Genesys Cloud - Main

At the moment all our staff use WebRTC phones on their laptops, however we would like to provide some receptionists with desk phones. What are the best phone makes and models to do this and what connection type. I believe you cannot use a desk WebRTC phone with Genesys cloud.

Thanks in advance

Andrew
#SIP/VolP
#Telephony

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Andrew Lewis
Health Management Ltd
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Hi Andrew -
We use Polycom VVX 311 VoIP phones as our standard for most of our staff. Setup is rather easy and well documented in Genesys Cloud. 
https://www.poly.com/us/en/products/phones/vvx/vvx-301-311
Genesys Documentation: https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/manually-configure-the-provisioning-information-for-the-polycom-vvx-phone/

A couple of things we've noticed:
- If the phone is powered by PoE, make sure your network team knows that the phone needs to have internet access at the time that the phone powers back on or else it gets into a funky state. (Which can be resolved by unplugging and plugging the phone back in so it can reprovision.)
- In our experience, we can't get line key programming to stick. Once the phone reprovisions, the information for the line keys get wiped. Our receptionists work around this by imitating/transferring calls to internal users using the Genesys Cloud desktop app. (Which I think it better, because the contacts in Genesys Cloud contain much more information than just a line key.) 
- If you're based in the US, you may want to consider your E911 obligations. Especially if the phone could get moved around from area to area without your knowledge. 

I hope this info helps!

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Cory King
IT Lead
IGS Energy
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Thanks, that is really helpful.

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Andrew Lewis
Health Management Ltd
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-06-2022 05:47
From: Cory King
Subject: Desk Phones with Genesys Cloud

Hi Andrew -
We use Polycom VVX 311 VoIP phones as our standard for most of our staff. Setup is rather easy and well documented in Genesys Cloud.
https://www.poly.com/us/en/products/phones/vvx/vvx-301-311
Genesys Documentation: https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/manually-configure-the-provisioning-information-for-the-polycom-vvx-phone/

A couple of things we've noticed:
- If the phone is powered by PoE, make sure your network team knows that the phone needs to have internet access at the time that the phone powers back on or else it gets into a funky state. (Which can be resolved by unplugging and plugging the phone back in so it can reprovision.)
- In our experience, we can't get line key programming to stick. Once the phone reprovisions, the information for the line keys get wiped. Our receptionists work around this by imitating/transferring calls to internal users using the Genesys Cloud desktop app. (Which I think it better, because the contacts in Genesys Cloud contain much more information than just a line key.)
- If you're based in the US, you may want to consider your E911 obligations. Especially if the phone could get moved around from area to area without your knowledge.

I hope this info helps!

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Cory King
IT Lead
IGS Energy
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Here is a helpful article from Genesys:  https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/genesys-cloud-voice-compatible-phones/

Most of my customers are getting the Polycom VVX311.  It's not overly complicated and the menus are easy to navigate.  It has some good forwarding options.  Note, there is no ability to see multiply lines or to park calls.

Thanks for your help.

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Andrew Lewis
Health Management Ltd
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-09-2022 08:24
From: Nathan Smith
Subject: Desk Phones with Genesys Cloud

Here is a helpful article from Genesys:  https://help.mypurecloud.com/articles/genesys-cloud-voice-compatible-phones/

Most of my customers are getting the Polycom VVX311.  It's not overly complicated and the menus are easy to navigate.  It has some good forwarding options.  Note, there is no ability to see multiply lines or to park calls.

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Nathan Smith
ConvergeOne, Inc.
ndsmith@convergeone.com
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The ease of setup I think will also depend whether you're using On-premise Edge or Cloud Edge devices.

We are on Cloud Edges and re-used our Polycom VVX400/401 phones (ethernet via PoE) that we previously had with PureConnect.

If your phones are behind a corporate firewall and you're using Cloud Edge - there's a few rules/ports you'll need to open to make it work and can get a little complicated with all the shared AWS IP ranges still needed.

Otherwise if they are just direct internet connected, using the phones with the Polycom ZTP (Zero Touch Provisioning) service makes connecting phones anywhere a breeze.

We've also done some workarounds for the line keys (creating Speed Dials, custom soft keys, screen saver showing queues stats, etc) by activating the API within each phone, then using Power Shell to write/update parameters directly to the devices (see https://community.polycom.com/t5/VoIP-SIP-Phones/FAQ-REST-API/td-p/98914)

The phones functionality will be relatively basic on Genesys Cloud (no Station groups, no call pickup, no shared lines/appearances, no busy-lamp indicators).

The forwarding functionality on the phone will only apply to direct user calls - if calls come via a User Group or Queue, the forwarding won't apply.

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Jeff
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