IPO 500 v2 Forwarding / Work Remotely Help

[jceo]

IP Office Running 8.1(95) with all digital phones. Essential and office worker licenses.

I am trying to figure out a call forwarding solution, particularly for hunt group members. Basically we need people to work from home due to coronavirus. Here are some things I have tried and why I can't seem to get them to work. Please correct me if I am wrong:

-Mobile twinning: We no longer have a PRI and just POTS lines so I believe PRI/SIP is a requirement for twinning?

-One-X via VPN: apparently this is not a soft phone and can only control desk phone functions.

-Avaya soft phone: I can give employees laptops with VPN access and soft phone, however we don't seem to have teleworker or power user licenses although we supposedly have 4 free remote worker licenses that came with the system at that time. Not sure remote worker licenses would work for soft phone. I am trying to buy power licenses but we need to upgrade to 11 and buy power licenses too. Cant buy R8 licenses any more. Waiting for a quote.

-IP Phones over VPN: I ordered some 9608 IP phones and POE injectors. I could share VPN from a laptop at employee's house. I hear that I need separate licenses for IP phones so this probably wouldn't work either.

-Forward to cell/home phone: The simplest option but I am concerned if I have two or three receptionists getting customer calls in a hunt group, how can the forwarding work? If they received a forwarded call on their cell and did not pick up after X rings, there is no way to bring the call back to the phone system to ring another extension correct? Would it just go to their cell VM?

I appreciate any help! We are a tiny IT department with minimal resources. Thank you!

 

[DavidCT]

Using analog lines severely limits you. Your only option in this scenario is the 9608 phones utilizing a VPN. No special licenses are required, but you do need enough Avaya IP endpoint licenses.

What you really need to do is:

- Upgrade to r11
- Add SIP trunks to your system
- Utilize Mobile Twinning

The next step up from this is once you are on r11 and have SIP trunks, get some power user licenses and download the Avaya IX Workplace app. This can be your soft phone and requires nothing more than the Power User license and a r11 IP Office.

Get with an Avaya Business Partner ASAP, this is not a complicated upgrade.

Proactive Business IT Support | Cybersecurity | On-premise and Hosted VoIP

https://www.canaantechnology.com

 

[jceo]

Thanks David, very much appreciated. Trying to get licenses but there is a big backlog.

Does anyone know a way to call forward (cell/outside line) to users in a hunt group and have the call come back to the hunt group if the person does not pick up their cell? I know the hunt group has to be sequential or rotary, that much makes sense.

 

[Qzwsa]

The issue you will have is the IPO flags the call as "answered" as soon as it connects to another outside POTS line. This is why mobile twinning doesn't work properly with POTS. Once that call is "answered" the IPO no longer monitors it so there's no progression through the list of agents. It will also prevent apology messages and voicemail box from playing/answering. Here's another monkey wrench - how will your agents log in / out of the group?


According to (the way I read) the documentation, office worker licenses on essential should allow you to use the Avaya Flare application as a VoIP endpoint for those users. Have you tried that?


The COVID-19 work-from-home concept is great but many sites did not anticipate it and don't have the licenses or hardware in place to support it. For the last two days I've done nothing but explain to people why their workarounds are not functionally the same as a proper WfH deployment. Of course, no one wants to spend money on something that A) is going to screw the already poor economy here and hard; and B) is a once in 20 years event that will (fingers crossed) be over come summer.

- Qz

 

[pccsipoffice]

I would like to add to the conversation.

Two quick options:

With pots lines, the only immediate option is to call forward individual extensions to a cell phone.
You need the lines assigned to the phone set to make this work.

You could provide employees with a burner flip phone cell phones. You record the mailbox greeting to be what you want it to be. (If you need immediate assistance call....)

Set your hunt group fail over to a AA that gives the callers options to transfer themselves to your employees desk phone...... call forward to the burner.

2nd option. Get a new IP office with the email option for voice mail to email and use it instead.

Dumping money into a 8.0 is probably not that great an option.

Problem solved.
Quick.