Sharing contacts between Yealink phones

BCDental — Sun, 03 May 2026 12:59:34 GMT

I am trying to link contacts between the Yealink phone (there are 5 users).

I've tried using the business portal to set up 'group contacts' and adding contacts but this doesn't seem to link to the phones.

I've turned on 'phone services' features for each user.

On the devices themselves; when I click on 'local directory' it's blank. When I click 'phonebook' I get an 'connect error'

I've turned the hub bases on and off.

This seems impossible! And the portal is so complex!

Can anyone offer advice or I could really do with someone from BT talking me through this.

Re: Sharing contacts between Yealink phones

AlanM1 — Tue, 05 May 2026 08:34:12 GMT

Hi 👋 — this is a known BT Cloud Voice / Yealink directory sync issue, rather than anything you’ve configured incorrectly.

On Yealink phones, shared or group contacts only appear if the Cloud Voice directory is correctly assigned and successfully provisioned to the handset.
A “Phonebook – connect error” means the phone isn’t pulling the remote directory from the Cloud Voice platform.

A few key points to check:

Local Directory on the handset will stay empty unless numbers are added manually
Phonebook pulls from the Cloud Voice remote (group) directory
Contacts must be created and assigned in the Cloud Voice portal (not just added as general address book entries)
After any changes, phones need time to re‑provision (single reboot, then leave connected for 10–15 minutes)

BT’s Cloud Voice guides are here:
https://business.bt.com/help/guides/guide-to-bt-cloud-voice/

This specific “connect error” issue is covered in the BT Business Community:
https://business.forums.bt.com/t5/Phone-system/BT-CloudVoice-handset-Phonebook-connect-error/td-p/95106

If it’s still not syncing, BT need to check provisioning, firmware, and security settings (e.g. certificate trust) and re‑push the configuration from their side.

Contact the Cloud Voice support team here:
https://business.bt.com/help/article/contact-the-cloud-voice-support-team/

Ask them to check:

“Yealink phones showing ‘phonebook connect error’ — group directory not syncing from Cloud Voice.”

Once the configuration is re‑provisioned, the shared contacts should populate across all five handsets. ✅

topic Re: Sharing contacts between Yealink phones in Phone system

Sharing contacts between Yealink phones

Re: Sharing contacts between Yealink phones