Internal Calls

[ericmenesses]

Hello Everyone.  I have a 200 background, but have been installing 5000's for a number of years.  I know unlike the 200 and MCD, the 5000 really isn't designed as a multi-tenant system. However, the 5000 is very flexible and I know we create work arounds often that aren't in the manual. I have a customer that has two distinct businesses and they are running both off of the 5000.  For all intents and purposes I have setup the two companies with totally distinct CRA's, hunt groups etc.  For security purposes due to the nature of the business they want to block a company's extensions from dialing the other.  In this case 100's from calling 200's and vise versa. From my research I see online that most techs say this is impossible, but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this. I would think this mechanism would be possible somewhere in programming and if it was this system could really be used for multi tenants as there are other work arounds for afterhours forwarding etc. Thanks.

[acejavelin]

If you find a way, let the rest of us know. The problem is there is no facility, restriction, or option in the system that can be applied to anything to restrict or change specific internal calls.

I have been working on these things since release 1.2, and although I don't consider myself an "expert" I have yet to see or hear of anyone finding a way to do this. 

[Tech Electronics]

Ericmenesses,

You could make all phones be house phones with an auto dial 8 and then only have DSS keys to access other users.

Problem 1: they can dial * to get internal service order tone that will allow them to dial any extension number. You might be able to restrict this through class of service though, but I never tried.

Problem 2: they may not have enough keys to hold all the DSS keys they need even with the alternate key map.

Problem 3: it is an "odd" solution that allows you to force a new way to use the endpoint.

Sorry,

TE

[ericmenesses]

Tech Electronics-Thanks for the suggestions: for a moment I thought about doing this and making it restricted instead of normal, but then I think that would block all feature codes etc.

[acejavelin]

If you set them up as House Phones to dial an 8 (ARS or Trunk Group I assume)... couldn't the user just press Flash or Transfer, get internal dial tone and dial an extension?

[johnp]

I think it falls upon the owner of the system to decide the tenating operation. If it doesn't work, it is their burden to get a system that does.

[ericmenesses]

I'm going to setup a phone and test it. I remember a customer that previously had a Panasonic and they wanted the feature of the phone automatically grabbing a trunk when they went off hook. I set all the phones up as house phones and I remember having to teach them to press a intercom button to make a internal call. So maybe if I remove the intercom button dialing internal isn't possible in house phone mode, but I'm not sure without testing it. Then I could add appropriate dss/page keys.

[acejavelin]

I'm going to setup a phone and test it. I remember a customer that previously had a Panasonic and they wanted the feature of the phone automatically grabbing a trunk when they went off hook. I set all the phones up as house phones and I remember having to teach them to press a intercom button to make a internal call. So maybe if I remove the intercom button dialing internal isn't possible in house phone mode, but I'm not sure without testing it. Then I could add appropriate dss/page keys.

You can just press flash or transfer, depending on the phone, to get internal dialtone and still dial any extension. Trust me, if you don't want the end-user to do it, they will figure it out.

[Tech Electronics]

Ericmenesses,

I had stated previously that this is not a full proof solution, but I will go a little more in depth with how it would function using different "normal" phone operation.

If you make it a house phone and they go off hook using the handset.

1. CO Hook Flash will show Unable to Route Call; no more dialing allowed.
2. Hitting the hook flash button on the phone will just dial 8 once more and still expect an outside line call.
3. Transfer will show Cannot place call on hold; dialing is allowed, but it is still expecting it to be an outside number.
4. # will show Incomplete Outside Number; no more dialing allowed.
5. * will Cancel Feature and allow you to dial an extension.

If they use the Speaker button to go off hook.

1. CO Hook Flash will show Unable to Route Call; no more dialing allowed.
2. Transfer will show Cannot place call on hold; dialing is allowed, but it is still expecting it to be an outside number.
3. # will show Incomplete Outside Number; no more dialing allowed.
4. * will Cancel Feature and allow you to dial an extension.

If they want to bypass the House Phone scenario

1. Just dial the extension without using the handset or speaker button prior to dialing it.

2. Press # to Ring Extension Number.

So yes there are ways around this scenario as the system really wants the users to be able to get an outside line as well as call any extension programmed in the system. Hopefully that clears things up a little for you.

Thanks,

TE