In Lync 2010, there are Response Groups. Read about them on Technet here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398513.aspx – in summary they are a way of getting a call to a group of users, with the option of an nteractive voice response (IVR). There’s a whole lot of options around it, but sometimes a scenario comes up where you want to force all the Response Group calls to another number that’s not a part of your Lync system (such as a mobile phone).
Assuming you have a working Response Group already (if not, here’s a guide http://blogs.technet.com/b/ilvancri/archive/2010/11/23/creating-a-response-group-in-lync.aspx), you’ll need to go into the Queue tab for Response Groups, choose your Queue and tick the box for ‘Enable queue overflow’.
Next, change the ‘Maximum number of calls’ to 0 which means every call is an overflow call, and set the ‘Call action’ to ‘Forward to telephone number’. In the SIP address field, you can now enter the external phone number to transfer calls to.
This external number should be in the format ‘sip:[email protected]’ so for an Australian mobile it’s +61 for Australia, then 4xx xxx xxx.
This seems simple so far, but when you test it you may find a problem where your call doesn’t get diverted. If you’re using a Lync phone, you may see a message around not having permission to make the call, or you may just get disconnected.
This is because by default, a Response Group doesn’t make calls so there’s no Voice Policy assigned to it. Voice Policies allow different features such as call forwarding and call transfers – all your normal Lync users will have one. Read more about it here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg412891.aspx
So, you’ll need to set a Voice Policy to your Response Group. If you’re not sure what Voice Policies you have, run the PowerShell command Get-CsVoicePolicy to list all of them, or Get-CsVoicePolicy username to see a particular user’s Voice Policy.
Once you’ve worked out the policy, Grant-csVoicepolicy -identity ResponseGroupName -PolicyName VoicePolicyName will apply the Voice Policy and will let the Response Group transfer calls out.
Thanks for this – it’s not obvious that a Reponse Group could even have a Voice Policy, as Get-CsRgsWorkflow | fl * does not show the VoicePolicy attribute in Lync Server 2013 (haven’t tried on Skype For Business 2015 yet).
If you’ve found a way to show which Response Groups have a Voice Policy assigned, and what that policy is, I’d love to see it, and I imagine some others would, as well.
Hi Amanda,
I might have an answer for you.
Get-CsApplicationEndpoint shows all endpoints, including response groups.
It appears that Response Groups have the OwnerUrn value set to “urn:application:RGS”
Putting that all together, this command shows me all the names of the RGS along with their Voice Policies:
Get-CsApplicationEndpoint | where {$_.ownerurn -eq “urn:application:RGS”} | select displayname, voicepolicy
Let me know how you go!
I came across this article ages ago and figured I’d post some helpful code
Get-Csapplicationendpoint | where {$_.Sipaddress -eq “sip:(sipnameofendpoint)”} | Grant-CsVoicePolicy -po (Voicepolicyname)
Hi Adam,
i have a questions.
I want every externally call to response group, redirect to mobile phone number (example : +628xxxx)
So what can i do for this?
Yes you can do pretty much what mu screenshot shows – set the call queue length to 0 and all calls get redirected.
Foot note to this – from my testing it appears that the queue should have a lync group assigned to it – you cant just leave the group empty.
I’d never tried creating it without adding one, great footnote thanks :)