Backup Extension on AA

[gberkemeyer]

Workgroups and Hunt Groups both have Backup extensions to be used when the VM Server is unreachable.

Auto-Attendants need the same option.

Case in point...

As I'm typing this post, one of our branch locations' T1 data circuit has gone down. The circuit went down early this morning while the phone system was in after-hours mode, which means the calls are routed to an auto-attendant.

This location cannot take any calls and there is no way to fix this except to get the circuit back up and running. All calls coming in report "I'm Sorry, the voicemail server is currently unavailable..."

A backup extension would allow us to ring those calls into a single extension or a hunt group when the VM server is unreachable.

[Jason Learmouth]

Couldn't agree more, and for this reason I always bring the DID into a work group, route point or hunt group which forwards to the AA. That way I do have a back-up extension. This works but it does make admin a bit more intensive as you have to remember where things are going. Back-up extension on the AA would be best.

[Ian Stewart]

A DVM at your remote site will take over AA functionality if the HQ server is unreachable. Workgroups cannot be distributed however.

[Jlorenz]

A DVM at your remote site will take over AA functionality if the HQ server is unreachable. Workgroups cannot be distributed however.

I believe you mean the Backup AA

For example:

If you have Site HQ (Own AA)
and Site Remote (With DVM) (Own Assigned AA)

Site Remote will need to have its own AA assigned under its application server aka Default AA.

If Site HQ and or Site B have their own Site Trunks (Pri or Analog) and receive calls direct to the site via those trunks. Then in a WAN outage each site will have its own AA working as designed

If for example again, if the WAN is down a call comes to the HQ server for someone on the Remote Site the Back up AA will prompt and ask to leave a message for future delivery. Reverse that for the remote site

It is imperative "NEVER" to reboot anything ShoreTel in a WAN outage

[Dan Wohlbruck]

Absolutely seems like a no-brainer to me. Same scenario has happened to some of our customers also. Yes, a dvm would solve the problem but it really doesn't make sense to put an expensive server (along with the additional licensing costs) at a bank branch with 6 users. Multiply that by 15 branches and the cost adds up. Not to mention the admin and maintenance hassles.

[Jlorenz]

In the releases prior to 6.1 remote sites were not counted in licensing. Plus the limitations on DVMs compared to the HQ are overlooked (aka what type of server)

If a company wants redundancy, if a company wants the ability to manage a site with minimum to zero down time in case of failure! then IMHO it is entirely up to the customer and the Vender/Partner to weigh those options heavily.

My question would be, if this was a NorTel or Avaya / AT&T / Lucent PBX

Would they install or offer a Satellite system for free at a branch office of 6? absolutely not

Don't get me wrong, ST gets bagged on for a lot of things, one area is redundancy, honestly, from what I see and experienced on the other end of the phone. Its the installers /Partners lack of understanding how to deploy the ShoreTel System that gets the customer in trouble. Then ShoreTel gets blamed :wacko:

The ShoreTel System is only as good as its deployment, Network it is installed on and applications. Failure evaluation is a must on any deployment

[gberkemeyer]

If a company wants redundancy, if a company wants the ability to manage a site with minimum to zero down time in case of failure! then IMHO it is entirely up to the customer and the Vender/Partner to weigh those options heavily.

We did weigh those options, and we determined that the functionality provided by the ShoreTel system without a DVM would be adequate in the event of an outage (no Voicemail, no workgroups, and no Call Manager), therefore, we configured our workgroups with Hunt groups as backups. In fact, ShoreTel's automatic survivability was a big factor in choosing ShoreTel over Cisco because with Cisco, we would have had to maintain a completely separate "survivability" configuration in the local router.

Adding an option for a backup extension on the AA would only improve the functionality during an outage. Our remote sites have anywhere from 50 employees to 2 employees. There is no way we will ever add a DVM for a 2 employee site, but we do have an AA there, so this functionality would come in handy.

Gary

[sziehr]

Could you explain this in a little more detail? I am attempting to bring my trunk group at my branch location into a hunt group that points to the AA with a local extension as the backup. However, I don't have the option of adding the AA extension to the hunt group membership, (only users are available). I have set the AA as the Call Stack Full and No Answer destination, but calls were going straight to the backup extension (because there are no members in the HG, presumably) unless I busy-out the HG.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Scott

[sziehr]

Sorry, I'm new to this forum.

My post was in reply to jlear's post, the second on this thread.

Thanks again.

[Jason Learmouth]

Could you explain this in a little more detail? I am attempting to bring my trunk group at my branch location into a hunt group that points to the AA with a local extension as the backup. However, I don't have the option of adding the AA extension to the hunt group membership, (only users are available). I have set the AA as the Call Stack Full and No Answer destination, but calls were going straight to the backup extension (because there are no members in the HG, presumably) unless I busy-out the HG.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Scott

Sorry, I should have left hunt groups and route points out of that list. Use a Workgroup with a back up extension that can be reached if the server is down and the call forward always to the AA.

[sziehr]

Thanks! That's working for me, though I haven't been able to test it with loss of WAN.