Outside forwarding problem

[jsaul30]

This may get a bit confusing, but stick with me on this one..

I had a user (the owner of the entire company, no less...) call me today saying that when he forwards his cell phone to his DID line on his office phone, his voice mailbox is not picking up the call. Instead, it seems to be going to the general sign-in as if he had pressed the * key to access his own mailbox. Has anyone else had any scenarios like this?

The other problem that I have had is that the call-forward no-answer doesn't work quite right when the forwarding is set to dial out to a cell phone. When a call comes in and is forwarded out to the user's cell phone (only on no-answer mind you, forward-all worked fine!!!) the calling party heard only ringing, while the person receiving the call on his cell phone could hear the calling party as if the call were connected correctly.

Does someone familiar with the inner workings of the cell phone industry have any insight as to why my CallManager hates them so much? Any feedback would be great!

 

[pndscm]

Problem #1:
Sounds like the network is delivering the orignal dialed number to Unity. Add his cell phone number as an alternate extension on his Unity Mailbox.
Problem #2:
No clue. Sorry. Is both CFWD All and CFNA set with the same CSS??

 

[jsaul30]

Thanks on number 1... I'll give that a shot. As for number 2, yes the css is the same on both. That has been one issue that we struggled with for a long time. To be honest, I'm not even sure if it is still doing it. We had a TAC case open with Cisco that went nowhere. We eventually just told them to do a forward all when they were away from their desk. We've done a few updates since, but with a backlog of more pressing issues I haven't even checked it in quite a while. It may have been cleared up after one of the more recent updates. When I get back to it I'll update this thread with more info in case anyone else encounters the same thing.

 

[jsaul30]

Well, I tried your recommendation (sure sounded good to me too!) but it looks like its actually receiving the original calling number as opposed to the cell phone number when it hits the phone. I have my desk phone and cell phone set up the same way, and I get the same issue with it. It is actually treating it as if you call an extension that rolls to voicemail without a mailbox being associated to the extension. I get the Opening Greeting call handler. I've tried adding several variations of digits (the first five numbers of the call originator DID, the first five of the cell phone, 71 and the first three digits of those numbers [71 is the no answer forward code for Verizon], etc...) but I just keep ending up at that Opening Greeting where you can hit * to sign into your mailbox remotely. The only time I get my mailbox is when I hit iDivert. Any more suggestions? I usually work with our Cisco vendor on these sorts of things, but my trusted contacts all jumped ship to another company and they are not allowed to contact me for two weeks!!! What luck...

 

[Phoneguy69]

I to have this same problem with the forwarding.
According to Cisco, depending on what software your running on CCM it won't forward to the forwarding partie's VM message.
I am running CCM 3.3(3) and was told to upgrade to 4.1(3)
for that to work.
We were trying to fwd. an extension to another extension and just have them take all the calls. I kept getting the main greeting. It would ring the phone but when VM answered the call, the VM ID wasn't being sent and the main greeting would play.
We tried several scenerio's with CISCO and none of them worked.

 

[pndscm]

Add the 10 digit number of the cell phone as an Alternate Extension to his mailbox. Do you have a direct number into the VMail system? If so, after you add the cell phone to the mailbox, he should be able to call into VMail and be delivered directly to his mailbox, No Opening Greeting.

Phoneguy69 is right in that earler versions of CCM, from my experience, sent the number that was the last fowarded-to number to Vmail. If that number didn't have a MailBox, you got the opening greeting. In CCM 4.X and I think some later versions of CCM 3.3, CCM sends the orginal dialed number to VMail so if the original dialed number had a VMail box, the call goes there.

I believe there is an option that sets this system wide, first number dialed or forward-to number to VMail. Or we use the Voice Mail Profile to send the call to the correct Mail Box.

 

[jsaul30]

The only other thing that I can think of with mine is that maybe somehow the * in the *71 fwd-no-answer code from verizon is somehow translating into the original dialed number being sent to Unity. If it sees that star, it would explain why it is kicking back to the main greeting. I'll keep fiddlin with it today and let everyone know what I come up with. Thanks for the input!

 

[jsaul30]

I am running 4.1(3) FYI...

 

[MG2005]

alternate extension is def what you need for issue #1
you just need to match the number sent to unity exactly with what you enter in the alternate extension field for it to work

ie: the alternate extension field needs the exact 10 digit, 7 digit, or 4 digit number being sent to unity to find the correct mailbox

maybe use cdr records or a debug to see what exactly unity is receiving..otherwise trial and error... try a few different possible CLID's until you find a match

 

[TelcoTech]

Within the Unity tools depot you have the call viewer application under the Switch integration tools. It will actually show the actual call and how it is being presented to Unity. Then just put that number in the alternate extension field.

 

[jsaul30]

Great, thanks! I'll give that a shot.

 

[jsaul30]

Well, things just continue to get more complex. Everything I have found points to a compatibility issue with the user's Blackberry 7130e phone. I can set up my cell phone to forward/no answer to desk phone or my desk phone (setting my 10 digit cell number as an alternate extension for either one) and the calls drop into the mailbox just fine. The same goes for one of my co-worker's phones. However, when I set his phone number as an alternate extension and forward/no answer from his Blackberry I always get an error message from Unity, followed by the standard Unity greeting. I am seeing the digits being sent to Unity as his 10-digit cell number but for whatever reason it just won't connect when being forwarded from his cell phone. Anyone else experience anything like this at all????

 

[jsaul30]

Quick update:

I tried the same setup with another user's Blackberry and it worked fine. I'm pretty much out of ideas at this point, so I may just totally rebuild his voicemail, user, phone, etc... to eliminate the possibility of errors there.

 

[jneiberger]

Do you have SMARTnet? If so, open up a case with TAC. I'd be interested to hear what they say.

 

[jsaul30]

Ya, if I can't get it lined out by rebuilding him in both systems, that'll be my next step. I'll certainly update this thread with whatever I find. Thanks again for everyone's input and suggestions!!!

 

[jsaul30]

I still have yet to get this to work, but I now have a theory of what may be causing the issue. The user recently moved from our parent company to ours, and in doing so was created as a new user (although with the same phone extension...) As a result, I was to build him a new voicemail associated to his new user account. For some reason, I had a lot of trouble getting the old mailbox to delete, and actually had to do it using the bulk utility. I believe that he had his cell number as an alternate extension on the old mailbox. Is it possible that when I deleted the old mailbox using the bulk utility, it left some sort of "tombstone" in the exchange server that is causing a conflict when the digits of his cell phone are sent into Unity? His is the only number that does this. My cell, and a handful of others I tried, work fine when I add the full 10 digit cell number as an alternate extension... Any more recommendations?