Intertel 5000 not connecting forwarded calls from phantom via application

[robday78]

Hi guys,

We have an Intertel 5000 that we are trying to use to route evening and weekend calls out of the business to engineers mobiles based on an on call rota.

We have setup a menu for callers using an application with the various options to departments pointing at specific internal extensions and hunt groups and that all works fine.  With the engineering department option on the menu we have set up a STAR (scheduled time based application router) and then depending on day / time this transfers to a dedicated call routing announcement for each time slot where the digit translation timeout is transferring to a dedicated phantom extension for each time slot that in turn is setup to forward to the appropriate engineer's mobile.

When we call the phantom for the current time slot directly it transfers to the engineer mobile successfully.  When we call our main line and use the menu it rings the engineers mobile for half a ring and then hangs up automatically, playing a message to the caller saying that the extension is not available.

It feels like we are really close to getting this working but can't seem to get to the bottom of why the call redirected from the menu is hanging up straight away.

Can anyone help?

Much appreciated.

Rob

[Tech Electronics]

Robday78,

It seems as though you have System Forwarding setup for that phantom extension and it is routing based on the phantom being in DND; which it may be by default turned on. This would account for the IC calls working and CO Trunk calls not working since IC is off by default on new system forwarding paths.

So I would check that first.

System > Devices and Feature Codes > Phantoms and Hot Desks > {phantom} > System Forwarding: There shouldn't be anything paths at all.

Thanks,

TE

[robday78]

Thanks TE,

We have checked though and there are no forwarding paths on that Phantom.

I wonder if we are on old Firmware though as we don't have an option for 'Phantoms and Hot Desks', ours just says 'Phantom Devices'?

Thanks

Rob

[dwayneg]

May be a long shot but verify that PHONE RELATED INFO/FLAGS/MANUAL FORWARD TO PUBLIC NETWORK is on for each phantom. 
If that's not it I'd replace one of the phantoms with a real phone or SL port and forward that, then test.  Object is to see if it's just a problem with your phantoms or true for any device.  Phantoms had some interesting behaviors in early software versions, especially regarding forwarding, since they were treated as unplugged in some versions.
Also, possible the TRANSFER-VOICE PROCESSOR might be coming into play here?  Try setting it way out, see if that fixes it.
Check the PROPAGATE ORIGINAL CALLER ID ON TRANSFERS...with some carriers they won't accept outbound caller ID you don't own and drop the call, especially if it's LD.

All just guesses, this is actually pretty common practice and usually works

[Tech Electronics]

robday78,

Well, it appears that you have an older version before Hot Desking was added to the system; not a problem as it should still work.

Now, the next step I normally look at in these scenarios is one that dwayneg has already suggested. Another reason it would work on IC calls and not CO Trunk calls is due to Calling Party Number [CPN]. If you know that you are in control of Outbound Caller ID [CPN] then it may be that they are seeing or not seeing what they like and are dropping the call.

Look at one of your standard phones in database programming and see how these flags and fields are setup.

System > Devices and Feature Codes > Phones > {phone}: Look at Calling Party Number and see if there is a 10-digit number that you own in there. If this is blank then you may not be in control of what Caller ID is sent out when you make calls

System > Devices and Feature Codes > Phones > {phone} > Flags: Propagate Original Caller ID [Yes]. If this flag is set to yes then the phone you are looking at will try to send out the Caller ID of the phone that is performing a direct ring to it; this may or may not be a number that you own. This is normally used so that when a call is sent out it will show up as the original caller and not a call from someone in your office.

Keep in mind or write down what those two items are set for and recreate them in the phantom extension you are trying to get working. Another thing I normally look at is the Outgoing Extension under Associated Extension, but you said that it works if you call it internally so that shouldn't be the issue, but verify it to make sure.

System > Devices and Feature Codes > Phones > {phone} > Associated Extensions > Outgoing Extension: normally we would want this to be the feature code [FC] for ARS [Automatic Route Selection] which by default is either 9200 or 92000 depending on your software version. If it is something other than that you may want to change it in your phantom extension to be ARS.

Of course I just thought about this, but do you know if you have enough lines to support this process as it takes two phone lines for this work.

Thanks,

TE