Call Forwarding For Remote Phones via other methods other than Web Gui

[Adan Zuniga]

All,

Our institution has been slowly migrating from Avaya to CUCM. One of the many features that our users are reluctant to loosing is being able to forward and unforward remote phones. That is, we have 15 users that can forward and unforward any DN from their own station. On Avaya this is done via feature access codes. I inquired about a similar feature on CUCM to TAC and they told me that it does not exist. The manager of those users does not want them to have access to CUCM admin page even if they only had limited permissions. I then thought that if there is a way that UCCX can write to the CUCM database I can write a script that will collect an Extension from the caller and a forwarding number. Is this possible? If so, what do I need to set up to be able to be able to modify the ForwardAll of any DN on CUCM from UCCX?

[Deepak Mehta]

In my view if you do it from CUCM web portal via an end user ( asssociate all 15 phones to one ). This way only one user login can make changes which can be shared with all.

It will make it alot easier to manage then creating another script etc.Also when migrating  from avaya there are few features that they will loose however gains are much higher so they will have to live with it.

[Adan Zuniga]

Thanks Deepak,

The thing is that those users do not only privileges to forward a single phone, but every single phone on the system. 

I do share your opinion that they do have to get used to the new features. The only issue is that if the users do not get this feature it means that we will be on-call 24/7 just to forward phones. lol.

[Jaime Valencia]

If they're going to have jabber, they can look into MRA and they can adjust the forward settings that way.

[Adan Zuniga]

Thank you Jaime. I have not heard about MRA before. I will look into it. 

[Ryan Huff]

In my opinion, this gets to the heart of the differences in security models between Avaya UC and Cisco UC. Why should a user be able to adjust the CFwdAll setting of any DN in the system without having some sort of right or ownership to do so?

Reading your last reply, I'm curious why someone would need to be on call 24/7 to forward phones? I realize this extends the conversation into the organization's business process which you may not be able to reveal. However, if perhaps you can provide some context around why any DN may need CFwdALL at any random time, we may be able to help you address the issue through different methods.

For instance;

• Do the lines need only to forward internally, externally or both?
• Are these unattended lines and that is why someone has to forward them?
• What prevents the true line owner from having the responsibility to forward?
• What is the purpose of forwarding the line, applied to your context?

Thanks,

Ryan

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[Adan Zuniga]

Thank you for responding Ryan. Your questions are crucial to finding the right solution for our dilemma.  

Why should a user be able to adjust the CFwdAll setting of any DN in the system without having some sort of right or ownership to do so?

The users that will have right to do this are the Phone Operators for the entire institution. They are under the same manager as Telecomm. There are operators for all 3 shifts. Our entire institution is used to calling the operators to forward their phones or remove forwarding in case that they forgot to do so.

Reading your last reply, I'm curious why someone would need to be on call 24/7 to forward phones?

If the Operators do not have the capability to forward or unForward the DN, the only people that would be able to do so would be CUCM admins (3 of us). Anytime a person forgot to CFwALL their DN because their calls need to be routed elsewhere for the night or weekend they would need to page the person on call so that they do not have to drive back and forward their phones. We typically do not grant end users access to the Self Care portal.

• Do the lines need only to forward internally, externally or both?
• Both
• Are these unattended lines and that is why someone has to forward them?
• The lines are not unattended. The user may not be by the phone when they realized that they needed to forward or unforward the calls. That is the most common scenario for us having to change forward settings for a user. 
• What prevents the true line owner from having the responsibility to forward?
• They might have forgot to do this for the night, weekend or holiday and they are away from the institution.
• What is the purpose of forwarding the line, applied to your context?
• Some departments route their calls to another department or an external number for the night, weekend, or holiday.

Thanks,

Adan

[Ryan Huff]

Adan,

I think your solution may be found in a variety of ways, up to and including some process changes for end users. When you make such a significant platform change, some end user change is just unavoidable.

Here are four ways that I feel could be of benefit to your scenario.

For single user lines

• Time of Day routing (at scale, would probably create a large dialplan as each DN would need two entries with a pseudo DN on the IP phone and also assumes the number forwarded to, would always be the same).
• This would work by creating a time schedule/period for two different route partitions.
• In the "on" period, one partition would contain all the DNs received from the CUBE gateway/trunk as translation patterns and use the Called Party Transform mask to forward calls to pesudo DNs on the IP phones.
• In the "off" partition, the same DNs would exist, but the Called Party Transform Mask would direct the call to the desired forwarded number for that DN (and assumes the translation pattern uses a CSS that has access to an egress route pattern).

• Single Number Reach (SNR) This is a feature that essentially rings a predetermined destination after a configurable number of attempts at calling the IP desk phone. This is a per-user configuration and can be managed administratively or by the end user. Again, sticking with the theme of the destination forwarded number not changing often.

For group / department lines

• Unity Connection System Call Handlers with Schedules Assuming that you have Unity Connection in play, you could create call handlers that automatically transfer to different extensions based on schedules

• Hunt Pilots Using native Communications Manager capabilities, create a hunt pilot that rings a group of phones but if unanswered by any member, forwards to another destination

Thanks,

Ryan

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