Automatic Phone Extension and Number Assignments

[MattS]

Hi Community,

From my observations, when creating a user via SAML or SCIM, there is no way to automatically assign extensions and phone numbers to the user. In other words if you don't provide a valid extension and available phone number attribute, the user creation will not be provisioned with zoom phone capability. 

In fact, if you don't provide at least an extension number, the user will not even appear as a phone users, even if you provide a license. 

This creates an issue for medium to large companies, especially in the context of avoiding manual work associated with new users. 

Currently we are thinking of solving this by adding a layer of automation script to help assign extensions, but would want avoid this step if possible. This automation would basically query zoom to find the next available phone numbers and extensions, and assign those to the users IDP (azure in our case) attributes for extension and phone number. Those attributes would then be used during SAML and SCIM provisioning to successfully assign phone capability to the user. 

My questions are:

1. Does anyone have suggestions for provisioning phone users automatically in an easier way? perhaps I am missing something obvious. 

2.  Zoom - can you please make an option within user creating templates for "Assign user next available extension automatically" and "Assign user next available phone number automatically"? this would make things so much easier. 

3. For others using azure to store zoom phone information, what attribute do you store your zoom extension? I don't think azure AD has an existing field for phone extension. 

Thank you!

[Arps]

Hello!

When you add a new Zoom Phone user, they should get the next available extension automatically.  You shouldn't have to define the extension within SAML/SCIM:

You can also do this via the traditional REST API with the same results with the meeting user update endpoint: 

Can you share the error your getting with saml/scim when you try to provision a user without an extension?  Potentially if you have the extension field mapped and the user does not have an extension within your IDP, that could cause an issue.  I would recommend, if you want Zoom to automatically assign the next extension, you can remove that attribute from your SAML mapping.

Hope that helps and please make sure to mark the solution as accepted if this information is what you needed.

Thanks! Rick

[Craig · Accepted solution]

Hello Matt,

In addition to Rick's comments, you can enter a 0 (zero) into the SAML mapped field for extension number within your IDP to have Zoom automatically assign the next available extension number to the user. 

I hope this helps!

[MattS]

Thank you both! I think what Craig mentioned is a great piece of (undocumented?) knowledge. I'll try it out this afternoon and let you all know the results. I wonder if the same would work for the phone number as well.

Rick, what I was seeing from SAML and SCIM was that if the extension field was empty the user would simple not show up in the phone user list. So for example assigning them a zoom phone license via saml or scim would not result in an errror, just that they would not be provisioned in phone...

I'll keep you posted. 

[MattS]

Just circling back with my results from testing with the above advice. What Craig mentioned solved most (or at least half) of my issue. By sending "0" as the extension with a SCIM or SAML entry for a new phone user, the user is automatically provisioned the next available extension number. 

As mentioned above, Ideally zoom would develop a similar method for handling automatic assignment of phone numbers. 

[SeanS]

Hi all,

Thanks @MattS for your post. I too have the same problem - we are able to assign extensions by passing "0" over, but I am also stuck on automatically assigning direct phone numbers.

Any update from the Zoom Support side?

[CNSA-IT]

SAML Phone Number field assignments (home/fax/mobile/office/etc) don't seem functional. I suspect there may be some required format but could find no documentation on such. Any insight?