A personal digital assistant (PDA) stores a list of available phone
features and policies and selects certain phone features and policies
from the stored features and policies. When connected with an internet
protocol (IP) phone device, the PDA downloads the selected phone features
and policies to the IP phone device in a new location, so that the IP
phone device can be operated as the user's personal phone. The PDA
verifies the user's identity to ensure that only authorized individuals
have access to the IP phone device or IP-PBX. Also, the PDA, with phone
features and policies stored therein, visually displays phone
configurations and mappings to an administrator of the IP-PBX for
verifying the actual configuration of the phone system based on the
stored configuration.