Using BAT to Subscribe Phones to Extension Mobility
The Bulk Administration Tool is a powerful weapon in any Cisco IP Telephony Engineer's arsenal. In this article we look at a step-by-step guide to enabling Extension Mobility on IP phones that have already been deployed, and are known by CUCM.
Prerequisites:
- Phones configured in CUCM
- Extension Mobility service enabled on at least 1 CUCM in the cluster
- Extension Mobility service configured in CUCM
BAT allows a query to be run and services dynamically added, based on a pre-configured Phone Template. In other words, we can subscribe to Services under the Phone Template, and then reference the template with a BAT query. The first step, then, is to create a Phone Template. When using the Phone Template solely for the purpose of subscribing services, the model is not important. In the example below, we have multiple phone types however we use the same Phone Template.
Once the Phone Template is created, subscribe to services the same way you would a real IP phone or a User Device Profile (select the "Related Links" drop down menu in the top right hand corner of the focus window - see the example below).
When finished subscribing Services (i.e. the "Extension Mobility" service), select Bulk Administration Tool >> Phones >> Update Phones >> Query. Run a blank query, thereby selecting all Phones currently known by CUCM. You can specify an "OR" query in here to allow specific models to be updated. Once the query has returned the current records, select "Next" and scroll down almost to the end of the page. There are 2 settings that must be set to allow Extension Mobility to function correctly:
- The 2 boxes under Extension Information (for "Enable Extension Mobility" and the specification of logged out profile) must be ticked
- Under Assign IP Phone Services, "Add all services from this template" must be ticked, and the template from above specified. I would also recommend ticking the following 2 boxes so that duplicate records are removed - otherwise CUCM simply adds additional services to an IP phone. In other words, run the query 5 times, the phone is subscribed to EM 5 times!
Schedule the job to run immediately and, if you have physical access to your phones, you will see them reset. Extension Mobility will now be enabled on your IP phone.
Select Bulk Administration Tool > Phones > Phone Template
Create a Phone Template with an Easily Distinguishable Name
Select Subscribe Services under the Phone Template
Subscribe the Template to Extension Mobility
Run a BAT Query to Update Phones
Run a Non-Specific Query
Select Correct Fields for Query