How to Add External Contacts in Attendant Console 9.x Enterprise Edition?

[ErrorMagnet]

Help!

I simply can't find a way neither to import, nor to add manually, external contacts into an Attendant Console Enterprise Edition Directory.

User doc clearly says that the Attendant Console Directory can include both internal and external contacts, however in my case with the Enterprise Edition 9.x, configuring directory syncronization is limited to the CUCM directory only.

So far I've found no Add Contact feature in CUAC EE, and adding the contacts as users in CUCM will probably eat big amounts of licences.

Have i missed something here, or do this product have a serious lack of functionality?

 

[whykap]

You can add an LDAP directory integration at the administration web page under system configuration -> directory source management.
Then you will have dual sources

 

[zoomtech5]

There seems to be a greater lack of functionality with every version Cisco releases. I haven't used Attendant Console Enterprise 9.X yet, but I have Attendant Console Enterprise 8.6.2 and we use Active Directory integration, as well as the "speed dial" section in Attendant Console. Although, our CUEAC imports contacts from LDAP synced CUCM. There is a speed dial field that lets us manually input any number. I wonder if they took out that speed dial field?

 

[whykap]

Nope. Speed dials are still there. What functionality loss are you talking about?
You can integrate with cucm or ldap or both if you so wish.
As a matter of fact with 9.x premium edition they added a failover server option and with version 10 you can get a serverless option for single operators.

 

[ErrorMagnet]

Thanks for resposnes whykap and awginc,

I've found out this:

In Attendant Console 9.x, only the Premium Edition allows for synchronizing with external directories, and even then with very limited support.

In Attendant Console 9.x Enterprise Edition, the CUCM End User fields FIRST NAME, MIDDLE NAME, LAST NAME, USER ID, DEPARTMENT and TELEPHONE NUMBER are synchronized from CUCM to CUAC. Other Fields have to be populated manually from the Attendant Console Client, after the CUCM User appear as a contact in CUAC.

There seems to be no way of adding a new contact directly to the Attendant Console 9.x Enterprise Edition. CUCM End Users can however be imported to CUCM by means of BAT, which allows for importing big amounts of contacts that way. So far it seems that these users with no devices Associated, consume no licences from the CUCM.

Problem solved.

 

[whykap]

That's correct. No licenses consumed by users in cucm. Only devices.
Best practices (and would make sense so you wouldn't have to manage 2 directories) is to integrate CUAC directory with call manager. Then you can see phone status, etc. If CUAC requires LDAP integration then integrate CUCM with LDAP and let CUAC pull that off call manager.
Integrating CUAC directly with LDAP will result in some functionality loss.

Glad you got it worked out.