Configuring Intercom and Presence in CUC Manager

Intercom Configuration Steps

To setup our intercom on the Communications Manager we have to setup the partitions, make sure we change the intercom calling search space or verify that it’s a reachable calling search space between the parties, and then setup the Directory Numbers.

When we’re setting up our partitions, it looks very similar to when we setup our regular partitions, so we go into Call Routing, but this time we go to Intercom > Intercom Route Partition. This is where we setup the partitions and setup the names, I always say it’s a good idea to do the descriptions because if you setup lots of intercoms and lots of partitions in your environment it’s good to have a definition aside from just we call it so that you kind of know what’s going on here.

Again very similar to how we setup regular calling search spaces, we setup our intercom calling search spaces. So Call Routing > Intercom > Intercom Calling Search Space. The Intercom Calling Search Spaces are created automatically, but it’s a good idea to come in here and check them out. And you can modify them if we have any kind of dial plan requirements that are changed or different than the default. And I’m always one for if I am going to do this, create my partitions, double check my calling search spaces just to make sure everything got setup right.

Last step, create the Directory Number. So we’ll go into configure a phone button template with that intercom line. We can define the Directory Number and we can use the partitions and calling search spaces that we’ve created, we’ll configure a device name and then of course we want to use our speed dial parameter for a point-to-point intercom selection. Once we’ve done all of this, we save it and apply the configuration changes.

Configure Speed Dial BLF

Now we’re looking at the Communications Manager Presence Environment. And here we’re going to talk about how to configure our speed dial busy lamp fields (BLF). We’re first of all going to look at modifying our phone button templates to add these presence-enabled speed dial buttons, we’ll apply the templates and then we may even need to go out and configure presence-enabled speed dial buttons.

To modify our phone button template, Device > Device Settings > Phone Button Template. We’ll just go in and we’re going to select the button configuration option for Speed Dial Busy Lamp Field, then if we want to put in a description or a label we can do that as well. So once we’ve done that we’ve now created our phone button template with our Speed Dial Busy Lamp Fields. Now we’re going to look at how to apply that phone button template to the phone.

Phone Button Template - BLF Configuration

So we go into our phone and now we’ll say from our Phone Button Template drop-down menu, just like any phone button template we’re going to add to a phone, and we’ll select the one that we have now modified to include any of our speed dial busy lamp field options.

We’ll now look at our speed dial buttons that are presence-enabled. So we’ll get to the phone, we’ll get into the Directory Numbers, and at that point we’ll enable the Busy Lamp Field/Speed Dial configuration and any Call Pickup Busy Lamp Field features that we want to add. This will now tie into the physical buttons on the phone because that’s where we are enabling these speed dials.

Enable Presence-Enabled Call Lists

Now if we’re setting up our call lists, we need to go out to our Enterprise Parameters because this is going to affect the entire cluster and will change the BLF For Call Lists to Enabled. Now any phone that we have presence-enabled call lists on are going to be affected. In order for that to take effect they’re going to need to be reset. You may want to do this at a time when not everybody’s in the office maybe a little after 6 or 7 O’clock at night when we can go ahead and make all those phones reset, so that they’ll now be enabled for that call list.

Enterprise Parameters - Enable BLF for Call Lists

Presence Policy Example: Subscribe CSS

Now remember I mentioned, we want to make sure that we have security in place. In other words it’s not a free for all, everybody can’t watch everybody else. So in order to do that, one way we setup is Subscribe Calling Search Spaces and Partitions.

Presence Policy Example

We see an example in this case where a call from extension 1001 to 1002 is permitted but then to 1003 it is denied. How is that maintained? Well, again because we’ve got our route patterns and/or our SIP trunks subscribed to the various partitions and calling search spaces, this is what allows this to take place.

An example, Phone 2 has partition 2 applied to its line, this is configured with Directory Number 1002, so the calling search space C-2 is assigned to phone 2, that’s what gives us the permission.

A SIP phone with a phone number of 1003 could be reached through a SIP trunk, so we can setup the route pattern here, it’s little different because it’s a SIP trunk. We setup the route pattern of 8.1003 in partition P-3 and now the calling search space C-3 is assigned to that SIP trunk. So this is a way again that we can associate the permissions for our presence policies.

Assign Subscribe CSSs to Phones and SIP Trunks

Now, once we’ve setup the Subscribe Calling Search Space we need to assign it to our phones and/or our SIP trunks if we’re using them. So we go into our Call Routing > Class of Control menu. We could go in and apply this SUBSCRIBE Calling Search Space either to our phone by going into Device > Phone or get into the Trunk if we’re doing this on a SIP trunk. And now add that SUBSCRIBE Calling Search Space and you’ll find on the main phone page and on the Trunk configuration page these options, so you’ll need to go down and find the one that says SUBSCRIBE Calling Search Space in order for this to affect your presence policies.

Presence Policy Example: Presence Groups

Now we could choose alternately to use presence groups. Presence groups are a little bit similar to our calling search space partition environment. We setup our lines in a presence group or our SIP trunks in a presence group. For example, phone 1 has a presence group of G-1 that’s applied to its lines.

Presence Groups Example

It has the Directory Number of 1001. Presence group 2 is now assigned to phone 1 and at this point from phone’s 1 perspective we can call or see from our permissions, we can see 1002 and 1003 because they are now assigned to the appropriate groups and assigned to our phone. And remember the effective permissions for our presence subscriptions allow us to watch from phone’s 1 perspective 1002 and 1003. Phone 2 is allowed to watch 1003 but not 1001 because it does not contain that group. And phone 3 is allowed to subscribe to presence information for 1001 but then not 1002, again because we do not have the permissions based on the presence group configuration.

How do we setup these presence groups? We configure the groups, we’re going to setup any default inter-presence group policies that we might need and then we’ll assign these groups to the lines and the phones, and the SIP trunks. Again I kind of think about this like partitions and calling search spaces, a little bit different obviously but we can look at it as “okay, in order for us to watch somebody we have to have them as part of our configuration” and that’s how we gain access or restrict access to be being able to watch somebody.

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