Unity 3.1.5 CSV user import with Subscriber Zero-Out Options

[j.house]

I am currently getting ready to import about 1100 subscribers into a new 3.1.5 server. The majority of these users have a zero out option to be configured under the caller input category. All the documentation states that this can be imported using the ZERO_REVERT CSV column heading. The issue is that the docs also state that the only valid entry for this field is the display name for a Call Handler. This would be fine...if they were zeroing out to a Call Handler, they are not. All users need to be set up to zero out to another subscriber (DN), not a call handler. Can this be done via a CSV import?

We are cutting over to this server this weekend so I need to be able to complete the import no later than 2/20/03.

Thanks for your assistance.

[lindborg]

To 0 out to an extension you need to create a call handler for that 0 key to map to and the call handler will be setup to dial that phone.

No, the CSV import will not dynamically create call handlers and link them up for you like this - if you're trying to have every subscriber have a different 0 key option you'll have to create the call handlers needed for this first - you can check out the BulkHandler Create utility here:

http://www.answermonkey.net/App_bulk_handler_create.htm

If most of your folks will be mapping to a small number of extensions (i.e. area operators) you're probably better of creating them first and then using Bulk Edit to change groups of folks' 0 key mappings afterwards - depends on what it is you're trying to do.

[j.house]

Thanks for the response. So even though I can set the zero out option manually to go to a subscriber (not a call handler), this can't be accomplished via an import? Ouch...this is going to hurt.

It wouldn't make sense to "bulk" create call handlers (I will need about 600-800 of them), and then set those to ring the appropriate extension. I might as well just manually set the zero-out option myself for each user and send it to the appropriate Subscriber.

Jeff

[lindborg]

Well, how many _discrete_ operators are you wanting to support? If you have a many to one relationship here (i.e. lots of subscribers map to a few operators) you could create a few call handlers that you reference by display name in the CUBI CSV file and configure those call handlers to simply redirect to the appropriate subscriber (i.e. configure their alternate transfer to be off and their alternate greeting to be blank and the after greeting action to be "attempt transfer for" the appropriate subscriber for that person's operator).

If you have a many to many (i.e. everyone has their own zero out option that all go to different extensions) then this wont work... Is suspect you're a many-to-few kinda place, it might save you a bunch of work to do it that way.

[j.house]

You guessed correctly, my client has many unique 0 out options which would result in 100's of call handlers. Can I offically submit the request for future enhancements to the import utility to include the ability to specify subscribers as a valid call transfer option to import?

thanks again for your assistance.

Jeff

[lindborg]

I already did that... I've asked if they can switch to the call handler alias here which can be either an "application" call handler or a "primary" call handler that's linked to a subscriber.

For instance my subscriber's primary call handler would have an alias of "ch_lindborg". A normal (or "application") call handler would have an alias that was it's display name with the spaces taken out (i.e. "lunch room phone" would have an alias of "lunchroomphone").

This gets a little tricky since the alias is not visible for application call handlers on teh SA so it's not obvious what to enter - we could also simply leave it as is but lookup the string as a subscriber alias first and if no match is found then proceed to the display name of the call handler as normal. If you have call handlers with display names that match "ch_(alias)" you'll come to grief here but I'm guessing that's a pretty rare case.

[lindborg · Accepted solution]

OK... I didn’t have time to bang around on this earlier today but talking with the guys who are responsible for the import tool and testing it out tonight I have some good news for you - You CAN make this work with the import tool, you just have to jump through a little hoop.

Turns out that it actually _should_ work how I described it earlier in this thread - if the display name (text name in the database) matches the primary call handler of a subscriber it should map the zero key to that subscriber as you want. Testing it out tonight both they and myself were able to get this working on our test boxes.

However, by default the text name of a primary call handler is the same as it's alias which is "ch_(subscriber's alias)" - unfortunately the import tool doesn't allow underscores in the ZERO_KEY_RULE for whatever reason. However, you can modify this by editing the ImportSpec.XML file which is in the directory you run the import tool out of (by default \commserver\utilities\ciscoUnityBulkImport\). Open it in notepad and search for "ZERO_KEY_RULE" - there will be only one instance of it. You'll see two lines that look like this:

Change it by adding an "_" to the list of legal characters so it looks like this:

Save the file and you're good to go.

One other hitch you may run into - the text name of a primary call handler is different depending on how you added the user. If you create or import them from the SA it'll follow the rules I noted above. However if you import them using other tools the text name may be blank or may not have the "ch_" in front of it - since the text name on a primary call handler is really meaningless (it doesn't show up anywhere) these types of inconsistencies are never noticed. You may need to pop open SQL (You can use the CUDLE tool that ships with 4.0(1) or you can download the latest from here: http://www.ciscounitytools.com/App_CUDLE.htm), go to the call handlers table and find the guys you want to map to and just write down the value in the TextName field. If they don’t have text names at all you may need to go into the SQL Enterprise Manager or DOHPropTest (I can help with either of those) and add them – there’s no way to touch that field from the SA or any other admin tool since like I say text names for primary call handlers aren’t used for anything (other than this apparently).

yeah... it's a little awkward but it _does_ work for creating new users or updating existing users via CSV, I tried both. They'll clean this up in the next release of CUBI such that there's a better selection mechanism here...

Hopefully that will make for a little less stressful weekend - If you run into trouble, let me know.

[j.house]

Great! Thanks for all the effort...this is exactly what I needed to hear.

Thanks again. Jeff

[j.house]

My client decided to trim down the zero-out destinations to about 90. I decided to go the Call Handler route, for easier administration later on down the road. I did encounter an issue with the import though. The Call Handlers imported just fine (named "XXXX-Zero Out"), but when I went to import the subscribers the Call Handler name was invalid, turns out it didn't like the "-" or the spaces. This was easily fixed, just an inconvienience (I couldn't locate the file you mentioned to change the allowed characters). Also the Column header for the Zero out detination wasn't "ZERO_KEY_RULE", but rather "ZERO_REVERT". What version of Unity changes this to "ZERO_KEY_RULE"?

Thanks again for all the help.

Jeff

[lindborg]

CUBI was basically rewriteen from the ground up in 4.0(1) and they changed a couple of the column headers in there as part of that effort. Eventually they may allow mapping of other keys so you could see 'ONE_KEY_RULE' or 'TWO_KEY_RULE' for instance - that was the logic there.

That XML file is in whatever directory the CUBI exe is in - the easiest way to find this is to right click on the application in the Tools Depot and select "properties" - it'll show the install directory for you there. Regardless, it sounds like you got around it ok.