Accessing an off-node CO trunk

[popolou]

Hi all

First poster here and not a seasoned Mitel admin but have learned so much after reading through the forum. I'm trying to make use of call routing between 5000's which are in different countries.

I have a 2-node system (HX & CS controllers running v6.1) that can now see each other and are correctly sharing off-node resources. For the moment, I've imported only phone extensions and b-channels between sites. I noticed that i can create an off-node b-channel station so i duplicated the extension numbers for the (ISDN2) CO lines from the node they are homed on to the other. It appears that i can now use the off-node CO line if i dial the individual extension number.

But, how can i pool the CO lines to use off-node? I cannot seem to find where i can create an off-node trunk group that will route to the same on the remote system. The end goal is to either change the dialling method to use ARS or have selected users press a softkey on the handset to use that off-node trunk to route calls.

Any pointers?

Cheers!
Popolou

[popolou]

Ok, I think I got things working but ARS is a dog to get your heard around how it works.....

My understanding of it is that when off-noding calls, you need the 1st & 2nd dialling rules in the facility group so that the digits are off-loaded to the other side. As long as you have a rule that handles the node-local calls, it should route over an outgoing trunk (CO's in my case).

Also, i was tearing my hair out until i discovered that under Associated Extensions, Outgoing Access must be switched to the ARS extension (82000 in my case). Despite setting up the correct routing groups, it took me a while to realise that outgoing access on each of the phones was pointing to a CO trunk group...

My next step is figuring out how to route calls when the full international code is dialled so that a selection of countries go over their own routing facility while not affecting the rest of the I+ facility. Seems like some of my users have the full codes in their address books so this needs adding.

I wish there was a small app that was designed that you could load up with your routes and it would tell you where you call goes based on examples...

[acejavelin]

Actually, ARS on the 5000 is simple once you understand how it works... You need to make your match pattern more specific for the country code in question and make new facility groups to accommodate, also remember that all searching in ARS in the 5000 is top down first match, not best match, so if you have a list like this:

01144
011448
011442

All calls to 011448 with match the 01144 pattern and never get to the correct pattern, this stumps people often.

I remember taking my first class on the Mitel SX-200 about 15-20 years ago, there was an exercise where you had like 8 nodes and each one had multiple different kinds of trunks with different rates at different times of the day, and calls had to be routed to different nodes not only based on the number dialed but also based on the time of day so that each call went the cheapest route every time, and we did it all on paper first and I saw someone yell "This is f*cking impossible", throw his pen across the room, and walked out of the class... he did come pack and pass though.