We have an after-hours hotline for tenants in case there’s an emergency such as a pipe breaking or something.
When the call comes in and they press “1”, we want it to forward to our manager’s phone number with a special “tenant emergency” caller ID that they’ve set up as an emergency bypass number on their phone when it rings through.
Is the Set CID module the correct module to be using for this? I can’t seem to get it to work correctly.
I’ve also tried making an outbound route using the CID set by the Set CID as the match rule, but the call still comes through as the default CID.
I would set up a ring group which includes only the manager’s phone number. Obviously, you would then point the IVR option to this ring group. On that ring group form, I would:
change the Remote Announce to a recording you have created that states “This is an emergency call from a tenant. Press 1 to accept.”
Set the ring group Confirm Calls to “yes”
Set the Change External CID Configuration to “Fixed CID”.
In the Fixed CID Value, set to the number you want presented to the manager (this would prevent the caller’s caller-id from showing, however.)
Insure you have created a DID with your provider with a unique Caller-ID for emergencies and then use that number in #4 above. With most SIP providers, you can set the CID name when you purchase a DID. (Set something like “Tenant Emergncy” for the DID name with the provider.)
Decide how the call will be handled in a no-answer situation (Voice mail or not.)
This will depend on whether your outbound provider will allow this custom DID caller-id to be sent. Whether the custom caller-id is sent or not, the manager will still get the emergency incoming call announcement when they answer.
As James mentioned, the only way this will work is if the CID doesn’t get stripped by the upstream carrier prior to reaching the cell phone and this will always be the case in the US at least. I don’t know a carrier that allows you to pass your own caller ID with a SIP call.
Your only other way would be to install a SIP client on the cell phone that directly connects to the extension and allows the extension to be called instead of the external cell phone number. SangomaConnect would work great for this use case.
