Business Continuity Guide. Disaster Redirect TM

Transcription

1 Business Continuity Guide Disaster Redirect TM

2 1. Introduction One of the key advantages of the Telovations Service is the built in business continuity contained in the Telovations Real Time Network TM. One of the key features is Disaster Redirect TM a service on the network rather than a feature on a box in your phone room, where you can redirect calls if your phone is unreachable, you can t make it into your place of work or even if the entire building is destroyed! This document is designed to show customers how to use the features of the Telovations Service and Disaster Redirect to design a business continuity plan that works for them. The solutions outlined in this document are applicable to both Hosted PBX and trunk group rerouting for premise based PBX (TDM or IP) or Key Telephone System (KTS). 2. Business Continuity Overview Most businesses cannot afford to lose their voice and data service for a prolonged period of time. While some disaster conditions are handled quite well by a premises-based PBX, situations where the connection to the PBX is severed, must be handled by the network.(e.g a back hoe hitting a cable or a storm taking out the electrical grid). Telovations enhanced business continuity services provide the SMB or Enterprise the assurance that in the event of a catastrophic failure, business communications services are still available. As part of the Real Time Network TM, Telovations offers three categories of solutions for the business: Personal Continuity, Group Continuity and Site Continuity. 2.1 Personal Continuity Solutions Personal continuity solutions take advantage of various features available through the Telovations Teloportal. While many users tale advantage of these features daily (e.g. simultaneous ring), they also provide a very resilient solution for business continuity. These services are: Simultaneous/Sequential Ring: One of the simplest personal continuity solutions is the simultaneous or sequential ring configuration. In this configuration, any calls to your phone will simultaneously (or sequentially) ring to another phone such as a mobile phone or a home phone. If the network cannot reach the user s primary phone due to a network outage, the mobile phone will still ring. This service can be provided to a single phone number or to all phone numbers in an organization. Remote Office: The Telovations PBX Enhancement package adds remote office capabilities and a browser-based toolbar interface to ring a remote office. With this package, the end user sends and receives calls from a remote phone as if from the desk or PBX phone. If the PBX is inaccessible, the user can still place calls with the Caller Name and CLID of the PBX using Microsoft Outlook or an internet browser. Remote office can also be used with an auto-attendant or a hunt group so that users can work from another location during a business outage. 2.2 Group Continuity Solutions Disaster Redirect Disaster Redirect is a Call Forward Not Reachable (CFNR) service that provides call redirection for an incoming call to a directory number that is not reachable. Two conditions may trigger this action: 1. Unregistered Device: The end device is deemed unreachable if the hosted switch does not have a registered endpoint recorded for the DN of the incoming call. (e.g. a fiber cut) 2. Timeout: The device is considered not reachable if there is no response to an incoming call after a timeout counter has expired. (e.g. your PBX is malfunctioning) If an incoming call is for an unreachable number, the CFNR function forwards that call to another number configured in the Telovations Teloportal. There are many ways to handle call flow when your phone is unreachable; the following examples are just a few of the many possibilities. - Forward calls to the main Trunk Group number of another PBX. - Forward calls for an individual user to the user s mobile phone. - Forward all calls to an answering service

3 - Forward all calls to a hosted auto attendant - Forward all calls to a hosted voice mailbox with unified messaging features set Note: Once the endpoint becomes reachable again, calls are no longer redirected. 3. Disaster Redirect with Virtual Devices (Auto attendants, Hunt Groups etc): Virtual Devices must be set to an actual device to work. As long as users have the CFNR configured on their extension with a phone number in the portal (see Figure 2), Disaster Redirect will kick in automatically once the phones lose registration Site Continuity Solutions Site Unavailable Trunk Rerouting Customers who choose to keep their premise based phone system can leverage the Telovations Real Time Network by using Site Unavailable Rerouting. Incoming call rerouting gives the enterprise the option of rerouting incoming calls to alternate locations in the event of a loss of connectivity with the premise-based PBX. The site rerouting to an alternate trunk group provides the benefit of full redundancy of the PBX capabilities, albeit on a hot standby at a different location, or to a stand by trunk group to the same PBX. In this scenario, calls coming into a site are rerouted to another site that hosts an identically configured PBX. PBX services, such as voice mail and auto attendants, are fully replicated on the back up PBX. This is a great solution for financial institutions, healthcare solutions and in other scenarios where the organization must be fully operational at all times. 4. Additional Optional Continuity Solutions Telovations can add other components to your service package that can make your business continuity solution more robust. The following are additional equipment and services to Consider: 3.1 Local Survivability Solution Premise based systems with local survivability can support calling even if outbound links are interrupted. Telovations can add analog lines to your service package to send outbound calls to the PSTN via a direct connection. Intra-site calls and features will continue to work and users can still continue to be productive even if the data network is not working. 3.2 On Site Battery Backup All advanced communications systems are reliant on power and we have all experienced power outages. Since most power outages are relatively short, having a solution to hold your business over while you wait for power to be restored is important. We highly recommend adding a battery backup to your solution to give you a minimum of a half an hour of battery backup for your switch and router and if your phones are not powered by the network, at each desk. 3.3 Network based receptionist package For those businesses that have more than one location, call rerouting can take place to a receptionist in another location in the event of loss of continuity. The receptionist can answer the call and reroute calls to users cell phones, other line, or take a message for the user. 3.4 Employee info line An employee information line is included with each Disaster Redirect package and can be easily set up as a voice messaging box where the employees are given a DID or extension to dial into to hear the latest information, status, and instructions on what to do. 5. Configuration of your service The following section provides generic configuration examples that may be used when setting up your Disaster Redirect Service. The services can be set up through the User Portal (teloportal.telovations.com) or your system administrator can set them up through the administrator portal

