Conversion of Avaya IP office to PBXact

General Help
1

Have an existing Avaya system with extensions setup by dept.

I.E.
1xxx Executives
2xxx Billing Dept
3xxx Sames Dept
4xxx Shipping Dept
6xxx Logistics Dept
Etc. The only numbers extensions do not start with is 9

It works just fine and they dial 9 followed by a 7 10 or 11 digit number for outside calls.

Looking to move to PBXaxt probably with Sangoma or Yealink phones and was wondering if was possible to keep this extension plan in place and if so how that would be done? Currently when they enter the last digit of an internal extension I.E. 2004 as soon as the 4 is pressed it rings the extension immediately, no need to press send or anything, Same when dialing an outside number prefixed with 9, I.E. 912125551212 the outside call initiates immediately and starts to ring.

Outside service will be a dedicated PRI provided by Comcast, All internal extensions reachable over the local campus wide LAN.

Is it possible to replicate this functionality and if so how would this be done? If we can avoid the delay or having to press send to initiate the call so it works just like it does now on the Avaya system that would be ideal.

Thanks in advance for your help / ideas

2

The dialing delay is established on the phones, using the dialplan configuration they might have. Some, if not all phones, have an option that allows you to dial immediately after a match has been found. So you will need to experiment with the dial plans on the phones.

3

I guess I should also ask if is practical to setup the dial plan like I have explained above. The Avaya system handles it, however I wonder if PBXact can emulate that without running into issued like codes that might me part of that type of dial plan?

4

I’m not a fan of the dial-9-to-get-an-outside-line, in that it forces your users to adapt to arbitrary legacy rules instead of the system adapting to the user. But if you strictly enforce the dial 9 prefix, and ensure no extensions start with 9, then I can’t think of any problems.

5

If you allow both 7 and 10 digit dialing, you must have a delay after dialing ‘9’ then 7 digits, because the system can’t tell whether more digits will be coming. Unfortunately, on Yealink the ‘dial now’ delay is global. If you allow the user a few seconds to complete the number, that timeout will apply to all calls. I recommend permitting only 7 and 11 digits, or only 10 and 11 digits.

Also, if at all possible, ditch the dial 9 scheme. If incoming calls are displayed without the 9, returning a call from history won’t work, CDR will show different numbers for incoming and outgoing from/to the same person, you may have trouble with contact lists, CRM integration, etc.

If you must keep the 9 prefix, make sure that 911 and 9911 both work.

6

Well I guess I am okay with ditching the 9 prefix for outside calls. So if I were to do that can I use the scheme I described. I.E.

1xxx Executives
2xxx Billing Dept
3xxx Sames Dept
4xxx Shipping Dept
6xxx Logistics Dept
7xxx Dept 7
8xxx Dept 8

Or something like that and then they dial a 7,10 or 11 digit number for outside calls. If that is workable what would the dial plan be? I normally do all emergency first however I am not sure how to accomplish this exactly.

And thank you everyone for your help and comments so far, I really appreciate it!!

7

I’ll explain why the question is hard:

In Asterisk, and hence in FreePBX, a SIP message is initiated with a phone number attached. Think of it like the phone waits and spills its guts at the end of dialing and you get the entire number that was dialed in one swell foop.

So, knowing that, the number you dial is, therefore, just a number. Asterisk does the following:

  1. It looks through the system for a “local” number that matches what you dialed.
  2. Failing that, it starts looking through the Outbound Routes for matching “paths” out of the system.
  3. Failing that, the system whines and tells you you’re horked and try again.

Given that, you set up your extensions using your scheme. If the extension exists locally, the system initiates a call to that extension and bridges the original call (to the PBX from your phone) and the extension you dialed.

(You didn’t ask about this part, but in case someone bumps into the explanation later) If you set up an outbound route that includes nothing but 4-digit numbers on another PBX, you can route these calls to that trunk and get inter-exchange calling going, as long as there are no duplicate extensions.

If you have outbound routes set up for 7, 10, and 11 digit dialing, the same thing happens. The call is routed through the Outbound Route. The trunk outgoing modifiers should set the number up so that the number getting sent to your ITSP is in the phone.

While we’re talking about routes, make sure you “normalize” your inbound numbers so that your CRM system (which I always just assume everyone uses) can match a single number presentation (always 10- or 13-digit with extraneous characters removed, for example.)

So, yeah, your numbering scheme will working without a hitch and should always just do “the right thing” when you dial a number.

Your assignments is to read up on inbound and outbound route processing, since this part is way different than your Ayaya system.

8

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