Bulk Administration Tool

The Bulk Administration Tool (BAT), a web-based application, performs bulk transactions to the Cisco Unified Communications Manager database.

This article will show you how to add a large number of phones using BAT.

For easy to understand imagine that,

Completed Phones = Phone Template(Common Settings) + CSV File(Specific Settings)

Common Settings = Device Pool, Softkey Template, etc...
Specific Settings = MAC Address, Directory Number(DN), Name Display, etc...

Step1. At Cisco Unified CM Administration Page select Bulk Administration> Upload/Download Files.

Step2. Download bat.xlt from the server, use MS Excel to open this file (Need to enable macro).

Step3. Select Phones sheet and click Create File Format, we will generate csv file for specific setting.

Step4. Click Create and overwrite the existing format, now enter your phone details here, you need to key the MAC Address and Directory Number columns the others are optional.

Step5. After enter your phone details click Export to BAT Format, this will generate csv file with .txt extension.

Step6. Upload this csv file (phone.txt in my case) to Callmanager using Bulk Administration> Upload/Download Files menu.

Step7. Create Phone Template. Select Bulk Administration> Phones> Phone Template.

Step8. Click Add New and select phone type, protocol and others common settings, then Save. Note that these settings can be updated later using BAT menu.

Step9. Click Add a new DN to create a line template. Enter Line Template Name and other line common settings like Voice Mail Profile, Calling Search Space, Busy Trigger, etc...

Step10. Select Bulk Administration> Phones> Insert Phones, choose your csv file and template name.

Step11. At the bottom of the page select Run Immediately and click submit.

Step12. Select Bulk Administration> Job Scheduler to see the progress.
 

Step13. In case you've got the Number Of Records Failed, click Log File Name to see what error occur.

Step14. Select Device> Phone to check that your phone are added correctly.