Support Line - Call Forward All through Hunt Pilot to cell phone

Question

I know I may be beating a dead horse, but I've found so much help in these forums that I figured I'd give it a shot.
We have a Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition and we are running into a configuration issue. What we would like to do is to create an emergency support line for our IT staff. The way we would like this to function is that a caller dials a number, CM accepts the call and dials out to our IT staff's cell phone numbers in a round-robin fashion. To avoid the caller getting dumped into the IT staff's voice mail on their cells, we would like the staff member to have to dial a number to accept the call. If there is no answer, the call rolls to the next cell number. If no one is available, the caller should be directed to Unity Connection to leave a message. Unity then will send out text and email messages to the support staff.
I know that we can use Unity to perform an assisted transfer, which will require the user to press "1" to accept the call, and we are able to get Unity to send out the notifications (text and email) when a voice message is left. The issue is with Call Manager making the outbound calls to the cell phones.
What we have attempted is to setup DNs that call forward all to the users cell numbers. These DNs have been added to a Line Group, which has a Hunt Pilot attached to it. Any time this pilot is called, we get a reorder. Using the DNA, we see that "no device is associated with the DN", which is under the DN for the first users cell forward. If we add that DN as a second line to that users IP Phone (7940), then the call into the Hunt Pilot rings that line on the IP phone, not the CFA to the cell phone.
After weeks of digging around, it seems as though CFA in a Hunt is just not possible. My boss wants official word from Cisco about this, but TAC doesn't seem to want to help due to service contract issues (which blows my mind, as we have opened several cases in the past two months for configuration related issues). Our Business Edition came with Contact Center Xpress, although we do not have the resources available to install it. If CCX will carry out this task, that might be enough to push management into getting another server to support this, but without being able to play around with it, I don't know.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to make this work, I would GREATLY appreciate the help!
Thanks in advance,
-Geoff

Answer 1

Hi Geoff,
Always interesting isn't it :)
Call Forward settings on individual Hunt member phones are ignored when presented a call via the Hunt feature. Here is a clip;
The concept of hunting differs from that of call forwarding. Hunting allows Cisco CallManager to extend a call to one or more lists of numbers, where each such list can specify a hunting order that is chosen from a fixed set of algorithms. When a call extends to a hunt party from these lists and the party fails to answer or is busy, hunting resumes with the next hunt party. (The next hunt party varies depending on the current hunt algorithm.) Hunting thus ignores the Call Forward No Answer (CFNA) or Call Forward Busy (CFB) settings for the attempted party. This also applies to CFWD ALL settings.
From this doc;
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps556/products_administration_guide_chapter09186a00803edabe.html#wp107892
So, any Forwarding settings have to be done on the Hunt Pilot itself. These Destination settings (on the Hunt Pilot) need to be configured to go to the Unity Voicemail Pilot # or perhaps this is where you Forward out to the Cell #;
Hunt Forward Settings
Forward Hunt No Answer - When the call that is distributed through the hunt list is not answered in a specific time, this field specifies how to forward the call.
Destination This setting indicates the directory number to which calls are forwarded. (This can be the Directory Number of the Unity VM Pilot)
Forward Hunt Busy - When the call that is distributed through the hunt list is busy in a specific time, this field specifies how to forward the call.
Destination This setting indicates the directory number to which calls are forwarded. (This can be the Directory Number of the Unity VM Pilot)
Maximum Hunt Timer - Enter a value (in seconds) that specifies the maximum time for hunting.(Used in conjunction with Forward Hunt Busy)
Maybe you could leverage these Unity Connection configs to achieve your desired results. These will ensure that the Message is not left unattended;
Cascading Message Notification
Cascading message notification allows you to send notifications to a widening circle of recipients. Cisco Unity Connection continues to send notifications according to the devices you selected until the message has been saved or deleted by a recipient.
For example, to create a cascade of message notifications for your Technical Support department,
Chaining Message Notification
Message notification can be set to "chain" to a series of notification devices if an attempt to send notification to the first selected device fails. The definition of failure to a notification device is based on the options you select for retrying a device that is not answered or is busy.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/2x/user_mac/guide/2xcucmac040.html#wp1132107
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/2x/user_mac_cmbe/guide/6xcucmbemac040.html#wp1132107
Hope this helps!
Rob