Shared DNs and Overlay DN

[chicagotechsolutions]

I am in the process of designing a small CME system for my home so that I can experiment a little with it.

Where I work we have a CCME set up with Shared DNs and they work well since there are four lines going in and each rings on a respective shared DN resulting in a key system effect. This makes is very convenient to pick up calls on hold.

In the process of designing such a system for my home I have available to me one 7960 and a bunch of 7940 phones and some 7912 phones as well. I just have several questions when it comes down to shared-dn and overlay-dn functionality on phones other than the 7960.

The structure of my small system would look something like this (I haven't included any outbound configuration details since they are irrelevant)

! Inbound Call Routes

voice-port 1/0/0
connection plar opx 801
caller-id enable

voice-port 1/0/1
connection plar opx 802
caller-id enable

! Inbound Shared DNs

ephone-dn 10 dual-line
number 801
name MAIN1
label MAIN1
huntstop channel

ephone-dn 11 dual-line
number 802
name MAIN2
lable MAIN2
huntstop channel

! Unique User Ephone DNs

ephone-dn 20 dual-line
number 100
name Dmitry
label Dmitry x100

ephone-dn 21 dual-line
number 101
name Alex
label Alex x101

ephone-dn 22 dual-line
number 102
name Valerie
label Valerie x103

! Ephone Definitions

ephone 1
mac-address 1111.1111.1111
button 1:20 2:10 3:11
type 7960

ephone 2
mac-address 2222.2222.2222
button 1:21 2o10,11
type 7940

ephone 3
mac-address 3333.3333.3333
button 1o21,10,11
type 7912

----------------------------------
My main question is that for instance, lets say a phone call comes in from the PSTN on voice port 1/0/0 and rings down to ext 801. Now, it just so happens that 801 is a shared DN on all three of my phones so naturally all three ring. Lets say that whoever is at ephone 1 (7960) picks up the phone and puts the call on hold (now, if this occurred at work where all phones are 7960s the phones where the shared DN appears on a button would display that a call is on hold next to the button and one would have to press the button to pick up the call), however since the other phones are limited in terms of button and the shared DNs are overlaid on each other, how would one go about picking up a shared DN on a 7940 or a 7912 as they are shown in the configuration above? The reason I ask this is because I am fairly familiar with how the 7960 behaves since it has enough buttons to show all the DNs I need. However, will a 7940 for instance show the call on placed from the 7960 (or any other phone on either of the shared DNs for isntance?). Likewise, lets say that while this call is in progress or on hold another call comes in on the other voice port and is also placed on hold. I can assume that the 7960 would show both calls flashing next to the corresponding buttons, but once again, how would the 7940 and 7912 with overlaid shared DNs handle this?


I also have another question with regard to phone functionality that stems from a different approach. While at wal-mart this weekend (a store that uses CCME) I noticed that each of their cisco 7960 phones is set up with a unique extension on one button and shared DNs on the next four buttons (very much like my config above). This part is fairly simple to understand since all of their phones are 7960s and essentially function like a key system since there are 4 shared line appearances (one for each phone line). However, throughout the store in less important areas they use simple analog teledex hotel phones. The hotel phones have four programmable keys that (I assume because of the labeling) correspond to the four shared line appearances (MAIN1,MAIN2,MAIN3,MAIN4). My question is that how would one of these analog phones retrieve a call that is on hold on a shared DN? Are the programmable buttons simply programmed with a direct extension pickup feature code (with the extension of the shared DN where the call is on hold)? How exactly does call pickup work in CCME, ie does extension pickup pickup a call holding on an extension or only a call ringing on an extension?


Sorry about the really long question but I have a lot of interest in this topic and wanted to see what you guys think!

Any help and/or advice is always appreciated!

barsky

 

[pndscm]

An easy solution is to set up a Park DN. Then instead of putting calls on Hold, Park them. From any other phone, dial the Park DN and 'pick up' the call. That will work with any phone, even analog.
The config would be:

ephone-dn 12
number 200
park-slot

Since you have a possibility of 2 incoming calls, you could set up 2 of them 200, 201.

For Pickup, I believe it only works on ringing calls. Config:

ephone-dn 13
number 300
pickup-group 300

then under your other real ephone-dn's add:

pick-up group 300

In this way you wouldn't have to have shared lines. Any phone could pickup a call ringing on any other phone.

Hope that helps.