I am going to be working on a new install soon SV 9100 with about 300 VoIP phones (High School)
I have done several prior where we plugged the phones into a switch at the frame to acquire an IP Address/extension so we could start to program and then boxed them up and deployed them to the correct locations it was fine but I am wondering if there's a better way

They currently have a I-Series so that will stay in place until the very end so I will program 11-02 with all my extensions first

I was kind of wondering if there was a way to program the phone system before we brought it on site


just wondering

Yes. There is a way to have your DHCP server have the IP phones download a script off a TFTP/FTP server (I think) and program the phones with the SIP server / port etc. I have always done it the hard way ahead of time but I see no reason this wouldn't work. I would contact NEC and get the procedures.

The SV9100 networking manual has info on how to setup auto config up with ipphonemanager and dhcp, ftp server according to doc u need
 IP Phone Manager and software to create the config file for the IP terminals.
Software is available for download free on the NEC website.
 FTP server and free software available on the web.
 DHCP Server supporting ability to define the following:
 Vendor Class
 Option Codes

I havent done one from scratch but did a relocation with a different ip range on a vlan and creating a new config file was pretty easy.