Hot desking

Hot desking, also known as free seating, enables a user to log in to an unassigned phone and take total control of that phone by applying all of their own phone settings until logging out.

Hot desking is particularly useful in a call center or sales office environment where users need to be able to sit at any desk and use their phone extension.

The hot-desking configuration requires two phones:

• Assigned phone: This phone has an extension and is used to log in to a hot-desking host. This extension requires a user privilege with the hot-desking login enabled.
• Not assigned phone: This phone is the hot-desking host which users log in to. This phone has no extension and does not require a user privilege.
• To verify the phone status (assigned and not assigned), go to Phone System > Device > Phone and review the information in the Management column.

Configuring hot desking

1. Log in to the FortiVoice GUI.
2. Create a user privilege to enable hot-desking login:
   1. Go to Phone System > Profile > User Privilege.
   2. Click New.

      The Name field does not support the following characters: Space Quotation mark Backward slash

   3. In the Name field, add a name for this user privilege.
   4. Select Enable hot-desking login to allow phones associated with this user privilege to log in to other phones.
   5. In the Automatic logout hours field, enter the time in hours after which the phone automatically logs out of hot desking.

   

   6. Click Create.
3. Associate the user privilege (example, Hot-desking-login) to the extension used for logging in to another phone:
   1. Go to Extension > Extension > IP Extension.
   2. Double-click on the row of the extension number (example, 1001) that wants to log in to other phones.
   3. From the User privilege drop-down list, select the user privilege (example, Hot-desking-login) that you created in step 2.

   

   4. Click OK.

Using hot desking on FortiFone

1. On the FortiFone unit that you want to log in to, dial *11.
2. Enter your extension number (example, 1001#) and user PIN.

   Depending of the phone model, the FortiFone unit may reboot.

   The new extension and name display on the FortiFone screen.

3. To place a call, dial an extension (example, 3004).

   The screen of the receiving FortiFone unit displays the extension number (example, 1001).

4. To log out of the FortiFone unit, dial *12.

   Depending of the phone model, the FortiFone unit may reboot.

Viewing activity details of hot-desking extensions

1. Go to Monitor > Extension & Device > Hot Desking.

   When an extension is used for logging in or logging out of a hot-desking host, FortiVoice populates the table. The table includes one row for each extension, not multiple rows. If the table is empty, then none of the extensions have used hot desking.

2. For the extension that is logged in to a phone or has logged out, you can view the following hot-desking details:
   • Status: The status of the hot-desking extension as logged in or logged out.
   • Number: The number of the hot-desking extension.
   • Display Name: The name displayed on the phone that is hosting hot desking.
   • Host Device: The MAC address of the unassigned phone. This is the phone that a hot-desking user logs into. When the status of the hot-desking extension is "Logged out", then the host device is blank.
   • Last Login: The last login performed on the hosting phone.
   • Expiry: The expiry time (in the yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss format) of the hot-desking login. The value is set in the Automatic logout hours field of the user privilege for the hot-desking login. When the status of the hot-desking extension is "Logged out", the expiry time is all zeros.