Better BAT v3.0.0 released!!!

Better BAT has been a labor of love over the last 3 years! Through this application I’ve learned how to be a Full Stack Developer and a DevOps Engineer. It has made my 9 to 5 job much more efficient and allowed me to contribute code back to the community. Hopefully with this release some of my fellow engineers can benefit from the hours that I’ve put into it.

Better BAT was created to solve my frustration with Cisco’s Bulk Administration Tool. I was tired of errors, unclear messages and the limitations of BAT. I wanted to build something better…..so I did.

Without going into all of the features of Better BAT, I just want to highlight the main feature of this release; bulk phone import with activation codes.

Since the release of 12.5, administrators have been able to assign an activation code for users to onboard their phone.

Activation codes make onboarding newly provisioned phones easy. An activation code is a single-use, 16-digit value that a user must enter on a phone while registering the phone. Activation codes provide a simple method for provisioning and onboarding phones without requiring an administrator to collect and input the MAC Address for each phone manually. This method is a simple alternative to auto-registration that you can use this method to provision a large number of phones, a single phone, or even to re-register existing phones.

This allows companies the flexibility of sending an un-provisioned device to the end user and having the device register properly via a code. Better BAT improves on Cisco implementation by allowing administrators the option to import phones regardless of model type and without having to rely on Phone Templates. Better BAT will also verify if Unified Communication Manager is properly configured for your model type (see below figure).

Unified Communications Manager Device Defaults. Note: Cisco 8845 in this image would not be able to use an Activation ID.

In addition to the normal BAT CSV file, Better BAT includes an additional header that you can use to indicate if an activation code should be included in import; Enable Activation ID. This is a boolean field and should be marked either ‘t’ or ‘f’ (Note: for version’s prior to 12.5 this field should be empty).

Better BAT indicating an issue with Cisco 7841 and Activation ID’s

You can also hardcode this for your entire import file via Better BAT’s Settings > Options > ParamName & ParamValue. This is similar to Cisco’s Phone Template, however without the restriction of having to do one per phone model.

Better BAT’s Settings > Options feature for adding parameter to all imported devices

Each phone that has ENABLE ACTIVATION ID set to ‘t’ will be imported in and a 16 digit activation code will be assigned to the user. Better BAT will output all the activation codes via its’ console for administrators to distribute.

Better BAT console displaying newly created activation codes

Alternatively end users can retrieve their activation codes via the Self Care Portal

Using Self Care Portal to view Activation Code

Check out the full feature set on my Github where you can download the latest version. Or download via my site.

If you would like to support my work and the time I put in creating the code, you can always buy me a coffee. I would really appreciate it (but is not required).

Thanks and enjoy!