As has already been hinted in the FreePBX 16 beta release announcement, one of the new open source features added in this major release is the ability for an administrator to define User Control Panel (UCP) templates. This feature has also been backported to FreePBX 15, and has been available now from the edge module repository for the last few weeks.
Long time users of FreePBX will recall from back when FreePBX 14 was released, that the UCP was completely recreated from a static format to a customizable widget format. The UCP user can customize their UCP experience with whatever tabs, sidebar and widgets they wish, and when a user is first created in FreePBX, they start out with an empty UCP layout. Since then, there have been requests to have some ability for FreePBX administrators to be able to set up the user’s UCP experience for them, and eliminate the need for the end user to do it themself. Today this is now possible.
Upon install of the UCP and User Management modules, a new default virtual extension is created that is linked to a new user. This new user serves as a UCP template, and it has a basic set of UCP tabs and widgets already configured from the start. FreePBX Administrators are now able to:
- Use this new user’s UCP template as-is as the basis for all new user layouts
- Edit the default user UCP template to suit their own requirements
- Safely delete the default user and default virtual extension if they’re not required
- Create new users with UCP layouts assigned to each and use those as templates instead of the default template created on install
- Use any existing user’s UCP layout as a template
- Define which UCP template shall apply to new users created
- Apply any UCP template to any existing FreePBX user or users
- Use the Bulk Hander module to export and import UCP templates
When logged into UCP, end users will now see a new button that allows them to discard any UCP layout changes they’ve made and reset the layout back to the original template settings.
Anyone who wants to give this new UCP Template feature a try, need only update their FreePBX 16 beta system modules to current, or in FreePBX 15, update the UCP and User Management modules from the edge repo. Full usage details are found in the wiki here: https://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FPG/UCP+User+Templates