Cisco Bulk Administration Tool

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Identifying the major features and components of the BAT application
• Installing the BAT application on a Cisco CallManager publisher server
• Using the BAT Wizard to perform bulk configuration tasks
• Creating an IP Phone template to use with BAT
• Identifying the two ways to create CSV files for importing data into BAT
• Using the BAT Wizard to validate the IP Phone template and CSV file for errors prior to inserting the devices into the Cisco CallManager database
• Using the BAT wizard to insert the IP Phones into the Cisco CallManager database
• Describing how to use BAT to update IP Phone settings for a group of similar phones
• Describing the major requirements for proper installation of TAPS

Adding, updating, and deleting phones, users, and gateway ports are important functions in the day-to-day activities of a Cisco CallManager administrator. When you use Cisco CallManager Administration, each database transaction requires an individual manual operation. Manually adding and configuring large numbers of these entities can be time consuming and tedious. The Cisco Bulk Administration Tool (BAT) automates the process and achieves faster add, update, and delete operations so that the system administrator can focus on more business- and network-critical activities.

As a supplement to BAT, you can further ease the load of adding new phones to the network through the Tool for Auto-Registered Phones Support (TAPS). You can use TAPS in conjunction with BAT to update MAC addresses and download a predefined configuration for new phones after a user has walked through an automated process. This chapter discusses the design and implementation of both BAT and TAPS.