Can Hunt Groups be answered by an Auto Attendant?

[edoo]

Question:
I have calls coming in on a DID forwarded from the prime set to a Hunt Group. How can I have un-answered calls go to the Auto Attendant greeting instead of going to the Voice Mail of the prime set?

Hardware:
Norstar MICS Rel 6.0
Norstar Voice Mail 4.0

Symptoms:
[li]Call gets routed from DID to Prime Set to HG02 correctly and rings like normal.[/li]
[li]Call is answered after 3 rings and goes directly to General Delivery Mailbox. (undesirable)[/li]
[li]If Call Forward to the hunt group is turned off, the Prime Set (221) rings like normal and after 3 rings, gets answered by AA w/ AA greeting. This is what it should do and what I want it to do when forwarded to the HG02. Is this possible?[/li]

Setup:
[li]I have a DID ringing to a set (x221) which has Call Forward set to HG02 (x708)[/li]
[li]DID is set to Line 166 w/ prime set of 221[/li]
[li]Set 221 has no FNA[/li]
[li]HG02 has 2 members. Both members have no FNA. HG02 has no line assignments.[/li]
[li]HG02 has time out of 60 seconds, overflow to itself.[/li]
[li]AA is set to answer line 166 after 3 rings.[/li]
[li]AA does not use CCR.[/li]

Other Stuff I've tried with no success:
[li]Set AA to answer lines for: x221's target lines, HG02's target line, HG02's members target lines, DID's target lines.[/li]
[li]Set line assignments for HG02 for all target lines involved.[/li]
[li]Turn off all FNA for all sets involved.[/li]

 

[luv2ski]

ata/ext in hunt group back fed to a spare trunk x rings to aa

 

[edoo]

luv2ski,

Thanks for the quick reply. Would you mind explaining a little further what you mean by back feeding an ata/ext to a spare trunk?

I belive we have a spare trunk available. We are only using 3 of the 4 lines on the trunk card which goes to lines 61-64. Line 64 would be the available trunk line.

Much appreciated...

 

[luv2ski]

back feed dialtone from ata to trunk module so ext is trunk 61 then rings 3 times to auto att may need a few ata's and trunks ... may want to make lines only appear on prime set and do it all with hunt groups..hunt groups programmed correctly should not follow fna and hta of ringing sets with that in mind try sending overflow back to vm dn and see if that works before ata thingy mcbob

 

[edoo]

Mcbob,

I can't believe it works! It's a round-about work-around but I understand how it works. Very creative. Thanks.

There seems to be one side effect. An un-answered call gets routed to the AA perfectly. After the call is terminated, apox 30-45 seconds pass then x221 gets an incoming call on line 64. There is nobody on this line, (of course) because it's the call from the ata/ext. Line 64 has no PimeSet. Why would it be routed to x221? As a fix for this side effect, can I set x221 to only appear line 64? Is this what you were referring to in your last reply?

Now that I'm thinking about it more, I will neet to set up more than one ata/ext. (Just like you said.) Each ata/ext is only capable of handling one call into the AA. I should probably setup 4, since that's the max ports on our VM.

Thanks again...

 

[jerryreeve]

I think this may be similar to what you are trying to do:

Mroberts posted this awhile back:

How to create virtual DN:

Well, you can go plug a phone into a jack and temporarily punch it down on the pair appropriate for the virtual extension i.e.. 300. Then assign the target line for that person's personal DID to the phone. Then do a line redirect (Feature 84), press the target line button, then press the IC button, then your destination code to get out (9), then the number you want to forward the calls to (cell phone or other outside number).
You can then remove the phone and the cross-connects and proceed with the next number.
Now, I haven't had good luck with hard call forwarding a phone to a mailbox and then removing the phone. It eventually says "not in service". The way I have gotten around that is to assign the target line to a hunt group (707) then make the first port of the voicemail (feature 985) the only member of the hunt group. Then create mailbox 707 and assign it to extension 707. So that the target line rings the group, which rings the voicemail. The voicemail sees the mailbox attached to the group and plays the personal greeting.
But the only draw back would be that it is an either or situation. Either the person has their calls automatically forwarded outside the system OR they have the call go straight to their mailbox.
Now if you choose the second scenario and have a NAM voicemail you could do an Outbound transfer from the mailbox. The person would record their personal greeting saying, "Hi this is Melissa, leave me a message after the tone or press 7 to be transferred to my cell phone."

Or,
If you can dedicate a phone (an old one, beat to death works here too), hang it in the phone room and assign answer keys of your phantom DNs to this phone. The number of answer keys your system can assign is based on its software release and version. Then program the phantoms like real phones. Because the phones now have an appearance in the system they will work steadily. We haven't tested external call forward but have tested all other routing to Voice Mail.
Or,
THIS WILL WORK BUT THE INCOMING DIGITS MUST MATCH THE MAILBOX DIGITS, ANOTHER WORDS IF YOU HAVE 4 DIGITS INCOMING YOUR MAILBOX HAS TO BE 4 DIGITS.
Line Programming:
1. Build a Target line, example: 145
2. Enter customer received digits, example: 4598
3. Prime Set: None
Hunt Group Programming:
4. Select a Hunt Group number (1-30)
5. Accept the default Hunt Group Extension that is associated with the Hunt Group
number or make a new one.
6. Add a Member DN to be that of the NAM Voicemail DN.
7. Under Line Assignment, assign the Target Line to the Hunt Group.
8. Shorten the Time Out Que to be the lowest, 15 seconds (default = 60)
9. Make the Overflow extension to be the NAM Voicemail DN.
Mailbox Programming:
10. ADD a guest mailbox
11. Make the Extension of the mailbox to be the Hunt Group Extension


JerryReeve
Communications Systems Int'l
com-sys.com