Emergency Greeting

[h.perrett]

I wish to set-up a greeting that we can forward the main incoming number to and that can be played when we have to evacuate the building i.e. during a fire drill.

At present the standard greeting is used when the office is closed and the alternate greeting is used to play a holiday message.

Ideally I need to be able to foward to the emergency message by just a couple of key presses from the attendant console.

Is there any way that this can be achieved?

[lindborg]

I'm sure this can be done directly with the switch but if you don't want to actualy change the inbound call routing this can be done in Unity as well.

You can setup a "routing" call handler that calls hit first (i.e. before the opening greeting) that has a schedule that's active all the time and has a standard greeting set to "blank" and an after greeting action for standard that's set to forward to your current opening greeting call handler. Then record an emergency message in the alternate greeting for that routine handler, but don't activate the greeting. Then when you need to enable the greeting it can be done through the Greetings Administration conversation that allows folks to activate and rerecord greetings for call handlers from over the phone (this can also be done via the SA web interface, of course, but I'm assuming that's not an option). It's more than just a couple key strokes since you have to dial the ID of the call handler and sign in to gain access to the greetings administration conversation, but it's pretty straight forward anyway.

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Heath,

I like Jeffs method (as always!!) but I thought I would throw in another option that might work as well. Set up a CTI RP or dummy phone with a new non-DID number and Call Forward all to VM. Set up a new mailbox on this non-DID number and include the Main incoming number as an Alternate Extension.Record your Emergency Message on this number and leave it always available.

When an emergency event arises Forward the Main Incoming number to the new non-DID instead of the VM Pilot and you should be good to go.

Hope this helps!

Rob

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[h.perrett]

Hi Rob,

We have tried the solution that you suggested and all would seem to work well, however, when we forwarded the main number to the dummy phone's VM we only received the standard greeting for the main number and not the emergency greeting that we had recorded on the dummy phone's extension.

If we call the number of the dummy phone we hear the emergency greeting but not if we call the main number.

Somehow the original CALLED DN is being retained and is passed to the Unity platform. We have tried changing the service parameter for Telephony Caller Dispatcher > Keep Original Called Party If Forwarded > to False on the Callmanager cluster but this made no difference.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Heath

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Heath,

Did you set the Main incoming number as an Alternate Extension on the new Dummy DN VM? If you didn't then this is why you are still receiving the wrong greeting.Let me know.

Hope this helps!

Rob

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[jason.panosh]

Hello,

If I read this post correctly, the main number is already associated with a VM account and the suggestion is to create a dummy account with the Emergency message on it, then CFA to the dummy number.

If you try to create an Alias on either the main account or the Dummy account it will tell you that the account already exists, so I do not see how this would work.

I have the same issue where the behaviour of CCM and Unity is not as I expected. Party A calls Party B, who is on extended leave so CFA to Party C. When Party A calls Party B they hear the Party B VM account, not Party C.

This is even worse if Party B does not have VM as now Party A hears a nessage asking Party A to enter an extension number, which Party A has no way of knowing which to enter.

What I want to happen is to get Party A to call Party B, which CFA to Party C. Party A is now on Party C's VM account and leaves a message that will be attended to. Party B will not attend to the message as they are away for a significant time.

I had a suggestion that the CCM Clusterwide Parameters (Feature - Forward) might have some settings to fix this behaviour, or that TCD might be able to help. Unfortunately, in our live environment we do not have the opportunity to just change these settings to see what will happen.

If ANYONE has any help on this issue, please reply.

Thanks.

[Rob Huffman]

Hi Jason,

You are correct. My original assumption on this topic was wrong, because as you have noted you cannot create this alias if the extension already exists.I don't have Unity set up in the lab right now so I can't test my new thought, but maybe you could give it a try.

Delete the account for User B (on leave).

Add User B's extension as an alternate extension on User C

Forward User B's extension to User C and according to the guide callers should receive User C's greeting

Have a look:

Setting Up Alternate Devices

In addition to your primary extension, your Cisco Unity administrator may set up alternate extensions for you, and may also allow you to do so in the Cisco Unity Assistant. Administrators set up alternate extensions for various reasons, such as handling multiple line appearances on subscriber phones or simplifying message addressing for subscribers on different Cisco Unity servers.

You may want to use alternate extensions to make calling Cisco Unity from an alternate device, such as a cell phone, a home phone, or a phone at another work site more convenient. When you specify the phone number for an alternative device in the Cisco Unity Assistant, Cisco Unity handles all calls from that number in the same way that it handles calls from your primary extension (assuming that the alternate phone number is passed along to Cisco Unity from the phone system). This means that Cisco Unity associates the alternate phone number with your account, **and when such phones are set to forward to Cisco Unity, callers can listen to your greeting, and leave messages for you, just as they would when dialing your primary extension.**

Depending on how Cisco Unity is set up, you may be able to use the Personal Preferences page in the Cisco Unity Assistant to:

View the alternate extensions that your Cisco Unity administrator specified for you.

Specify phone numbers for up to five alternate devices, in addition to those that your Cisco Unity administrator specified for you.

