Cisco Call Manager, a robust phone system
June 07, 2018
Cisco Call Manager, a robust phone system
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
We use Cisco Unified Communications Manager for our Phone system. We have an on-premise phone system. We have 2 nodes. A Pub and a Sub so if a link goes out our off-site Sub takes over and our phone system still works. We also use Cisco Unity for our voice mail.
- Cisco Jabber is a great application that can be used with the Cisco phone system. You can do audio or audio and video. It also allows for chat.
- Hunt groups. You can have multiple people in the same group to ring multiple phones at once.
- Using Cisco Unity with Call Manager you can create Auto Attendants and call menus.
- Coming in brand new to using Call Manager it takes a bit to get to know it. Definitely get with someone who has experience and can learn how to manage it. I started 1.5 years ago with Call Manager and I'm decent now but I still have access to a tech for the complicated stuff. Document how to do everything and it will be easy to repeat!
- It's very easy to make a mistake in setting up an extension.
- It's hard to think of another Con. The biggest thing is learning how to do it. You don't need a certification to learn but it is best to learn from someone who has the knowledge and document as you go. The best way is to have them walk you through all the fixes and you learn as you fix things.
- Positive impact - The phone system works.
- Negative impact - When it goes down you don't have phones. However, it may not be the phone system but the router that gives you issues so you have to troubleshoot both.
- Positive impact - Except for adding and removing users, you don't have to touch it often.
I inherited Cisco Unified Communications Manager. I walked into a job that it already existed. We then purchased a company that has an Avaya IP Office phone system. I definitely like the Cisco over the Avaya for the control that you have. It's definitely more complex but it's very powerful. I don't have experience working on any other phone systems.