4 (portal.telovations.net). In addition, simultaneous ring and sequential ring can be configured through the Telovations Toolbar for those users who have that service. This guide shows how to configure the service using the Telovations User Portal at teloportal.telovations.com. If you have any questions, please feel free to call your customer service representative. 4.1 Simultaneous Ring / Sequential Ring This service can be configured by the individual user or the group administrator through the Telovations Portal. Once you log into the portal at teloportal.telovations.com using your individual user ID or group admin user ID, click on the features Tab and then the Calling features sub tab. You will see settings for call forward, sequential/simultaneous ring as well as the call forward not reachable numbers. To change these settings, simply turn on the radio button and add the number you wish to forward them to. (See Figrue 1). These individual settings are for hosted PBX users only. Trunk Group settings for the Call Forward Not Reachable for the group settings are discussed in the next paragraph. However, it is important to understand that these individual settings will override group CFNR settings for hosted PBX users. Figure 1 Business Continuity Calling Features

5 4.2 Call Forward Not Reachable. Configuration of Call Forward Not Reachable (CFNR) is fairly straightforward. CFNR is configured for each user (Trunk Group User or Trunk Group Main User) in the Company Portal at portal.telovations.com. The same interface is used for a Hosted PBX user, the only difference is that Trunk users don t have the ability to individually manage their settings, it must be done by a group or system admin. To change the CFNR settings, log into the company portal and click on the Disaster Redirect Tab. (See Figure 2) Here, you will see a list of all the telephone numbers assigned to your group. Once you submit these numbers, Call Forward Not Reachable is working as part of your Disaster Redirect Service. Figure 2 Call Forward Not Reachable 6. Service Precedence for Redirection Customers should be aware of service precedence with regards to CFNR to understand how call forwarding will work in different scenarios - Redirection will only take place on physical devices. Virtual subscribers (e.g. hunt group, autoattendant) will not work - A setting for Selective Call Forwarding or Call Forwarding Always will take precedence over Call Forward Not Reachable - CFNR will not forward on a busy phone condition. If the user s phone is busy, the Call Forward Busy setting will be used - Call Forward No Answer and Call Forward Not Reachable both can be triggered by the expiration of a timer. The call forwarding action taken is determined by the first timer to expire. For example, if the Call Forward No Answer timer expires before the CFNR timer, the Call Forward No Answer setting will be used to forward the call - If the user has Simultaneous Ring or Sequential Ring set, call redirection will only take place on the users primary device - If Remote Office is active, incoming calls shall be redirected only if the RO location is unreachable, independently of the user s main device(s)

6 7. Definitions The following terms are used in this document. DID: Direct Inward Dial number. A DN that is used to address a specific user associated with a phone on a PBX DN: Directory Number. Applicable to both a Hosted PBX and a Business Trunking user Group Administrator One or more business users who have been assigned the credentials to log into the Company portal at teloportal.telovations.com. The business features that can be modified from this portal are things like company information, auto-attendants, hunt groups, redirection, etc. System Administrator One or more technical users who have been assigned credentials to log into the technical portal at portal.telovations.com. This is a much more powerful portal that gives the administrator the right to do all the things that a group administrator can do in addition to adding phone numbers, changing passwords, updating unified messaging settings, etc. Trunk Group: A connection to a PBX that is defined by the number of simultaneous calls delivered to a PBX Trunk Group User: A user associated with a trunk group. This is a common configuration mechanism to assign a DN or a DID to a phone on a PBX Trunk Group Main User or Main Trunk Group User: The user associated with the main number for the PBX. This typically delivers calls to the PBX auto attendant or the receptionist. In BroadWorks, this is configured as the phone number for the Trunk Group