Basic call forwarding issue

[mgaffney]

This hopefully is an easy question to answer... :sorcerer:

I have a couple of extensions set up so they automatically forward to another extension, regardless of if the phone is busy or there's no answer. Although this is turned on, and the call forwards to the other extension as expected, the call still reverts back to the original extension's voice mail if the call originates from an outside line.

I have played around with the Find Me features, and turning these on and off didn't change anything. Is there another setting I should look at to ensure calls forwarded from one extension are also getting the voice mail for the extension it's fowarding to, instead of being routed back to the voice mail for the original extension?

Sorry for the stupid question, but I appreciate any help you can offer!

[jasonepowell]

Are you sure you are forwarding the calls and not externally assigning the extension? When you use external extension reassignment, it will behave it the manner you describe.

[mgaffney]

The calls are being forwarded as the following (I'm including everything here so I can see if there might be one piece of the puzzle that's out of line, and might be causing problems):

1) Set to Standard Call Handling Mode
2) No delegation
3) Standard call handling mode is set to Call Forward / Always to the other specified extension
4) Enable Find Me is turned on (I've tried turning it off)
- Find Me primary and secondary destinations are set to None, and Enable Auto Find Me is switched off
5) Use External Assignment is unchecked

And yet, despite these settings, although any incoming calls are forwarded to the other extension, after the specifed number of rings on the forwarded number, the call reverts back to the voice mail for the original phone number/extension.

Could this, in any way, be due to settings on the number being forwarded to, as opposed to the number being forwarded from?

[OldPhoneGuy]

Working as designed

The system is working as designed. ShoreTel, along with many other voicemail systems, is smart enough to know that although extension "A" has been forwarded to extension "B" the caller didn't wish to speak with the person at extension "B", he or she really wanted extension "A". Hence, the call is dropped into the voicemail box for extension "A".

I'm told that there is a way to get around this using route points, although I've never had the need to try it. Once you explain to users why things work the way they do they usually understand and accept it.

[southeasternMI]

One further, the reason why it comes back is because nothing has picked up the call. The phone that the call was forwarded to did nothing to take ownership of the call. So the call still belongs to the extension that was called first.
Now if you have VM on that second extension check to see how its setup, because you should be able to forward to the other phone and have VM answer if no one picks up.

[mgaffney]

That's kind of what I'm curious about - is there some switch in the voice mail settings on the source phone that would give you this ability, or the some switch in the voice mail settings on the destination phone that would automatically take ownership of forwarded calls?

Thanks for your help!

[jmccumber]

This worked for me so it may be worth trying; instead of adding the extension (5 digits in our case) in the call forwarding destination field, I put the dial string 9 +1(xxx) xxx-xxxx. With the extension entered it came back to the original VM, with the full 11 digits the call was routed to the forward destination mailbox. We may have something else setup that makes this work but I thought it was worth a shot.

[mgaffney]

That seemed to do the trick - having the full phone number, instead of the internal phone extension, bypasses the phone rules, because it simulates the call routing to an external line. That's probably not the most glamorous way to get things working, but it should be okay for the time being.

Thanks for your assistance!