What Is Auto Provisioning And How Does It Work?
If you’re running a business or managing an office, odds are you’ve had to deal with phones. Managing an office phone is more than answering calls and asking questions. You also have to consider how to set up the system.
Time is precious when running a business, and establishing a phone line can waste a lot of time if you don’t know what you’re doing. Thankfully, technology continues to advance, and there are options for every office to make setting up an office phone system easy.
Auto provisioning is that technology. It’s a fast and easy way to configure VoIP phones and saves you time and money. Interested? Read further to learn more about what auto provisioning is and how it can help your business.
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What is Auto Provisioning?
Provisioning is the process of setting up an IT foundation, like setting up a Wi-Fi connection, network, or setting up a VoIP telephone system. Many different versions of provisioning exist. Today, we will discuss how provisioning applies to office communication devices.
Provisioning is always the first step in setting up any IT infrastructure and can be manual or automatic.
The second step is configuration. Configuration is the arrangement of the hardware and software. For example, managing the settings, components, and anything else that helps the system function properly.
Manual provisioning means the administrator has to configure the phones individually, one by one.
Auto provisioning allows the administrator to activate a phone service through a software application without entering any configuration settings manually. The process is possible through Cloud-based SIP Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSP).
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In the past, provisioning and configuring a phone system was a long, exhausting, manual process, especially in a large office with hundreds of phones.
For example, if you wanted to change a button on multiple phone lines, you would have to log into each phone to adjust the button manually. With auto provisioning, you can log into the software and alter the settings, for however many phones you want, with a few simple clicks.
Auto provisioning saves time and money. It skips many of the steps needed to set up a VoIP phone line manually. Let’s dive deeper into the benefits of auto provisioning.
The Benefits of Auto Provisioning
As you can tell, auto provisioning has tons of benefits in cost savings and flexibility.
For starters, no IT support is needed. The software arranges all changes to the phones. You can do the work yourself- remotely- with the help of online support. Streamlining everything into software eliminates cost from the time saved of having a technician in the office. However, you can always have a combination of in-house and remote help if you prefer to have a technician present.
Using software also means configuring a VoIP phone can be done in bulk. Instead of configuring multiple phones one by one, you can input the settings into the software, and the configuration is done automatically. This saves hours upon hours of time and frustration.
You can also group devices using universal settings. If multiple phones need one button with the same element, you don’t need to access every phone manually. You can log on to the software and make adjustments.
You will need to do updates at some point, and the updates can be completed from the software as well. Above all, errors decrease using auto provisioning due to the ease of access to all phones.
Are you still interested? Keep reading to learn how you can apply auto provisioning to your phone lines.
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How Is Auto Provisioning Set Up?
Setting up auto provisioning on your office phones is simple and will be the same for every phone, whether you have three or three hundred. Essentially, auto provisioning for VoIP phones is done in three basic steps:
Step 1: The administrator sets a remote extension in the user interface.
Step 2: The phone's MAC address is added to the PBX.
Step 3: The authentication information is entered on the VoIP phone.
There are a few small steps in between these main checkpoints. A team member from your ITSP will help you. To learn more, watch the Yealink video below discussing the step-by-step process of setting up auto provisioning using the ITSP VoiPon.
With any kind of cloud-based service, you face security risks. Let’s briefly discuss possible risks and how you can protect your organization’s privacy.
Is Auto Provisioning Secure?
The main issue with auto provisioning is security.
Think about a coffee shop. A coffee shop needs to leave its front doors unlocked in the morning so customers can enter and order a coffee. The risk is that any burglar can walk in with ease and try to steal.
VoIP servers operate in a similar fashion.
VoIP servers need to be open to receive calls from other phones. Leaving the server open means that hackers can find a way into the server and gain access to restricted information.
You want to be sure your business calls are safe. There are different ways to protect your information. Usually, there will be authorization codes and other information, like encryption, to help protect your information from hackers and other unauthorized viewers.
Both you and your ISTP are responsible for protecting against unwanted access.
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Final Thoughts on Auto Provisioning
Auto provisioning saves you time and money. It’s a faster way to establish a VoIP phone line without signing in to each phone manually. Understanding how a multi-phone line works can be frustrating. It’s a lot to take in.
But auto provisioning takes away much of the labor- and the headaches.
If you’re still on the fence about auto provisioning, that’s okay. You can contact one of our team members at Teams Device Center for more information about auto provisioning. We are happy to help!
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