Phone Call Policy

MobiControl provides various on-device feature controls including the capability to block various device communications, including what numbers a device is able to call or receive calls from.


Phone Call Policy dialog box

For assistance with Override Settings Click Here.

Phone Call Policy Control Lists

MobiControl allows you to specify the numbers to which users may place calls to and receive calls from:

  1. Note:

    You can't have both deny and allow control lists activated at the same time. All control lists for a particular direction must be the same type.

    The Available Control Lists displays all control lists that have been defined, but currently are not in use. IT administrators are able to create several different phone call policies without having them be activated on the devices.

  2. The Selected Control Lists displays all currently activated control lists. Only the control lists included in the selected control lists are allowed to execute on the device. This provides an added layer of security for organizations concerned about unknown phone calls that may be placed from or received by the device. This can potentially happen without the end user being aware of it, as is frequently the case with viruses, spyware and other malicious applications.

    Important:

    If the allowed list is not set up correctly, you may end up blocking or not allowing a potential system critical phone call.

  3. When the Notify Server on Call Blocked check box is checked, the server's log file will output all calls that were blocked, along with the phone number that was trying to call in or out for the particular device.

  4. When the Notify User on Call Blocked check box is checked, and the user receives an incoming call from a phone number that was blocked, a message box will be displayed

To enable phone call policy control for a device or group of devices, select Phone Call Policy from the MobiControl Security Center. (Please see the Device Security and Control page.)


New Phone Call Policy entry dialog box

Field Name Description
New Clicking on this button allows you to create a new phone call policy with the dialog box as shown above. Assign a meaningful name to help distinguish between the various phone call policies you may setup.
Type The available options allowed are either Allow or Deny. The type Allow indicates the phone calls that can either be placed from the phone or received by the phone or both based on Direction set for this policy. The type Deny indicates the phone calls that can not either be placed from the phone or received by the phone or both based on Direction set for this policy. If attempting to block restricted or unknown callers simply add <Unknown> and/or <Restricted> to the deny list.
Direction The available options are Incoming, Outgoing, or Both. Incoming indicates that this policy is for calls received by the device. Outgoing indicates that this policy is for calls placed by the device. Both indicates that the policy is for both incoming and outgoing calls. For example, you may want to allow all communication to and from your device to your IT Support team and hence you would select both in this case with the appropriate phone numbers that can be dialled to work with your support team.

Add Phone Call Policy entry dialog box

Once you have configured the Name, Type and Direction, click on Add... in order to enter in the phone number(s) that the policy applies to and the dialog box is displayed above.


MobiControl will compare the number either received or placed with the list of numbers mentioned in the policy and compare the exact phone number displayed with the list of numbers you provide. If you have a series of numbers that you would like to enter in, there are a few options available, which can be used in combination with each other:

  1. Leverage the wild card character, which is the asterisk, or '*'. The asterisk indicates any number of digits. For example, you may want to only allow calls coming from a particular area code. In this case, you can enter in '<area code>*' as the number.

    Example:

    416* would match all calls that start with 416.


  2. Leverage the single wild card character, which is the question mark, or '?'. The question mark indicates any single digit.

    Example:

    You may want to allow communication to a list of phone numbers that only vary by a single digit. In this case, you can enter in as an example, 444-555-123?. This indicates the policy applies to the following list of numbers:
    444-555-1230
    444-555-1231
    444-555-1232
    444-555-1233
    444-555-1234
    444-555-1235
    444-555-1236
    444-555-1237
    444-555-1238
    444-555-1239
    Combinations of the two wild card characters can also be used if required. For example, 4??-555-12* would succeed if the phone number is 432-555-1234, but not if the phone number is 432-432-1234


Import Phone Call Policy entry dialog box

When the Import button is selected, the dialog box above is displayed. From here you can select any file type. MobiControl assumes that the input file format is one phone number per line.

Example:

905-888-8888
519-222*
416*
Upon reading in the file, the individual numbers will be added to the list control, just as though they were individually typed in using the Add button.

Important:

The file being imported must not contain more than 2000 lines.