Outbound call "rollover" when line is in use

[seanscott83]

I have a scenario where I have multiple phones in a family office where we want to reproduce an older analog system where if line 1 is in use, and someone else goes to a different phone to make an outbound call, the phone realizes that line 1 is in use and makes the call on line 2. While there are definitely better ways to solve our problem with cucm, we're essentially trying to replicate the behavior of a 20 year old Avaya analog PBX.

We're using 7861 phones so we can control what each button label says since the 8861's had sub-optimal (for our users) call labels during incoming calls and existing calls.

Here's the line layout that we'd have on every phone in the home. Again, there is an end user requirement of every phone having identical button layouts.

• Line 1 - 1001 - "Outbound 1"
• Line 2 - 1002 - " Outbound 2"
• Line 3 - 1003 - "Outbound 3"
• Line 4 - 1004 - "Inbound"

Currently we have the following behavior:

1. Fred picks up Phone 1 and makes and outbound call on Line 1
2. Bill picks up Phone 2 and makes an outbound call on Line 1
3. Bill asks John to barge into a call on "Line 1"
4. John presses Line 1 on Phone 3 and is prompted on the phone screen to choose which call on Line 1 to barge in on and he must use the arrow keys and select button

We'd like user 3 to not have to follow any on-screen prompts and simply join by a single button press. I imagine the workflow as follows:

1. Fred picks up Phone 1 and makes and outbound call on Line 1
2. Bill picks Phone 2  and makes an outbound call. The phone sees there is a call on Line 1 so it automatically goes off-hook on Line 2 and uses it for the outbound call
3. Bill looks down at the phone and sees his call went out on Line 2, so he asks John to barge into Line 2
4. John simply presses the Line 2 button on Phone 3 to single button barge into the call

For end-user simplicity (and default behavior of the phones that don't auto-select the first line after using another line), I have to have the "Always Use Prime Line" option set to true. We also thought about making the "maximum number of calls" setting to 1 to force the user to use another line if it's in use, but this breaks call barging.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Sean

[Moshfiqur Rahman]

Hi Sean,

I had similar scenario in my previous job.
Please try below.

Create separate partition for all 4 lines, example PT-1001; PT-1002;PT-1003 and PT-1004

DN 1001 will be on PT-1001 on first line of all 4 phones DN 1002 will be on PT-1002 on second line of all 4 phones
DN 1003 will be on PT-1003 on 3rd line of all 4 phones
DN 1004 will be on PT-1004 on 4th line of all 4 phones

first lines of all phone
set max calls =4 and busy trigger = 1
set Forward Busy Internal & External to 1002; Set CSS for forwarding, place PT-1002 in that CSS
2nd lines of all phone
set max calls =4 and busy trigger = 2
set Forward Busy Internal & External to 1003; Set CSS for forwarding, place PT-1003 in that CSS
3rd lines of all phone
set max calls =4 and busy trigger = 2 (can be higher)
set Forward Busy Internal & External to 1004; Set CSS for forwarding, place PT-1004 in that CSS
4^th lines of all phone
set max calls =4 and busy trigger = 2 (can be higher)

Call forwarding over to next line is an option, thus they will not miss calls for a particular line if that line exceed busy trigger. 

Please note: Second line of 3^rd phone will not see two line while barge-in because they are in different partition

Please rate as helpful if applicable

[seanscott83]

Thanks for the quick, detailed reply, Moshfiqur. In our corporate cucm we use partitions in that same way to allow multiple inbound calls on individual DNs to "overflow" to a different line button.

Can you confirm that your suggestion also works for outbound as well? The busy trigger makes sense as a way to tell the next incoming call to forward to the DN on the next partition, but I'm just wondering if that setting (or something else) would tell the phone to off-hook the the next available DN for making outbound calls, while still leaving the "always use prime line" option enabled.

Thanks again!

[Moshfiqur Rahman]

Hi Sean,

You are welcome!
According to this settings, first line of all 4 phones can have only one active call at a time (in or out). At that time next incoming calls will be rolling over to second and next.

You can set busy trigger = 4 on first line, that will allow to others to make outbound call using first line.

if Bill wants John to barge-in to his outbound call, he can manually select his second line while he make outbound call. John will not see Fred's call during barge.

you do not need to disable "always use prime line" , Just need some training for end-user.  

Please rate as helpful if applicable

[Moshfiqur Rahman]

Hi Sean, Thanks for rating my solution. I will be very happy if you please mark as correct answer.

[seanscott83]

Moshfiqur,

I configured things as you recommended today and this works as expected for inbound calls, but doesn't seem to work for outbound. Here's the behavior after configuring as you recommended.

1. Fred places an outbound call on phone 1 using the default DN1001(1001_pt). The 1001 in-use indicator is lit on all other phones that have DN1001 as their primary line
2. Bill sees the 1001, in-use LED on phone 2 but simply picks up the handset and places an outbound call. The phone does not automatically go off-hook on 1002(1002_pt), but rather places a second call on 1001(1001_pt).

I understand that Bill could look down and see an existing call on 1001 and manually select the 1002 line to make the outbound call, but we're hoping for an automatic rollover for outbound to mimic the old analog system that cucm is replacing.

Separately, it looks like this was a feature in call manager express, so I'm wondering if there is an analogous feature on cucm. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucme/admin/configuration/guide/cmeadm/cmeautol.html

Thanks,
Sean

[Moshfiqur Rahman · Accepted solution]

Hi Sean,

I am sorry for delay. I was so busy. Well, Today I am working from home, so I just created the whole scenario in my home lab.

If Bill goes off-hook while Fred is using first line, only first line will be selected automatically on Bill's phone.
I did some research, asked about this to ex Colleagues are at Cisco.
No luck, so far there is no way to get second or third line selected by going off hook unless you have incoming call ringing on any of them and"always use prime line" disabled"

you have "always use prime line" enabled which  is not recommended as you have multiple lines programmed, in case there is an incoming call on the second line and user just lifts the hand-set to answer that call, the call will not be answered,  has to manually press second  button.

As I mentioned earlier, Bill has to select second line manually in order to make outbound call from second line and John will be able to barge him in without seeing Fred's line.

Please mark the answer as correct if applicable.   

[Karl Ludwig]

Did you ever figure out a way to make this work for the outbound calls?