phones, all programmed line keys are populated starting at the top left of the screen, irrespective of how they are laid out in the attendant.resourceList entries, according to the following pattern:

  • Lines
  • BLF Parameters
  • Presence LYNC Favorites (LYNC populates these alphabetically)
  • Speed Dial ( used for Buddy watch )

There is a feature called Flexible Line Key Assignments available on Polycom SoundPoint IP 450, 550, 560, 650, 670 and VX300, VVX310, VVX400, VVX410, VVX500 and VVX600 which lets you override this automatic configuration.

Instructions for setting up Flexible Line Key Assignments can be found on the Polycom FAQ. They can also be found in the Polycom UC Software Administrator Guide beginning at the bottom of page 164.

I set this up Flexible Line Key Assignments for one of our Polycom VVX 410 phones in FreePBX using the commercial EndPoint Manager module by adding the following entries under the MAC-Features.cfg file in Basefile Edit:

<lineKey
 lineKey.reassignment.enabled="1"
 lineKey.1.category="Line"
 lineKey.1.index="1"
 lineKey.2.category="BLF"
 lineKey.3.category="BLF"
 lineKey.4.category="BLF"
 lineKey.7.category="BLF"
 lineKey.8.category="BLF"
 lineKey.9.category="BLF"
 lineKey.10.category="BLF"
 lineKey.11.category="BLF"
 lineKey.12.category="SpeedDial"
 lineKey.12.index="1"
 lineKey.13.category="BLF"
 lineKey.14.category="BLF"
 lineKey.15.category="BLF"
 >
 </lineKey>

To add the main lineKey section, follow the instructions at the top of the page. Specifically, create a new entry with the following options: File: features, Section: TOP, Parameter: lineKey, Value: PARENT. You will want to review the Polycom documentation referenced earlier to determine what fields you need for your scenario.

I have added an enhancement request for FreePBX to add a GUI to perform these tasks. This is likely a non-trivial task, so I don’t expect them to turn it around overnight. But if enough of their customers express interest by voting for the enhancement on their issue tracker I would expect them to eventually put together something easy to use.

PS. I had some difficulty with the last few BLF fields being blank on some phones. Adding extra BLF fields solved the issue. For example, if line key 15 is blank on the phone above (assuming you have programmed in enough BLF resource lists), creating a lineKey.16.category=”BLF” entry should solve your problem. I have no idea why this happens. It is probably a bug in the SIP firmware (5.4.0.5841).

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