Hi, I've only recently come across the UC500/CallManager Express and are currently evaluating features that our company requires. We currently use a Nortel BCM50. From your previous experience - does the UC500/CME support these features below??? 1) Distinct Ring Tone per incomming Line - to audibly recognise different lines without looking at the display?? 2) Night Service - to divert all calls to an external number from the receptionist phone?? 3) Music On Hold - Is it possible to have different MOH audio files being played when on hold / transfer determined from the number they have called?? 4) Outgoing number - Is it possible to change the outgoing number depending on the trunk access prefix. e.g. 9... will have outgoing number as 11111111 and 8... outgoing number 2222222??? and so on?? Thanks for your help - sorry if these questions have previously been answered. I have tried looking through the site first but cannot find these answers. Simon. |
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UC500.comCisco Communication Manager Express, UC520, SMB VOIP reference and community |
BCM vs. UC500
Hi Simon.
I programmed BCM50's for two years (about 500 systems total) before I moved onto the UC500.
You'll find that the features that you are after are available in the UC500, but for some things to get set up to the same degree that you can do in a BCM, you will need to use the CME command line. The Cisco GUIs arent quite up to the same level as Nortel, but the command line is far more powerful.
Once you know what you are doing, the UC500 can offer far greater benefits than the BCM can without the headaches of having to license features like you do with the BCM, plus you can customise the phones etc. through xml scripts to make the system more applicable to your companies needs (if you want) as well as a lot of 3rd party apps that can enhance the functionality of the system such as IPcelerate and Skystone.
I have not set up the UC500 with autoattendant to the same degree that I could with the BCM using the CCR trees etc, but having said that, I'm sure that there are ways of doing it, just browse these pages.
With regards to your questions above.....
1) Distinct Ring Tone per incomming Line - to audibly recognise different lines without looking at the display?? - I know what you are meaning with the BCM abilities. The Cisco system works a bit differently, but can achieve the same result.
Basically you will need to create "dummy" extensions that can then be assigned to seperate buttons on the Cisco phones. Then through the phone, you can assign ring tones to each extenstion that is present on your phone.....It doesn't work at the line level like the BCM where you can assign a ringtone to a line....... Having said that, there are heaps of ringtones available on the Cisco system, so in reality you will only be limited by how many buttons are on your phone unlike the BCM that has 4 distinct ring tones.
2) Night Service - to divert all calls to an external number from the receptionist phone?? - Absolutely, you can configure this through the Unity Express GUI through a web browser.
3) Music On Hold - Is it possible to have different MOH audio files being played when on hold / transfer determined from the number they have called?? - I wasnt aware that the BCM50 could do that.... is that part of the contact centre licensed app?? other than that the BCM50 just uses global MoH as far as I'm aware which the UC500 is quite capable of doing. Hopefully someone else can better answer this point.
4) Outgoing number - Is it possible to change the outgoing number depending on the trunk access prefix. e.g. 9... will have outgoing number as 11111111 and 8... outgoing number 2222222??? and so on?? - Yes, but this will need to be done via command line ......
Yes to all except 3. To my
Yes to all except 3. To my knowledge you only get 1 MOH file system wide.
Cisco IP Communications Express Specialist
www.ketchumits.com
MOH
The MOH file for B-ACD is different than the MOH file for call hold. So technically, it would depend on the call situation. all calls 'on hold' would have one MOH, and all calls in a B-ACD call queue could have a different MOH. so if you had call queues (i.e. a customer service department), the MOH the caller hears while waiting in the queue is different from what they would hear if they were put on hold by someone.
I also have not yet tried it (almost, but ended up not doing it) is changing the MOH based on different B-ACD queues. the MOH file name is coded into the B-ACD script, but I am assuming you can change the code in the script to reflect different MOH files, then start the B-ACD scripts to create two different call queues (i.e. tech support and customer service or whatever), then each queue would have its own MOH.