Do the following procedure to set up alternate devices in the Cisco Unity Assistant.

To Set Up Alternate Devices

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Step 1 In the Cisco Unity Assistant, on the Preferences menu, click Personal.

Step 2 In the Alternate Devices table, enter an extension up to 30 characters in length in the Number field.

When entering numbers in the Alternate Devices table, consider the following:

Each alternate extension that you add must be unique; Cisco Unity will not accept an extension that is already assigned to another subscriber (either as a primary or alternate extension) or to another Cisco Unity entity (such as a public distribution list).

Enter digits 0 through 9. Do not use spaces, dashes, or parentheses.

You may also be able to enter a valid alias for a SIP URL. For example, if the URL is SIP:aabade@cisco.com, enter aabade. Talk to your Cisco Unity administrator to learn more.

Step 3 Optionally, enter a description for the device. For example, you might enter, "Mobile work phone" or "My personal cell phone."

Step 4 To specify another device, click the Add Row button and repeat Step 2 and Step 3.

Step 5 Click Save. The alternate devices you specified are enabled for all rows in the table.

From this doc;

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_chapter09186a0080647597.html#wp1125142

Hope this helps! Please let me know if this actually does work.

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[jason.panosh]

Thanks Rob,

But I think you miss the point of the request and I start to think Cisco product cannot do this simple thing. I will explain what I think is required in a different way and see if you can suggest another solution.

I am user A and I have voice mail. User B is my collegue who also has voice mail. Both users are CFA to VM.

When Caller A calls User A or User B they get their respective Voice Mail. This is correct and the way things are supposed to work.

User A is now on annual leave for two weeks and nobody back fills that position, therefore the Voice Mail is not going to be checked for two weeks. User A CFA to User B thinking User B will now get all the calls and also that missed calls will be on User B's VM.

Calls are correctly diverted to User B, but Voice Mail is not.

This does not work because Unity is getting the original User A number, not the diverted User B number, so the Voice Message is left on User A account, but nobody is checking this for two weeks.

So all I want is to be able to get Unity to recognise the last phone in the diversion rather than the original phone. Surely it cannot be that hard to tell Unity User B phone handed off to Unity and not User A phone?

In the real world this situation is more complex as it could be a team of individuals and the diversion is not made to the same person every time. Alias is not the solution as each user requires their own VM account, not a joint account.

In my situation I am on CCM3.3(4)sr2 and Unity 4.0 Build 4.0(4)sr1.

I appreciate your assistance and found the information on aliases helpful for other uses, but not in this instance.

Thanks.

[mrmccann]

The situation you describe here (getting Unity to recognize the last forwarding station rather than the first forwarding station), will be a system-wide option added to Unity 5.0. There is not a way to do this with a configuration setting on earlier versions of Unity. I'm not aware of any CallManager settings that will address this issue either.

[jason.panosh]

Hello,

Thanks for that feedback. So how does Unity get the first forwarding number? Is CCM handing it out or does Unity get it from somewhere else?

Thanks.

[mrmccann]

We use the OriginalCalledParty and OriginalCdpnRedirectReason fields in SCCP StationCallInfo message from CallManager. The feature in Unity 5.0 will allow admin to configure Unity to look at LastRedirectingParty and LastRedirectingReason fields instead, on a system-wide basis.

[mwild]

for the emergency VM.

why wouldn't this work:

make the CTI RP and VM box, setup the message you want and have everyone CFwdALL to that number. then just check the messages when everyone returns.

my problem is most of the calls come from outside so I had to use a real DID and have the users CFwdALL to the local number for it to go into the VM box of the emergency mail. 9XXXXXXX

[mwild]

Doesnt want to work in a callcenter.

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi - Hopefully no one will mind me dropping into this thread :-)

For emergency greeting, here is what I would do:

1. Create a schedule for your main greeting. Use the standard greeting instead of the Closed.

2. Schedule your Holidays

3. Create a Closed greeting for the holiday information

4. Reserve the Alternate greeting for your Emergencies

5. Record a fire drill greeting and save to a wav file. Upload to your Alternate greeting and save, but do not enable. This greeting can then be turned on via SA web by enabling and saving or by using the Unity conversation.

6. The Closed greeting can easily be modified by pre-recording different greetings, i.e. one for Christmas, New Years, etc. and uploading using the Unity SA.

Best wishes, Ginger

[h.perrett]

Hi gkavan,

We have used something similar and we also utilise the Attendant Console in CallManager.

When the AC is logged out the Standard Greeting is played during business hours, this message is fairly generic stating "circumstances beyond our control" at the end of the message Unity hangs up. Out of hours the closed greeting is played.

During holidays the alternate greeting is activated, again a fairly generic greeting is used stating "our next business day is a holiday" this saves them having to record new greetings for each holiday.

The benefit of using the standard greeting during business hours when the AC is logged out is in an emergency situation, the switchboard operator only has to click the offline icon in AC and leave the building, far quicker that having to set the alternate greeting through a phone or web page.

Disadvantage if the operator goes offline and does not realise.