Forward No Answer

[marinaibm]

I would like to forward busy or no answer calls to my voice mail. For example ,for a specific directory number the voice mail number is 4009#8396#.But the octothorpe(#) character identifies for Call Manager the end of the dialing sequence.How could I forward all the dialing sequence anyway?

[dgoodwin]

I don't know of a way you can forward to a number that has the # symbol in the actual number.

So you are saying that when someone calls you at your IP phone and you don't pick up, they don't go straight to your voicemail greeting and they actually have to dial the digits above? That doesn't make much sense to me.

[marinaibm]

That doesn't make much sense to me either.

I got a Call Manager 3.1 ,a couple of ip phones and 3640 router with isdn pri card for connection to PBX.

I want to forward non answered calls to my legacy voice mail (it's connected only to PBX).To get the general voice mail greetings i have to dial 4009#

and after it asks me to enter phone number i want to leave message for and #.SO the full sequence looks like 4009#XXXX#.When i enter this number for a specific phone line in call manager(for example 4009#8172#) i dont go straight to the voice mail box of 8172..i get the general voice mail greetings that asks me to dial the number.Debug isdn events command on the router shows it strips off the last # sign so i added one more # in the end and at least in debugging the number looks correct.I can avoid using the first # by entering 10 seconds pause after 4009,the only way i found to do that was to forward only the XXXX# part to the router and to add prefix 4009,,,,,,,,,, for the dial-peer,but it didnt help me at all.Whatever i try it looks like i forward only 4009# part.Do you know another way to make pauses between digits (so far i so its possible only for fxs,fxo and e&m)?Or you think the problem is still with # sign or maybe ios release?

Thank You

[dgoodwin]

I don't think you can do what you are trying to accomplish here.

Basically, it sounds to me like you want to utilize the voicemail system that is integrated with your legacy PBX only, and use it as voicemail for your IP phones.

There are a couple ways to accomplish this, and I don't think the way you are describing is really going to work.

One thing to keep in mind is that you won't get any message notification if a message is received, such as the MWI lamp, unless you somehow integrate the CallManager with the legacy voicemail. A common way to implement that is to use a combination of SMDI -- using the Cisco Messaging interface and an asynchoronous cable between the CM server and the VM box -- and FXS gateway ports, such as on a VG200 with MGCP or the 6624-FXS blade for the Cat6k. Doing this will give you the ability to light MWI lamps, as well as signal to the VM when a call gets forwarded there, to let it know which greeting to play.

If you don't care about MWI, then the only other way I know people have gotten this to work is by the use of "phantom extensions" on the PBX.

An example. Let's say the IP phone number is 1234. And you have a Route Pattern of 2XXX on the CallManager that points to the legacy PBX. On the line configuration for 1234, you have CFNA configured to point to 2234. So we send a call when the line does not pick up to the PBX at number 2234. On the PBX, 2234 is a defined station that does not exist at all, and has a call forward all configured to 4009 (the voicemail number in your case). On the voicemail system, there is actually a mailbox setup for 2234, so that is where the message will be stored.