How to use VQCM’s Device Management and Automation (DMA)

This latest post in our series of feature blogs introduces the first release of VQ Conference Manager DMA. This first release enables the creation of hierarchical Address Books/Directories, which are designed to replace the Phone Books feature of Cisco TelePresence Management Suite (TMS).

This functionality includes searchable numbers and addresses on your video endpoints, so you can dial the number by person or room name, rather than having to remember the number.

How to configure DMA’s address books and directories

The first thing you’ll notice, if you are familiar with the VQCM’s user interface, is the new design:

this image shows the new device interface on VQCM. The screenshot has the title 'devices' and has 3 columns below it. These are Device, location and label.

Throughout, you can change the order of the columns, turn them on and off and apply filters and so on.

To make a change or see the available options, use the ellipses on the right-hand side:

This is another screenshot of the device interface on VQCM, this list shown on this screen is shorter as filters have been applied.

At the top level, we have the Tenant. Each Tenant has a dedicated Address Book/Directory and list of Devices.

This image features a screenshot of the tenant page on the vqcm interface. it lists each tenant for this speific user.

Next, we have the list of Devices:

This image shows the device interface. It's a small list only showing 3 devices. — This is the complete list of all the endpoints which can be included in and can access a Directory.

Each Device has two attributes, a **Location** and a **Label**:

Let’s have a look at the **Location** first:

This image shows the location interface. 10 locations are listed on this page.

If you are familiar with TMS, the Location here is analogous to the System Navigator Folder view in TMS. Here you can add new folders and add devices to a given folder within the hierarchy. Typically, you’d name your folders after the locations in your organisation, although you don’t have to

VQ DMA’s Locations are a very similar concept; a mechanism for you to define where in the organisation your endpoints are, and you can go to a depth of five within the hierarchy. This allows, for example, continents, country, state, city and building.

So, you add your Devices, you set your Locations and you add the Location to a device.

If you go back to the Devices, you’ll see another column called Labels:

Label is a new concept, which TMS does not have. Labels are free form text which allows you to add an additional identification to your device, for example “VIP Systems” or “Meeting Rooms”.

The next thing to look at are the Data Sources:

This image shows the data sources interface. There is a table with 3 columns. The first column on the left is titled 'name'. The second column in the middle is titled type and the third and final column is titled 'action'. There are 3 rows in this table listing each data source type. — Just like in TMS, Data Sources is a list of Devices. This list is built using Location and optionally Label filters. It’s either, or, or both. So, for example, you could have a Data Source for all Devices in the UK, or the demo systems in the US, or, indeed, all executive systems world-wide.

Out of the box there is a predefined Data Source called **All Systems**. There is no filter on it. It contains all Devices or Contacts in your database. In this example, the Devices in All Systems are shown as follows:

The screenshot of the ' edit all systems' page has 3 tabs below the page title - settings, filters and contacts. The contacts tab is selected and lists each contact below it.

You can add as many Data Sources as you wish.

Finally, you have the Address Books. An Address Book is a list of Data Sources.

Let’s recap...

Devices have a Location and optionally a Label. Data Sources are built using filters on Location or Label and Address Books are built using Data Sources.

How to assign an Address Book to your Devices

The final part of setting up is similar to TMS – assigning an Address Book to your Devices.

To do this you Click on Assign to Devices, select the required filter and the Devices and assign them.

the image features the title 'address books'. 3 address books are shown on the page underneath the name column. There is a column titled 'action' which is selected and has 6 drop down options - settings, contacts, view devices, assign to devices, remove from devices and delete. all of these drop down options are in black font barr delete which is in red. — **Example of Assigning Address Books**

In this example, we have four devices in an Address Book called Parallel House. Each of the devices will be assigned this Address Book:

This image features the address book of the device 'parallel house'. below the title of this page, it features 3 tabs - view devices, assign to devices and remove from devices. View devices is currently selected and listed the 4 devices below.

In this example, the location in the address book is also called Parallel House:

This image shows the 'locations' interface. below the page title there is a blue circle with a plus button in it. below this lists out six different locations.

To make things simple to follow, we’ve also called the address book ‘Parallel House’.

This image features the address book 'parallel house'. there are 3 tabs below the title of the page - view devices, assign to devices and remove from devices. The view devices tab is selected and highlighted in blue. Below this tab each device is listed alongside their location and label.

Within the Address Book, we need to add a Data Source.

In this example we’ve named the Data Source Demo Suite, which contains the four endpoints in the ‘Parallel House’ Location:

This image features the data source - demo suite. below the title of the page, has 3 tabs below it. These are settings, filters and contacts. The contacts tab is selected and highlighted in blue. below the tab 4 contacts are listed.

Next, we need to assign the ‘Parallel House’ Address Book to each of the endpoints:

this image of the page is the address book for 'parallel house'. below the title of the page it features three tabs - view devices, assign to devices (Which is selected and highlighted in blue) and remove from devices. No devices are assigned and therefore a cartoon illustration shows on this page of a lady tipping a variety of shapes into a filter.

Having assigned the Address Book to the devices, what does this look like on the device itself?

this image shows a webex pro which has two rectangular pop ups on the screen. This is what it looks like when address books have been assigned to a device.

Here you can see the device with the endpoints listed in the Parallel House Address Book.

This blog is just a very brief introduction of how to set up and use Address Books and Directory Services in VQ Conference Manager DMA. For more detailed information, view our ‘Introducing DMA – Directory Services’ video. If you have any questions, join our Webex Space.

Finally, for those looking for a more detailed understanding of VQ Conference Manager DMA’s capabilities, we offer a three-day training course delivered by our partner, TeKnowLogical Solutions.