Unity and Variable Length Extentions/Dial Plan

[kleo]

I have a Avaya switch that is running both 4 and 5 digit extentions and I want to connect a new unity 4.x for voicemail. Any issue with running variable length extentions in unity?

Also i will be eventually transitioning all the avaya users to a 5 digit dial plan. Any issues in the future when chaning a 4 digit mailbox to 5 ?

[lindborg · Accepted solution]

As long as the extensions are unique, you can have mixed lengths no problem - 3, 4, 5, 10 - go wild.

No problem changing them after the fact. The only restrictions are 3 digit minimum (I forget the maximum off hand - it's like 30 digits), and they have to be unique in the dialing domain - that's it.

[eschulz]

Since you'll be integrating with an Avaya PBX there's one other thing to watch out for. If you use a PBXLink for call info integration, it uses SMDI which pads extensions on the left with a zero character. In most cases this is not a problem. However, it can cause complications if you plan to use extensions that begin with a zero. For example, by default Unity will take 0000123 from SMDI to be x123 and 0001234 to be x1234. If you've also got an x0123, then things get complicated.

[srichardson]

Jeff,

Aren't there problems in Unity with matching timeouts if there is overlap in the beginning part of a subscriber ID? For instance if I have ID 4578 and ID 45786, won't that cause trouble? I know this is specifically addressed for networking, but does it also apply to extensions in one Unity box? Thank you and sorry for adding to this.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_feature_guide_chapter09186a008011a5b2.html#wp1064655

[srichardson]

Jeff,

Aren't there problems in Unity with matching timeouts if there is overlap in the beginning part of a subscriber ID? For instance if I have ID 4578 and ID 45786, won't that cause trouble? I know this is specifically addressed for networking, but does it also apply to extensions in one Unity box? Thank you and sorry for adding to this.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_feature_guide_chapter09186a008011a5b2.html#wp1064655

[lindborg]

There wont be any behavior differences for dialing an ID if there's overlapping numbers or not - we always wait for a terminator ("#") or the inter digit timeout (by default 1500 ms) regardless. We don't terminate and go automatically if you dial an ID (or a name or whatever) once it gets to a unique match. The logic is the same regardless and, as a result, the user experience is the same regardless.

This applies to dialing IDs from the auto attendant or addressing messages by ID or whatever - issues with addressing to users in a networked setup are a bit different, of course, given the large list of matches that could potentially have to be given to users when addressing - which is what you need to be careful with when planning a large, multiple system deployment.