Allow Users to Query Contacts on IP Phones

You can deliver company and personal contacts to your users’ Yealink IP (Internet Protocol) phones so that they can search for a person and place the call without keying in the full number. The contacts reach each phone through Auto Provisioning (the feature that pushes settings from the server to each phone automatically, so you do not configure phones one by one) and appear as remote phonebooks on the device. This page explains how to set that up.

Requirements

Contact lookup on the phone works only with supported Yealink hardware:

• Use a Yealink phone of a model and firmware version that Cloud Voice supports. For the current list, see supported Yealink devices.

Note

• Yealink conference phones do not support this feature.
• A single Yealink phone can display up to 1000 company contacts and 300 personal contacts.

Procedure

1. Give users access to the company contacts you want them to see. For the steps, see Set up Contact Visibility.

   Note

   Every user already has access to their own personal contacts by default. Access to shared company contacts, however, is not granted automatically and must be enabled.

2. Sync the contact data to each user’s phone through Auto Provisioning. How you do this depends on whether the extension is already tied to a phone:

   • Extension not yet associated with a phone: register the extension to the phone first. Use one of these methods:

     • Auto Provision IP Phones Remotely via RPS Method
     • Auto Provision IP Phones Remotely with Proxy

   • Extension already associated with a phone: reprovision the phone so the contacts take effect:

     1. Go to Auto Provisioning > Phones.
     2. Select the checkbox for each phone you want to update, then click Reprovision.

     Caution

     Reprovisioning makes the phone reload its configuration, which usually reboots the device. Any call in progress on that phone can be cut off, so reprovision when the phones are idle or during a maintenance window.

Result

The contact data is written to each phone as a remote phonebook. From there, users can search for a contact and dial them directly.

Two remote phonebooks from the server appear on the phone:

• Company_Contacts: holds every shared company contact the user is permitted to view.
• Personal_Contacts_{extension_number}: holds that user’s own personal contacts.

Note

Company contacts on an IP phone cannot be organized into separate phonebook groups.

Example: Query contacts on a Yealink T56A

1. Tap the account icon , then tap Remote Phonebook. The directories the user is allowed to view are listed.

   

2. Tap Search.

3. In the search box, type a contact name or number. The phone looks the contact up in your Contacts.

   

4. Select the contact, then tap the number to dial it.