Activating Closed or Holiday Greetings during business hours

[Joseph Spagnoli]

Our IT Department has 4 employees on the HelpDesk.  On our prior phone system (it was a digital "Av..." system) we were able to create 4 different greetings with each of their cell numbers for emergencies.  For example, "You have reached the HelpDesk.  If this is urgent, please hang up and call John on his cell phone at xxx-xxxx".  We log in to the voicemail account and simply activate any of the 4 greetings.  With our Cisco VoIP system, I am able to create a Standard, Alternate, Closing and Holiday greeting, however, I can only activate/use the Standard or Alternate Greeting during business hours.  I can only activate the Closed or Holiday during specific times.  I know this is by design, but does anybody know of a workaround?  I would like to be able to set any of the 4 greetings to be on during business hours.  Does not matter if I have to do this by logging into the voicemail account or by using Unity Connection.  If I can do it other than using the Standard, Alternate, Closed and Holiday greetings thats fine.  I was told by our engineer that he is not aware of a way it can be done.  Any help would be greatly appreciated, otherwise, we will need to re-record the greetings every morning, as the techs alternate being the primary helpdesk person every day.  It has become tedious, and also we forget sometimes.  I figure there has to be a way to do this, especially since our prior system was from 2001, and could do this.  Thank you so much.

CISCO VoIP System Info:

Cisco Unity Connection version: 8.6.2ES25.21900-25

CM Admin System version: 8.6.2.21900-5 on C200M2 Servers

[Jaime Valencia]

Let's start by the fact that if you wanted to have the exact same features from a VM system from one company when buying a new one, from other company, you'll never get the same parity of features.

You'll get something, you'll lose something.

Your system could do that, CUC cannot. Simply because it was not designed by the same people, no matter what year they thought about it, if it's old, or brand new.

Closed greeting only takes effect via the schedule that is attached, no other way, same for standard.

The only one that can override any other greeting, at any time when activated, is alternate greeting.

Holiday, again, configured schedules.

Assuming you have a fixed working schedule, you might be able to use ToD in CUCM to have the same DID route to a different CH per day and then configure 4 different CHs in CUC. If this changes, someone will need to change the ToD config as necessary

[Joseph Spagnoli]

Jaime, Thank you.  I understand what you are saying.  I was just using that as an example to try to make it more clear.  Although I probably confused the issue.  Does seem like alot of work for what I want to do.  Almosy just as easy to simply record a new greeting every morning.

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Joseph,

Hope all is well with you my friend despite the Flyers latest performance

The only way that I can think of to mitigate this somewhat is to pre-record the 4 separate greetings as .wav files and save them in a specific folder. Then I would use PCA to manage the greetings on a daily basis to move the .wav files into use based on the user/day requirement. You may be best off just using the files as the Standard greeting so you don't have to also toggle the alternate greeting on/off.

Cheers!

Rob

Please support CSC helps Kiva

https://supportforums.cisco.com/blog/12122171/cisco-support-community-helps-kiva

[Joseph Spagnoli]

Thank you Gentlemen.  Appreciate your assistance.  I am going to try the PCA option, however, forgive my ignorance, but I do not see where I point the greeting to a file.  I only see the system default, none, or my personal recording (and I don't see where this is pointed to a file).  Am I looking in the worng spot?  Thanks again.

[Joseph Spagnoli]

And more importantly, yes Rob, sorry about your Flames, but I would almost rather be out of the playoffs, then in the playoffs and be playing like my Flyers LOL

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Joseph,

I think the Flyers may come back in this series...don't write them off quite yet

When using the Media Master in PCA/greetings try opening the "Options"  menu.

Cheers!

Rob

Please support CSC helps Kiva

https://supportforums.cisco.com/blog/12122171/cisco-support-community-helps-kiva

[Joseph Spagnoli]

Thanks again.  I have a XP and a Win7 machine and media master is not loading on either.  I will keep troubleshooting and let you know.  I may have to try from my home computer.