I’m opening this new thread because a couple of folks were intrigued by a system I developed for my own use, but have now rolled it out to some staff members. I started to hijack another thread with this conversation, so I’m starting a new thread so it can stand on it’s own.
I’m fairly old school here, still running Motorola processors on Release 4.5 (highest release possible on the old processors) 61c, Callpilot 201i/5.0. I never allowed remote call forward because it’s troublesome for users to remember how, and I refuse to allow DISA for abuse and maintenance reasons. But I still wanted a way to forward my desk phone to my cell or directly to voicemail when I was out of the office.
With some creative thinking and a little Outlook VBA programming, you can setup a windows box running outlook to monitor incoming email (text messages ) and when it sees one from a list of authorized cell phone numbers, it can do the remote call forward of a specific DN via an old 9600 baud modem's DTMF codes. The sheer beauty of this system is that DISA isn't needed, because it's all internal (very secure) - and via outlook programming you can restrict what forwarding can be done (very very secure) Also - my users have no idea what the 7 digit SCPW is, so no one can do this by themselves; although I have to use the same SCPW for all DN's so the program can send the same one each time.
For example: I text the words "To Me" from my cell to the windows box email address ("cfwd@domain.com"), and the system receives this, triggers a script which operates a modem to dial the correct FFC’s,SCPW, and numbers needed to RCFW my extension (matched to my cell number via ‘Contacts’ in outlook) to my cell phone. If I text "To VM", it will forward my extension to voicemail . If I text "To Desk" it cancels RCFW. And outlook is programmed to confirm each change via a reply text message .
I didn't bother with error checking to confirm each step, because when the modem is dialing DTMF, it generally doesn't make mistakes so once it works, it should work every time, for everyone who is setup for it.
With a little more programming, you could set it up to do just about anything; it's all based on how the outlook programming deciphers the text message. I have another script setup so when it sees a DN instead of Alpha Char (ie "5273”) it will RCFW that DN to the texting cell phone number, assuming it’s authorized in “contacts” - this is a little trickier, but doable.
I COULD enable users to forward to any number, simply by programming it to look for a text message that would say something like: “1234;9195551212” which theoretically would offsite call forward Dn 1234 to 919-555-1212. When you delve in to these fancier capabilities, beware of the user's unlimited capacity for stupidity. You will need to write all sorts of error checking to keep your scripts from hanging due to a typo, bad number, wrong length, etc… You would also have to trust your users to not forward to drug lords in third world counties. It could be abused, but only if you allow it to be; keeping it simple works for me.
I’ll include my code for outlook VBA in the next post. (don’t laugh at my awkward code – I never claimed to be a programmer; I’m sure someone else could do the same tasks with cleaner, more elegant code; I just hope they remember where the idea came from! I had to learn some VBA to accomplish what I wanted to do.)
30n30w
I’m fairly old school here, still running Motorola processors on Release 4.5 (highest release possible on the old processors) 61c, Callpilot 201i/5.0. I never allowed remote call forward because it’s troublesome for users to remember how, and I refuse to allow DISA for abuse and maintenance reasons. But I still wanted a way to forward my desk phone to my cell or directly to voicemail when I was out of the office.
With some creative thinking and a little Outlook VBA programming, you can setup a windows box running outlook to monitor incoming email (text messages ) and when it sees one from a list of authorized cell phone numbers, it can do the remote call forward of a specific DN via an old 9600 baud modem's DTMF codes. The sheer beauty of this system is that DISA isn't needed, because it's all internal (very secure) - and via outlook programming you can restrict what forwarding can be done (very very secure) Also - my users have no idea what the 7 digit SCPW is, so no one can do this by themselves; although I have to use the same SCPW for all DN's so the program can send the same one each time.
For example: I text the words "To Me" from my cell to the windows box email address ("cfwd@domain.com"), and the system receives this, triggers a script which operates a modem to dial the correct FFC’s,SCPW, and numbers needed to RCFW my extension (matched to my cell number via ‘Contacts’ in outlook) to my cell phone. If I text "To VM", it will forward my extension to voicemail . If I text "To Desk" it cancels RCFW. And outlook is programmed to confirm each change via a reply text message .
I didn't bother with error checking to confirm each step, because when the modem is dialing DTMF, it generally doesn't make mistakes so once it works, it should work every time, for everyone who is setup for it.
With a little more programming, you could set it up to do just about anything; it's all based on how the outlook programming deciphers the text message. I have another script setup so when it sees a DN instead of Alpha Char (ie "5273”) it will RCFW that DN to the texting cell phone number, assuming it’s authorized in “contacts” - this is a little trickier, but doable.
I COULD enable users to forward to any number, simply by programming it to look for a text message that would say something like: “1234;9195551212” which theoretically would offsite call forward Dn 1234 to 919-555-1212. When you delve in to these fancier capabilities, beware of the user's unlimited capacity for stupidity. You will need to write all sorts of error checking to keep your scripts from hanging due to a typo, bad number, wrong length, etc… You would also have to trust your users to not forward to drug lords in third world counties. It could be abused, but only if you allow it to be; keeping it simple works for me.
I’ll include my code for outlook VBA in the next post. (don’t laugh at my awkward code – I never claimed to be a programmer; I’m sure someone else could do the same tasks with cleaner, more elegant code; I just hope they remember where the idea came from! I had to learn some VBA to accomplish what I wanted to do.)
30n30w