New Training: A First Look at Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)

In this 9-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Lalo Nunez covers introduces you to the Cisco Unified Communications Manage interface. Watch this new Cisco training.

Learn Cisco with one of these courses:

• Cisco Collaboration Solutions and Architecture

• Cisco CCNP Collaboration Core

This training includes:

• 9 videos

• 1.1 hours of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Intro: CUCM First Look

• CUCM Device Pools

• CUCM Groups

• CUCM Date Time Groups

• CUCM Phone Button Templates

• Softkey Templates

• Common Phone Profiles

• Phone Services

• Device Defaults

What is a Softkey Template?

One of the many reasons IP-based phones have replaced traditional PBX systems, outside of cost, is configurability. IP-based phone systems allow IT admins to quickly configure telephony devices such as the softkeys on Cisco phones. These softkeys are like shortcut keys for features like accessing voicemail, conferencing, or redialing.

For instance, in a manufacturing environment, it's not uncommon to have phone stations on a factory floor for factory workers to communicate with engineers and management. These phone stations don't need quick access to conferencing, call park or redial. On the other hand, a sales representative will need access to both conferencing and call park.

This is why you would use softkey templates. A softkey template is a preconfigured template for specific business use cases. For the example above, one template could be used to configure IP phones for a factory floor that don't include any softkey actions while another template could be used for sales staff that allow things like voicemail or conferencing.

Softkey templates are a quick, repeatable way to configure those shortcut keys on Cisco IP phones. There are two types of templates: standard and nonstandard. Both templates include configurations for the softkeys for various phone states (Eg, the phone is on the hook vs off the hook).

Standard templates are templates that come pre configured by Cisco for common configurations. They can not be deleted. Non-standard templates are those that administrators create themselves. Though it's more common to use standard templates for most phones, non-standard templates give administrators a way to customize those shortcut keys for special edge-cases.