2-3 users on one phone.

[admin_2]

In my Elem schools and Middle schools and Admin offices I have a pretty easy install, it is a 1-1 for phone DN and Voicemail, however in the High Schools, there are several teachers in a particular room, I want to give them all voicemail and have the phone if not answered transfered to voiemai, I know that the office can transfer to individual extension in VM...but what would you suggest in this case...I am not worried about schedules or in or out of time periods...yet...<br><br>Also I have a few extensions that will have menu's instead of a phone..do I have to create a bogus phone for the CM to transfer... to that extension directly without going to the AA first?<br><br>Thank you<br><br>------------------------------<br>Michael Perbix<br>Lower Merion School District<br>Network Hardware Technician

[#2]

For the teachers that share the same physical phone extension (let's say it's ext. 100), you can create individual voice mail boxes for those teachers. In Unity, you could set some teachers up like this:

Teacher A:
Voice Mail box ID = 101
Supervise transfer to ext 100
MWI Extension = 100

Teacher B:
Voice Mail box ID = 102
Supervise transfer to ext 100
MWI extension = 100

That will take care of having two subscribers both auto-attendant transfering to the same phone. But if some calls extension 100 directly (without first calling voice mail), we are only going to get one place to direct the call. You could try making a call handler with the ID of 100. In this call handler set it up so that there is a recording that prompts callers to press 1 to leave a message for teacher A and press 2 to leave a message for teacher B. Within that call handler, you can set up caller input so that if some one presses one or two, you can send them to the correct greeting of each teacher.

The problem with this setup is that when one teacher has a message waiting, how do the teachers know that the message is theirs? They don't because both mail boxes light the same lamp. You could set up message notification and have Unity call the extension when a message is left, but that could get annoying in the middle of class!

There might be some other ways of doing this (like two line appearance on one phone), and if this is not what you are looking for , let me know.

On the menu question, I don't fully understand the scenario. Will people call these DNs inside or outside of Unity? If they call them inside Unity, there is no need to create anything in CallManager (as long as Unity doesn't transfer there). If the DNs are called outside of Unity (like the teachers call them straight from the phones), then you will have to create a bogus phone in CallManager (with a dummy MAC address) and call-forward-all that DN to Unity. In either case, Unity should have something like a call handler to service the menu.

Steve Olivier
Software Engineer
Cisco Systems

[#3]

The problem is that I have teachers that roam and are not hosed in any ONE room....So I guess I point the BusyNA and what not to the VM extension and allow callers to enter teh name then. No message notification, however I could just say if the light is lit, check for new messages...or I could jsut forget about the light, and just tell teachers to check throughout the day....or maybe I can have Unity set to e-mail a notification...not sure on teh best way yet.

Any other ideas?

------------------------------
Michael Perbix
Lower Merion School District
Network Hardware Technician

[ramathiam]

Here's the problem I had: I also work at a school system who is currently implementing an ip phone project. When the project started, we had the funds to place a phone on every teachers desk, but then proration hit and we were left with just enough phones to put on administrative personnel desks only. Although the teachers aren't currently getting phones, we wanted them to have voicemail.

Here's what I have done so far and have successfully tested: Setup up CTI ports (as in for softphone) and extensions for the teachers in callmanager and in unity setup a voicemail box to that extension. If someone dials that extension it goes straight to voicemail and the teachers can check their messages from any phone by hitting * at the main greeting.

You don't have to have an instance of softphone loaded for this to work. I actually have a few people doing it.

Hope this helps.

Tom Parker
Network Admininstrator
Calhoun County Schools
Anniston, AL
tparker@calhoun.k12.al.us

[#5]

Doesn't have to be a softphone. Can be any 'fake' phone with a fake MAC address. This is actually the suggested method since a CTI Phone will actually engage greater reasources on the server with TAPI whenever the call is being transferred to it (Even though there is no physical phone terminating it).

Cheers!
John.