Planning Issues for All Configurations

The items in this section should be relevant regardless of how you want to implement the driver.

• Identify or create containers to hold the new kinds of objects used by the driver, as shown in the following figure and described in the list of questions after the figure. Figure 4
  Example of Containers for New Objects
  
  • Which container do you want to use to hold pbxSite objects?

    You must create a pbxSite object to represent each of your PBXs. The driver queries for these objects at startup so it knows how to communicate with each PBX. For more information, see pbxSite Object.

  • Which container do you want to use to hold nwoWorkOrder objects?

    These are the objects used to tell the driver which tasks to perform in the PBX. For more information, see DirXML-nwoWorkOrder Object.

  • Are you going to use nwoExtension objects, and if so, which container do you want to use to hold them?

    In the base configuration, nwoExtension objects are used to represent extensions, so you can see the results of the tasks the driver performs in the PBX. For more information, see DirXML-pbxExtension object.

    Depending on your implementation, you might not need to use nwoExtension objects. Instead, you can configure your style sheets to transform events for nwoExtension objects from the driver into events that update phone information for User objects, as demonstrated in the Workforce Tree configuration (see Workforce Tree Configuration).

• Gather all the information about your PBX sites that you'll need to enter into each pbxSite object.

  For example, you need to know the answers to questions like the following:

  • How many digits are the extensions?
  • How many nodes do you have?

  For a list of all the requirements you need to meet and the information you'll need to provide in the pbxSite objects, see pbxSite Object.

• Do you have hot jacks, or cold jacks?

  This aspect of your environment affects what information you must supply when creating a work order. The driver needs more information to perform tasks for cold jacks than it does for hot jacks, so for a cold jack environment more attributes are required on a nwoWorkOrder object. See the list of attributes required for hot jacks and cold jacks in DirXML-nwoWorkOrder Object.

  If you have cold jacks, but you prefer that the driver "X out" the port instead of automatically choosing one, you can specify the hot jacks option.

• What are the duplicate extensions for each phone type? You'll need to reproduce that mapping in the style sheets.

  Duplicate (dupe) extensions are set up by the PBX administrator in the PBX, using extensions that are outside the range of extensions that are available for use as DID and non-DID phone numbers. They are used when installing an extension. These dupe extensions are used only as a template to set up each phone type (such as phone type 8410) correctly.

  In each work order the duplicate extension for the phone type needs to be specified, so the PBX has the right template to follow. The style sheets for the sample configurations demonstrate how to map the phone type to the dupe extension.

• When do you want the driver to perform work orders?

  You can control the timing using either polling interval, time of day, or both.

  Of course, if the work order is marked DoItNow, the driver will perform it immediately and won't wait for a polling interval or time of day.

• How will you create a test environment for testing the driver with the PBX?

  Creating a robust test environment can be a challenge, because often the only PBX available in an environment is the production PBX. To solve this problem, we recommend using the driver's emulation mode. See What is Emulation Mode and Why Should I Use it? for more information.