Remote phone log in for mobile workers

[knowlerp]

We are running Unity 4.2(1) with CCM 4.2 and may roll out IPCC at a future date.

Our legacy phone system (M110 and Teleware voicemail) had a facility whereby if

a user was working out of the office they could call from any PSTN line or mobile into the Teleware and

then tell the teleware to register that PSTN line or mobile as an extn number.

In this way anyone could call the extn number and it would go straight to the user.

We have tried replicating this functionality with Unity call handlers but this doesnt give the ability to call

in and register and it also makes it difficult if they want to change the number as it is reliant on them having network access

from their PC which is not always the case for someone who is driving all day.

Any ideas how we can do this ?

[knowlerp]

I'll have a dig around the system to see if I can see whats happening.

Is their some sort of a trace I could do on this or a check on the database ?

Thanks again for your assistance.

[knowlerp]

Spent the whole day on this today !

It appears that whatever I set the calls absolutley will not go to Voicemail after the mobile phone hasn't anwered the call.

Think maybe we'll put the old Teleware Voicemail back in as this seems to have Unity beat !

[lindborg]

um.... how, exactly, is Unity responsible for not having calls to your cell phone forward back to voice mail again?

Sounds like you need to get a TAC engineer to look at what you're doing - it sounds like you have the calls releasing to the cell phone and it's not forwarding (there is nothing whatsoever Unity can do about this).

Nothing about your scenario is tricky and nothing cannot be done by Unity and from versions from the late 1990s at that. You have a config/flow issue of somesort and I cannot help you without more details or being able to see your system.

You claim this works perfectly with call handlers. Really? ARe you %100 sure of this fact? If that's the case then you most definitely are not configuring your subscribers in the same way. If that's not the case then pull back and look at how your call is flowing.

I assume that:

1. the call comes into Unity.

2. The user dials the extension of a subscriber

3. they hear "please hold on while I try that extension"

4. The cell phone rings.

5. the call phone never forwards.

If that's accurate then Unity has released the call to the cell phone and it's out of Unity's hands.

If that call flow is not correct, then please correct it. You can use tools such as Port Status Monitor (found int he tools depot) to have the call flow more fully documented as you go through it. You may consider running that tool and making a call and posting the output so we can see the specifics of the flow of the call.

Understand your frustrated and I can care less if you want to take pot-shots at the product to vent some steam, but we can't help you without the details to know what's happening and we simply don't have that here. You should really consider opening a case with TAC and having someone help you out.

[knowlerp]

Jeff, I'm the last person to have a pot at Unity,I've been fighting its corner for several months now against almost the entire IT dept.

It is they who wan't to put the Teleware back in, I would really like to be able to support our users with Unity.

Today was a particularly bad day as most of our users did not want the old phone system taken out and are finding it "difficult" to adapt to the new one.

I have so far resolved a large number of issues with CCM and Unity for the end users and am trying very hard to turn around their perception of it but it can be quite difficult to be the only person standing up for it !

Anyway what we are trying to achieve is this,

1)Customer calls an extn on CCM if not answered call goes to unity.

2)Unity automatically forwards call to subscribers mobile.(Caller does not dial it).

3)Subsciber does not answer mobile, call reverts to Unity Voicemail and caller can leave a message.

Notes,

1)The Voicemail MUST NOT be left on the subscribers mobile.

2)If the subscriber decides, one morning, to work from home he should be able to dial into Unity and change the number that Unity dials from his mobile to his home phone or any other number he wants.

3)Subscribers must not be able to listen to emails via the TUI - We have sorted this bit.

Using the standard greeting to send the incoming call to a call handler we can send the call to the subscibers mobile and if not answered the call will revert to leave a message in the Unity Voicemail, however using this option the caller is unable to dial into Unity to change their phone number.

If I set the Call transfer rule in the Subscriber settings the Subscriber can dial in and change his number but calls that are not answered do not revert to Unity Voicemail you get "Extn 1234 is not available - please wait while I transfer your call" and it then sends the call to the Subscribers mobile again and does this loop ad infinitum until the caller hangs up.

I am setting "Supervise transfer,announce and confirm

[lindborg]

The last part of your post is what I'm interested in - I really want to know how you have your handlers and subscribers setup because your description is odd.

The transfer rules are processed FIRST, not after the greeting. So if the caller is hearing "extension 1234 is not available" then the transfer rule is already been processed and handed off to the greeting rule - and the after greeting action is probably set to go somewhere else such as a call handler instead of "Take message". Posting the output from the Port Status Monitor I noted earlier would probably verify this.

I'm curious about details on your call handler config that works. What extension is assigned to the subscriber? What extension (if any) to the call handler? Is the standard greeting set to blank and then configured in the after greeting action to "attempt to ring phone for" the call handler? This is what I'm assuming... further assuming the call handler is setup for supervised transfer and it takes a message and the message recipient is configured for the subscriber in question, right? I don't see how else this could work...

Also, the piece where you have the outside call forwarding into Unity and then immediately boomeranging out to another phone is probably where this is breaking down. By default when a call forwards into Unity it's going to skip trying to ring a phone on the object it forwards to - this is to prevent transfer loops - you can fool it by using the after greeting action to loop back around but you can then get into a loop which actually sounds like what you may have done.

it might be worth your time to review a couple sections on call handler flow from this doc:

http://www.ciscounitytools.com/Applications/Audio%20Text%20Applications%20in%20Unity.doc#_Toc27135895

The immediate boomberang transfer here is the tricky bit - allowing it, and the user to edit the transfer string and avoiding transfer loops with one object is probably not doable - in Connection use can use personal call transfer rules (i.e. find-me-follow me features) but this module is not available in Unity. You might be able to pull this off with a call handler used in a different way, but I need to verify all my assumptions about what you're doing currently.