Dial from your desk phone
Start the call from the softphone and have your desk phone pick up: the extension answers hands-free, then the number is dialed.
At a glance
| Where | Call from line of the softphone |
| Choices offered | This browser, or a desk phone registered on your extension |
| What the list contains | physical phones only, softphones and WebSocket connections excluded |
| Memory | the choice is kept per browser, until you change it |
| Marker | the next to you note when the phone goes out through the same public address as your browser |
| Number format | 2 to 20 characters, digits, * and #, an optional leading + |
How it works
Our servers call this specific phone, asking it to pick up on its own. Once the phone has answered, the second leg goes out to the number through your installation's usual outbound path, with your extension's identity: number presented, calling rights, recording. It's therefore exactly like a call dialed on the phone's keypad, except you launched it from the screen.
A ringback tone is generated while the other party is being called, so you can hear that it's ringing on the other end.
The list of phones comes from the registry of registered extensions. A device only appears there if its registration is still valid and its brand is recognized: snom, Yealink, Polycom, Poly, Grandstream, Gigaset, Fanvil, Htek, Panasonic, Mitel, Aastra, Alcatel, Sangoma, Obihai, Linksys, AudioCodes, Unify, Avaya, Siemens, Digium, Atcom, Akuvox, Flyingvoice, Escene, VTech, Tiptel. A softphone is deliberately excluded.
The identity kept for a phone survives its re-registrations. Your choice therefore stays valid when the device re-registers, which it does regularly.
Steps
- Check that the phone is indeed registered on your extension, and so reachable by an ordinary call.
- In the softphone, find the Call from line. Click the tile on the left, which shows This browser by default.
- Choose your phone from the list. The next to you note flags the one that goes out through the same public address as your browser.
- Dial the number, or choose a contact, and start the call as usual.
- The phone picks up hands-free. The softphone briefly shows a message asking you to pick up the handset and stating which number the call is going to.
- To return to the call in the browser, reopen the tile and choose This browser.
If it doesn't work
The device tile doesn't appear at all. It only shows up if at least one physical phone is registered on your extension. An extension served only by the softphone doesn't show it.
My phone isn't in the list. Three possible reasons: its registration has expired, it announces itself under a name the platform doesn't recognize as a phone brand, or it's registered over WebSocket, which puts it on the softphone side. Opening the devices menu re-reads the list, which is enough when the phone has just been plugged back in.
My choice reverted to This browser on its own. The phone is no longer registered. Rather than leave a choice that would lead nowhere, the softphone falls back to the browser.
The number is rejected and the call doesn't go out. The number must be 2 to 20 characters, digits, * and #, with an optional leading +. Spaces, dots, dashes and parentheses are stripped before the check, everything else is rejected.
The number presented isn't the one I'd chosen in the tile on the right. The choice of presented number applies to calls placed through the browser. A call launched on a desk phone goes out through your extension's usual outbound path, with the extension's identity.