I am trying to figure out a way I can forward calls after business hours to external cell phones, that can accommodate multiple users. Each night, it would be a different user. I’m trying to do this where I can one extension that everyone can log into, and put their forwarding number in, without having to give everyone access to admin adding to confusion.
I’m thinking a Custom Extension makes sense here, with using the Follow Me function for number changes, but I’m not sure how to get it to work with my DAHDI trunk. I am using SIP Cisco phones internally.
We just talked about this (in the group) a couple of weeks ago.
What interface do you want to use? Settable from the phones, or through a web page?
I’m not clear on the exact relationship of forwarding all calls to users. It sounds as if you want to send any “after hours” calls to an amorphous group of cell phone users, kind of like a ring-group, but worse.
If all you want to is forward all calls to one cell phone, that’s easy using the Call Forward feature code from a virtual extension (or even a real extension) and a time group.
Thanks for the reply Dave.
I’d like to use the web interface because I need to provide access to it through remote RDS.
I have PRI and using a DAHDI trunk with SIP phones. The main phone comes to an IVR for department prompts. The Ring Group used in that IVR for “Dispatch” are the calls I want forwarded. So still when callers press 3 for Dispatch, it will call the current forwarded users cell phone.
Keep the incoming IVR menu, and forward one of the menu destinations. (Is it possible to change an IVR destination via scheduling?)
I tried adding an SIP extension to use Follow Me, but I wasn’t able to get it to work
what about setting up a ring group, then use follow me on one of the extensions in the group to call forward to the cell? as far as the IVR, I currently do that, I setup time groups then in the time conditions I tell it what to do with the calls that come in. it’s a little work and sometimes the logic gets a little confusing 
but in the end it is the best way to handle “All Calls” to get the Follow me to work did you put the # at the end of the number? I.E. 555-555-1234#
OK, so you need to set up a User called “Dispatch” and assign a virtual extension to it. The person that is going to get the call logs into the “Dispatch” user and sets their cell phone in the Follow-Me setting.
I know I grew up in a generation where punctuation was considered “important”, but this sentence says that you want to the call sent to a bunch of different people that are all using the same cell phone. Do you mean “user’s cell phone” or “users’ cell phones”.
If you mean “user’s cell phone” then the UCP thing will work fine. If not, the solution gets more and more confusing as we go.
OK - don’t set up a SIP extension - set up a virtual extension whose only purpose is to be the destination for the calling. Assign the VirtNum to a “group” user and go to town.
There are lots of things that can screw up your access to cell phones from an internal connection. The fact that you are on a PRI means that you need to have an open line in the outbound trunk, and that (very likely) isn’t probably going to have the right caller ID.
If it was me, I’d start with the virtual extension connected to UCP and get that working to a local extension. After that, there are lots of places you can take this.
I mean the User’s Cell Phone. It is not a shared phone, it is the phone of each individual, so each user will need to log into the same UCP ideally, and enable Follow Me entering their personal number. Therefore intercepting the calls from going to a ring group.
If it was me, I’d start with the virtual extension connected to UCP and get that working to a local extension. After that, there are lots of places you can take this.
So this virtual extension has to essentially rely on a physical extension in the office, or “local extension”?
There are lots of things that can screw up your access to cell phones from an internal connection. The fact that you are on a PRI means that you need to have an open line in the outbound trunk, and that (very likely) isn’t probably going to have the right caller ID.
Do I need to have a custom Outbound Route? Currently I just have one Outbound Route to handle outgoing.
Lastly, is there any special required Dial setting needed for the Virtual Extension to dial out for forwarded external numbers such as cell phones?
Good. That’s what we needed to know.
No, a virtual extension is virtual, in that it only exists in the context of the PBX. There is no physical phone backing it up. It’s only purpose in life is to forward calls for you to the cell phone of the last person that said “send me all of the calls” when they log into UCP and access the virtual extension.
As an additional feature, you can forward this phone to one of your office phones if you want, but calls sent to this phone when there’s no destination will end up either in voicemail (which should be a good idea, since there are always possibilities of a couple of people trying to call in) or with a perfunctory message like “Sorry, no one here - sucks to be you.” or something.
Maybe. Your specific network setup will decide that. I have two customers with this set up, one needed a second provider to get the audio working (the NAT and firewall traversal killed the audio) and the other didn’t (but we set one up anyway so that the caller’s caller ID would show up, not the businesses caller ID).
Also, since you are on PRI, it is up to your provider whether or not you can override the line’s caller ID, and if you can, whether they allow “foreign” caller IDs to be propagated. If you do everything right on your end (and are ashamed to call your phone provider 
), you might need to set up an outbound-only VOIP route for these phones. Call your provider and ask them about outbound caller ID - they should be able to tell you what their rules are.
There are plenty of VOIP providers that allow for foreign caller ID, including all of the providers I use and the one Sangoma promotes.
If you set up the valid cell phones with miscellaneous destinations, then adding them to the “special” outbound route will ensure thing go exactly the way you want them to. It’s probably not mandatory (depending on the information from the answer above) but it probably isn’t a bad idea.
Just so I’m clear - the last two pieces are really “tuning” questions. These are the places that you’d look at when things are almost working.
One more last thought - you might need to set up something so that, if the cell phone people return the customer’s calls, their caller ID isn’t exposed to the original caller. There are lots of ways to do this, but we’ll leave that for a time when you decide you need it.
As you had suggested, it had to do with CID. I originally had my trunk and outgoing route CID’s blank, so I entered our business number, and chose Force Trunk CID, and external cell phones began ringing.
I was not even getting through on a physical SIP phone Follow Me.
I now use incoming IVR prompt 3 for Dispatch, go to a the virtual extension, which through Follow Me is set to the Ring Group during the day.
Any user can log in now to the virtual extension attached to a universal user for UCP, and they change the Follow Me to whatever cell phone number they need.
Thanks a lot for the dialog and information I needed!