We use simultaneous ringing and dual forking for a couple of weeks now and we constantly trying togerther with Mitel to improve the user experience. To get everything in a more clear perspective how simul/dual forking works with OCS please read the following information.
Simultaneous Ringing:
When an OC softphone is setup as Enterprise Voice without PBX integration, you can use the Simultaneous Ringing functionality on Office Communicator to “twin” a call to another destination. How it works with an example:
- OC client with number +31306912785 with simultaneous ringing destination +3161234567 (mobile number)
- If a call is made to the OC user, ie +31306912785, the call is offered both to the OC user AND to the mobile phone (standard GSM mobile user)
- If a call is answered at the OC softhpone call status is changed to “in a call” BUT if the call is answered on the mobile phone it is NOT (nor will this happen in near future)
So this should be clear to end users who might expect this but as said this is not functionality delivered. The advantage of simultaneous ringing is that it is set at the user level and therefore giving flexibility to change the destination, whereas dual forking is at the active directory level.
Dual forking:
When an OC softphone is setup as Enterprise Voice with PBX integration, an OCS user can have multiple destinations setup belonging to their profile. An example:
- OC client with number +31306912785 with forking destination 385 (IP phone on OCS)
- If a call is made to the OC user, ie +31306912785, the call is offered both to the OC user AND to the forked number 385
- If a call is answered at the OC softhpone call status is changed to “in a call” AND if the call is answered on the forked IP phone it will do as well
- The call can’t be forked to an external destination, ie GSM/mobile number, so when the call is answered on the mobile the status does NOT change to “in a call” on OC
There will be some enhancements in Office Communicator Mobile where the mobile user could be a SIP connected device to OCS…..but for the time being the only way to get status changes with a non OC user is to use dual forking to a fixed IP phone. Further both Simultaneous Ringing and Forking act similar with regards to call routing, keep in mind you need to have capacity on the gateway box or SIP connected PBX to have the this working properly.
Each twinned call will have 2 active channels as OCS doesn’t do optimalisation of voice channels (like the voice world does with Qsig and DPNSS). Special thanks to John from Mitel Netherlands he is an outstanding guy in the world of Mitel. This is really a great product.
4 comments:
Thanks mate, very informative article, so, in scenario that we need to ring both "OCS phone number" + "legacy PBX phone number", we would use Dual-Forking, right?
I heard about RCC (Remote Call Control), in what scenario that one would consider RCC over Dual-forking?
When you would like to ring both the OCS phone and the legacy PBX phone the RCC option is the best (you preserve presence), when you would like to ring both the OCS Phone, Lagacy Phone and an external number for instance a mobile phone you would to use Dual Forking (twinning). Be aware that with this option you will lose presence after the next hop is taken (next hop is mobile phone outside of your organisation).
I am trying to get Dual Forking set up between my Mitel and my OCS systems, I cannot find any documentation on this and Mitel say it is not officially supported at the moment.
Do you have any documentation or screenshots of the bits I need to configure to get this working ?
Many Thanks
PBX Phone system for businesses are really great to use. Your communication cost will reduce and you will get better service.
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