Move to the cloud: how LDAP helps implement virtual PBX

The larger the company, the more difficulties it has that are unknown to smaller organizations. And not always it is connected with business. Virtual PBX used to be perceived by many as a product for small companies, but now the concept is changing. Medium-sized and large enterprises are increasingly using virtual PBXs, but at the same time they have to solve rather non-trivial tasks - for example, how to put employee profiles in a communication environment managed by a virtual PBX and, most importantly, keep them up-to-date? After all, when the company employs several hundred or thousand people, manually entering and constantly updating their cards can only be regarded as a punishment. To make life easier for our customers, we have implemented LDAP protocol support in the MANGO OFFICE virtual PBX.

Usually the purchase of a virtual PBX is associated with the replacement of an existing connection. And, of course, the question arises of how to enable cloud communications in the business infrastructure, how to set up a single interface for employees, so that they can immediately perform their tasks efficiently on a new telephony.

And this is where LDAP comes to the rescue. This protocol is supported in some CRM, but until recently it has not been found among virtual PBXs. However, it would undoubtedly be useful, since it not only simplifies noticeably, but also speeds up the transition to a virtual PBX - especially when there are a large number of employees in the company. Virtual PBX MANGO OFFICE first received support for LDAP.
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Easy setup

With the help of LDAP, you can easily keep up to date the existing database of employees: name, position, department, phone number, e-mail. You do not need to install any additional software, you do not need to import Excel tables, you do not need to enter anything into the system by hand. It is enough to configure the integration of a virtual PBX with the directory service via LDAP once - and the profiles of all employees will be imported with the necessary permissions. Short numbers will also be imported (or created), SIP accounts will be automatically generated and after that you can configure incoming call forwarding rules.



MANGO OFFICE supports all types of LDAP servers for any OS, including Microsoft Active Directory and the popular Open LDAP open server. That is, a company that uses, for example, Microsoft Outlook, can use the advantages of fast export to a virtual PBX, and simple data synchronization.

Directly in a virtual PBX, you can assign roles to employees with appropriate access rights. Developing a system of roles, we tried to take into account all the needs of medium and large businesses, giving the opportunity to customize user rights in the widest possible range.

Using LDAP, roles can be quickly transferred to a virtual PBX and roles can be managed through a single interface, without doing this in separate databases separately. After connecting a virtual PBX, it is enough to once set up employees in accordance with their posts the right to access various functionalities of the virtual PBX - telephony, call tracking, reports, listening to call recordings, etc. And when a new employee arrives or the current specialist changes their position on the LDAP server, and the corresponding access rights changes are automatically applied in the virtual PBX.

It is especially convenient that the administrator is not required to update the data in the virtual PBX, they are synchronized automatically. When an employee is deleted or added to the source database, the data is changed, all innovations are pulled into the cloud PBX without the administrator's participation.

When designing LDAP support, we took into account the wishes of the system administrators. For example, they implemented the setting for matching fields, because in different databases the fields can be called differently. In addition, many admins add additional fields to the database. And thanks to the compliance settings, our LDAP is fully compatible with different databases and different LDAP server formats. MANGO OFFICE also supports LDAP filters and a separate field for catalog root filters.

In addition, we implemented a flexible system of synchronization rules. You can specify which fields to synchronize with the virtual PBX, as well as set the principles for creating and rewriting fields.

Security

Information security is one of the priorities when introducing LDAP support. Many companies have strict security regulations, so opening an LDAP server for accessing cloud systems is often not recommended. We use LDAPS to protect your data — a data exchange with SSL encryption.

Conclusion

LDAP support greatly simplifies the process of integrating cloud-based telephony into the company's infrastructure and access rights system. Using LDAP, you can quickly import an employee database into a virtual PBX, manage your credentials, and delineate employee access to information.