Configuring Unity Directory Handler for President to Secretary

[rrister]

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out how to do this and I'm pretty much stumped. We've got a directory handler configured in Unity for people to type the Last Name, First Name so they can find the user they wish to reach. This is based off of the voicemail accounts and our President has her voicemail hidden from the directory, but recently she states she wants to be listed in the directory but have it go to her secretary and not her. How would I go about achieving this? It seems the alternate names are there but only work for when the directory handler is voice enabled which we don't utilize.    

[lindborg]

Easiest way to do this is to create a new user that has the same first/last name as the president, but an undialable extension (think 20 character long string no one would accidentally dial), have it listed in the directory but under the Message Actions settings for that user have it set to relay the inbound voice messages to the SMTP address of the secretary.  You can also, of course, setup the transfer string for that dummy user to ring the secretary's phone as well if that's what you want to happen...

of course since this user is listed in the directory when employees go to send her a message they will find this user as well which may or may not be what you want (not sure if she's hiding from external or internal users).  If the desire is for the "real" user to be found internally but not be found by external calls you can tuck that dummy user into a partition of it's own and create a search space that includes the existing partition and this dummy partition and have that used for the directory handler so outside callers will reach them using this mechanism - employees are part of the standard partition and will therefore not find the president by name as is the case today.

or vice versa if the other way is what they want...

[lindborg · Accepted solution]

...or, come to think of it, you can just create a contact that's listed in the directory and have it transfer to the extension of the secretary - folks that find the name in the directory and select it will ring that phone and be forwarded to the secretary's voice message box on busy/rna - doesn't use a license this way (contacts are not licensed) - if ringing the secretary's phone in that case is what you want.

[rrister]

Lindborg you are brilliant! That's exactly what I'm looking for and I just tested it and it works. Thank you so very much. I was fiddling around with a few things and thought about doing a contact but didn't see a place for extension when  you mentioned it I realized it wouldn't ask about that until the next screen. Silly me, thank you so much!

[r.stockton]

Resurrecting an old one here.

I have multiple Directory Handlers (Unity Cx 10.5). Creating a contact will work if I dial a Call Handler that points to the System Directory Handler, but does not work if I dial a Call Handler that points to a custom Directory Handler ("No matching names, try a different spelling").

I've matched the Partition on the custom DH to that of the System DH for t-shooting.

Search Scope "Entire Server" <--- EDIT: Viewing incorrect DH - Scope is actually a Distribution List - will check and update this post for future generations

"List in Directory" is checked.

Search order "last name,fn"

No extension is configured for the Custom DH (could this be it?)

The custom DH is voice enabled, but I've disabled for t-shooting.

Suggestions?

[r.stockton]

To anyone that reads this.  Yep, for me it was that the Custom Directory Handler was pointing to a Distribution List.  This meant I could not use the Contact method, instead, I created a new user "smithj_alt" with a mailbox and pointed his number to the secretary's number, then added "smithj_alt" to the distro list, then removed "smithj" from the directory (uncheck "list in directory").

I did leave the original smithj in the distro list in case this list was being used for some sort of broadcast VM or something.

All hail seemingly dead threads.