Specifying Dynamic Extensions for a Site

The Dynamic Extensions page of the Telephony screen lets you configure Vocera to supply telephone extensions on demand to users who need them. Dynamic extensions affect only users whose profile does not include a Vocera extension or a desk extension. See the Vocera Voice Server Administration Console Guide for information about phone fields for users.

Vocera assigns dynamic extensions to users in a manner analogous to a DHCP server assigning IP addresses to client computers. See Configuring Dynamic Extensions for complete information.

Use the following steps to specify dynamic extensions for a site:

  1. Click Telephony in the navigation bar.
  2. Click the Basic Info tab to display the Basic Info page. In this page, the Enable Telephony Integration check box must be checked before you can enter information in the Dynamic Extensions page.
  3. Use the Select Site field to choose the site you want to configure.
  4. Select the Enable Dynamic Extensions check box.
  5. Enter values in the First Extension field and the Last Extension field to specify a range of phone numbers to use as dynamic extensions.
    • If the range is equal to or a subset of the range you entered for DID, Vocera assumes you are distributing DID extensions among your Vocera users.

      Tip: If you are using DID, set the dynamic extension range to be the same as the DID range. If the dynamic extension range is a subset of the DID range, some DIDs will not be used.
    • If the range is not a subset of the range you entered for DID, Vocera assumes that you want to assign desk extensions to users independently of DID.

  6. Specify a value in the Assignment Type field in either of the following ways:
    • Choose Permanent to assign Vocera users extensions that do not expire.

      Permanent is useful when Vocera users do not have actual desk extensions, but you want them to have a unique identifier that allows recipients of a numeric page to place a return call to the badge.

    • Choose Temporary and assign a Lease Duration value to specify the minimum amount of time that an extension will be assigned to a user. Temporary is useful when you want to share a small number of DID extensions among a larger number of Vocera users.

      By default, the lease is set to seven days to allow safe paging callbacks several days later. If you don't have enough DID numbers for all Vocera users, you can set the lease duration to hours instead of days so that numbers can be reallocated as needed.

  7. Click Save Changes.