I have an issue trying to determine the best way to route inbound calls into our organization. This boils back to the age old problem of regular Hunt Pilots vs. Attendant Console Pilot Points.
The situation is I have operations staff that are responsible for not only their work (accounting, etc.) but also answering the phone. I also have a dedicated reception whose responsibility is answering the phone but the desk is not always manned (which is why our operations staff has to answer the phones).
I need a system that is hierarchical in fashion, ringing a specific group of phones, and then if no one answers I need the next group to ring (a Hunt Pilot seems great for this doesn't it? Not exactly.)
I also need a system that works with an application like the Cisco Attendant Console. Now my staff is currently using the AC, and it works (albeit not TAC supported); however, when the call rolls from line group to line group in the hunt list the Attendant Console gives an error that says "Failed to make new call." I know that text is a bug that people have talked about before, and I understand that it is an issue trying to use hunt pilots with the Attendant Console which is supposed to use Pilot Points. All this I get.
I tried using Broadcast Hunting in the Pilot Point for the Attendant Console. The problem I ran into with that is that all the staff saw the call coming in and they weren't sure who was supposed to pick up (which is why I originally had a hierarchical fashion with the Hunt Pilot). And I thought about linking Pilot Points together so reception would see it first and then at the end of the hold time it would roll into another broadcast hunting AC Pilot Point, which would include more AC users, notifying them of the incoming call, and that it had already gone through reception.
The problem that I run into with linked Pilot Points is the fact that with that setup it always goes through every pilot point. The system needs to be fast, going to the staff that is on hand at that time to take the call. The caller should not hear ringing for 20 seconds before the first phone is notified here.
Which is why Hunt Pilots work great because I can login/logout with the HLog button on a phone so they can individually remove themselves from inbound calling if they are away from their desk (or gone home for the day).
The problem with Hunt Pilots is the fact that I cannot use Call Pickup Groups if someone wants to pickup the call that is ringing on another person's desk. They have to wait the timeout period before their phone is ringing as well.
And then the problem with the AC Pilot Points is the fact that the phones don't ring with broadcast hunting. Picking up a call from the broadcast window takes away too much time (and being prompted by a pop-up window that activates every time a call comes in) is too intrusive on the operations staff workflow.
So basically what I need is a system that can broadcast to multiple phones at the same time (but ring their phones, not just an application notification on a computer), ring in a hierarchical fashion so only certain phones ring, allow the users to logout so routing goes correctly to the on hand staff, and be supported by the Attendant Console (so parked calls can work correctly, etc. and to be in Cisco's good graces if I have problems) because the Attendant Console is a great application and the staff loves it.
If anyone is interested, I can attach a flowchart to make it more clear.
If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears. The biggest thing I'm surprised about is the fact that I can't use broadcast hunting WITHOUT a queue in the Attendant Console Pilot Points. Yes, the queue is nice, but it's not what I'm looking for and I can't uncheck the box. If I could, this would answer my problems right here. Phones would ring and if no answer after a certain amount of time it would be directed to my Unity Automated Attendant.
Thanks,
James
