Unity 3.1x Call Routing

[tmaurello_2]

I'm trying to determine the best way to give Unity control over incoming calls. I have CallManager 3.2 and Unity 3.1.4.

I have a pilot point/hunt group configured to handle calls into the customer's main number. Right now, CallManager simply sends the call directly to the pilot point. By doing this, I lost control over a lot of things. I understand that I should send the call through Unity first, so time-of-day and other call routing/handler properties can be applied. I'm not sure what is the best way do accomplish this.

The customer wants all incoming calls, during normal business hours, to be handled by a human. If no receptionist are available, a "standard" greeting/call handler menu will play with the typical options (dial the extension, dial-by-name, etc.). After hours, a "closed" greeting/call handler will kick in.

I've been playing around with route points in CallManager and call handlers and Call Routing Rules in Unity without much luck. No matter what I do, the standard opening greeting always picks up if I try to send the calls to Unity first.

[afuller]

You can configure a CTI route point to handle the incoming call from the PSTN, and hand it off to your opening greeting or custom greeting. There you'll have a call routing rule that will "Attempt transfer to" the call handler (which is the default for the opening greeting). If you decide to make your changes to the opening greeting, you don't have to create any extra call routing rules.

Once there, during business hours, you can configure the call handler to simply push the call to a hunt group back on Call Manager. This is configured on the call transfer page of the call handler. Under the standard call transfer rule, set the "transfer incoming call" option to "Yes, ring this extension." This is where you put in the extension of the hunt group on call manager. If none of the receptionists are available to take the call, it'll automatically get pulled back into Unity and to a prompt to record a greeting.

At this call transfer page, you might want to change the transfer type to "Supervise transfer" and up the number of rings a bit so the call doesn't keep falling back into leave-a-message mode if the receptionists don't pick up in time.

When night time comes and no one is in the office to take calls, the schedule will go to the closed call transfer page, so make sure that's set to "No, send directly to this handler's greeting" under "Transfer incoming calls." It will then play the closed greeting, and the "After greeting" setting should be set to whatever you want it to do (hang up, take a message, go to another call handler/subscriber, etc.).

All of this requires no changes to the call routing rules if you decide to use the opening greeting for the handler that takes the call. All the configuration is done on the handler instead. Oh, and don't forget the schedule as well. Make sure you've got the proper schedule assigned to the opening greeting.

[tmaurello_2]

I had everything setup as you recommend, and the call was still going to the regular Opening Greeting. After digging through my config, I figured out that I had a subscriber extension the same as the pilot point. I'm sure that this was confusing to Unity.

I changed the pilot point and it seems to be working now. I don't even have a call routing rule. I created a new handler and gave it an extension to match the CTI route point. SInce the route point is set to Forward All to Unity, it looks like this handler gets triggered since the extensions match.

On a related note, after the greeting I want to give the option to leave a message. Can I put that message in a specific mailbox, or does it always go to the Example Administrator?

[lindborg]

You can dictate which subscriber or public distribution list recieves messages for a call handler (or an interview handler for that matter) by setting the "message recipient" on the message page of the call handler in the SA.