Feature group templates help you deploy your end users with configured phones and phone lines. Feature group templates allow you to assign common phone, phone line, and service settings to all users who are assigned that feature group template. If you have also enabled self-provisioning for your end users, the feature group template allows your users to quickly provision and set up their phones with the desired phone, phone line and services settings.

The feature group template configuration includes the following profiles that you can assign to the feature group template:

• User Profile—contains a set of common phone and phone line settings. You must configure the user profile with a universal line template, which assigns the common phone line settings, and a universal device template, which assigns the common phone settings. These templates assist users who are set up for self-provisioning to configure their own phones.

• Service Profile—contains a group of common settings for Unified Communications services such as conferencing and directory services.

When you configure a feature group template to include a user profile and service profile and then assign that feature group template to an end user, the user profile and service profile settings propagate through to any new phones that the end user provisions.

If you are deploying the IM and Presence Service, you can use the feature group template to enable LDAP-synchronized users with instant messaging and presence capability.