One-touch forwarding of 2 exts to rotating hybrid staff 1

[chippowell]

Hi, I’m trying to figure out a one-touch or very-low-touch way for the Telecom admin staff to forward two extensions to a rotating employee each week. The rotating employee is not an agent, so we don’t want to build an ACD queue for this.

Ext 1 and ext 2 do not live on desk phones, but are configured as 9611’s. Each week, we want all calls to Exts 1 and 2 to ring directly to a different employee. The employee has a desk phone, but is only onsite a couple of days a week, and likely using EC500 when they are offsite. A bridged appearance of Ext 2 on Ext 1 doesn’t seem to follow the Ext 1 forwarding or the employee’s EC500. Ext 1 works fine.

I know I can use Console Permissions to forward both extensions to the employee every week, but I was looking for a one-touch or lower-touch method for our team. I created a VDN and Vector, but I don’t know how to tell the vector to forward a phone or unforward it.

Ideas?

 

[ZeroZeroOne]

I'm not sure how many different employees rotate in answering the calls. Could you program different buttons to call-forward Ext1 and Ext2 to the Rotating Employees?
Example: *01 is the FAC for Call-Forward All and *02 is the FAC for deactivating. The phone would need a COS with Console Permissions.
Auto-dial *01~p[ext1]~p[Employee1]
Auto-dial *01~p[ext2]~p[Employee1]
Auto-dial *01~p[ext1]~p[Employee2]
Auto-dial *01~p[ext2]~p[Employee2]

You could use the system abbreviated dialing list to assign labels if the "Console" phone can't be labeled directly.

Depending on the voicemail system, you could set up Out-Calling for a Mailbox and give the Rotating Employees access to change the Notification Number. So the call comes in to Ext 1 or 2, covers to VM, and then dials out to the Employee that is covering.

Or, perhaps turn your Ext1 and Ext 2 into VDNs and have a Vector with a Variable that determines which Employee answers. If you have Enhanced Vectoring then you can use system variables. Otherwise, you'll need to update the VDNs for the Exts and change V1 to the appropriate Employee.

Just some ideas for you.

 

[chippowell]

Thank you for the great suggestions, Zero Zero One. I like your voicemail idea, but we don't want the employees to do this themselves. We also have off-net outcalling turned off, and I'd rather not turn it on for these two extensions.

I haven't messed around with vectors and variables in quite a while, but I remember how powerful they are. I set a doy (day of year) variable and built this test vector around it and it seems to work. So my plan would be to turn my Ext 1 and Ext 2 stations into VDN's and point them to this vector. I'll populate the steps from 73 onward with the employees' real extension numbers (it's only about 10 people). The tough part will be filling out that WC variable for all the Mondays of the year, and it will need to be redone every year at the end of the calendar year. But I'm thinking this will be easier than having to do the forwarding commands every single Monday morning forever.

A problem I see is when they'll inevitably want to shift the schedule. I'll have to tinker with those route-to steps to match the covering employee to the variable.

Does it seem overly complicated? Am I missing an easier way to "set it and forget it" (-ish)?

[tt] Number: NNN Name: Fwd Test Vector
Multimedia? n Attendant Vectoring? n Meet-me Conf? n Lock? n
Basic? y EAS? y G3V4 Enhanced? y ANI/II-Digits? y ASAI Routing? y
Prompting? y LAI? y G3V4 Adv Route? y CINFO? y BSR? y Holidays? y
Variables? y 3.0 Enhanced? y

01 wait-time 1 secs hearing ringback
02 goto step 73 if WC < 204 ##Sunday, July 23##
03 goto step 74 if WC < 211 ##Sunday, July 30, etc.##
04 goto step 75 if WC < 218
05 ##etc...##

73 route-to number 5500 ##Employee 1## cov y if unconditionally
74 route-to number 5501 ##Employee 2, etc.## cov y if unconditionally
75 route-to number 5502 cov y if unconditionally
76 ##etc.##

91 stop
92 disconnect after announcement none[/tt]

 

[avayaguy23]

Would not recommend using out calling (reach me/follow me) if you are outpulsing the originating callers ani. Most carriers will block it. If you use a route to statement in vectors I would recommend implementing tandem trunks.

 

[ZeroZeroOne]

10 Remote Employees in the rotation? What about setting up a Holiday Table for each Remote Employee where each line has the week they are on call:

change holiday-table 1                                          Page   1 of   1
                                 HOLIDAY TABLE

    Number: 1              Name: Bill's Weeks

    ______START_______     _______END________
    Month Day Hour Min     Month Day Hour Min     Description
    07    03  00   00      07    07  23   59      Week 1
    07    31  00   00      08    04  23   59      Week 2
...

Then your Vector would go to the correct number based on the Holiday Table:

13 goto step    20            if holiday          in     table 1
14 goto step    22            if holiday          in     table 2
...
20 #    Route to Bill
21 route-to     number 5000                     cov y if unconditionally
22 #    Route to Joe
23 route-to     number 5001                     cov y if unconditionally

You'd have to keep the Holiday-tables up to date if there was a schedule change but with 14 entries each, I would think that to be enough for the year.

 

[chippowell]

Thanks ZeroZeroOne. I like the holiday table idea. I'll take a look.

AvayaGuy23, would you mind saying more about your "route to" concerns?

Appreciate this forum!

 

[ZeroZeroOne]

An alternative would be to set Variable WC:

change variables wc                                             Page  34 of  39
                              VARIABLES FOR VECTORS

Var Description                 Type    Scope Length Start Assignment       VAC

WB
WC  On-Call Employee            collect G     4      1     5000
WD

Then your Vector would basically be one step:

02 route-to     number WC                       cov y if unconditionally

This would require changing the value of WC each week. It's simple but does require more hands-on running the "change var wc" command.

You could get fancy and set up another VDN/Vector that asks for a password (for security), asks for the on-call Employees number, and updates the value of WC. That way you or another authorized user (who knows the password) could make the change.

02 collect      6    digits after announcement 1234     for none
03 goto step    6             if digits           =      123456
04 disconnect   after announcement none
05
06 collect      4    digits after announcement 1235     for none
07 set          WC     = none   ADD   digits
08

I'd make it a bit more fancy than just that but hopefully you get the idea.

Edit: Typo.

 

[avayaguy23]

if you use a route to statement going off pbx to say a cell phone, this call doesn't go through the public unknown table. VDN/Vector going off-pbx must go through a tandem trunk. Generally, you will need to build a SIP trunk that has Modify Tandem Calling Number enabled. The off-pbx cell phone number must be entered in your ARS All table and a route pattern build so it goes out that newly build Tandem SIP trunk and outpulse a number you own. This is all due to Stir/Shaken:

https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentica...at all,are not originating illegal robocalls.

Below is more information on the tandem trunks:

https://documentation.avaya.com/bundle/CMScreenReference_R8.0/page/tandem_calling_party_number.html