Cisco Systems Understanding Cisco Unity Alternate Extensions for Enhanced Messaging

Appendix: Using Alternate Extensions and MWIs

Alternate Extensions

•Offer easy message access on direct calls from a cell phone, home phone, or phone at an alternate work site (assuming that the phone number is passed along to Cisco Unity from these other phone systems). In addition, when such phones are used as alternate extensions, and are set to forward to Cisco Unity, callers can listen to the subscriber greeting, and leave messages for the subscriber just as they would when dialing the primary extension for the subscriber.

Tip To reduce the number of requests from subscribers who want alternate extensions set up for multiple cell phones, home phones, and other phones, give subscribers class of service (COS) rights to specify their own set of alternate extensions. (See the Subscribers > Class of Service > Profile page.) With proper COS rights, a subscriber can specify up to five alternate extensions in the Cisco Unity Assistant—in addition to the nine that you can specify on the Subscribers > Alternate Extensions page in the Cisco Unity Administrator.

•Enable URL-based extensions in Cisco Unity for an integration with a SIP phone system.

How Alternate Extensions Work

Before you set up alternate extensions, review the following list for information on how alternate extensions work:

•Alternate extensions cannot exceed 30 characters in length. By default, each administrator-defined alternate extension must be at least 3 characters in length, while subscriber-defined alternate extensions must be at least 10 characters.

You can use the Advanced Settings tool in Tools Depot to specify a minimum extension length for the extensions entered in the Cisco Unity Administrator and the Cisco Unity Assistant. Refer to the Advanced Settings Tool Help for details on using the settings. Respectively, the settings are Administration—Set the Minimum Length for Locations, and Administration—Set the Minimum Length for Subscriber-Defined Alternate Extensions.

•You can control whether subscribers can use the Cisco Unity Assistant to view the alternate extensions that you specify in the Cisco Unity Administrator. To do so, see the Subscribers > Class of Service > Profile page. The Subscriber-Defined Alternate Extension table displays the alternate extensions that the subscriber adds.

•Neither the Cisco Unity Administrator nor the Cisco Unity Assistant will accept an extension that is already assigned to another subscriber (either as a primary or alternate extension), or to a public distribution list, call handler, directory handler, or interview handler. Cisco Unity verifies that each alternate extension is unique—up to the dialing domain level, if applicable—before allowing either an administrator or a subscriber to create it.

•All alternate extensions use the same transfer settings as the primary extension.

•In many cases, Cisco Unity can activate a message waiting indicator (MWI) for an alternate extension. However, depending on the phones and phone systems involved, some additional phone system programming may be required to set this up.

Setting Up Alternate Extensions

Do the applicable procedure to add, modify, or delete alternate extensions:

•To Add Administrator-Defined Alternate Extensions, page 43

•To Modify or Delete Alternate Extension(s), page 43

Avaya Definity Gx/PBXLink Integration Guide for Cisco Unity 4.0

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