Troubleshooting Advanced Cisco CME Features

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Debugging and correcting dial plan patterns
• Fixing call transfer patterns
• Troubleshooting call conferencing
• Correcting music on hold (MOH) problems
• Troubleshooting directory services
• Working with the Class of Restriction (COR) feature

Chapter 16, "Troubleshooting Basic Cisco IPC Express Features," explained the basic operation of the Cisco CallManager Express (CME) system. It also looked at some of the problems you might encounter during the registration of IP phones, configuration of network technologies such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and virtual LANs (VLANs), and basic considerations for the correct operation of the Cisco IPC Express GUI. At this point, your phones should be successfully registered to the Cisco CME system and operational.

The next step is to expand your basic two-phone system to a completely functional telephony system suited to your needs. The requirements can vary from system to system, so the potential problems also vary. This chapter explores the issues that may arise while adding configuration and features to a basic Cisco CME system.

Before learning about advanced Cisco CME troubleshooting, one of the most important concepts to understand is the difference between an ephone and an ephone-dn and how these fit into the Cisco IOS software voice architecture. Chapter 5, "Cisco CME Call Processing Features," covered the basic building blocks of a Cisco CME system; you should read it before this chapter. In review

• An ephone (Ethernet phone) is the configuration of the physical device.
• An ephone-dn is the configuration of the phone line or extension. Each ephone-dn has a virtual voice port and dial peer as its subcomponents.

The need to troubleshoot Cisco CME is most likely to arise out of features such as the following:

• The dialplan patterns and transfer patterns associated with the system configuration
• Call transfer and conference scenarios
• Advanced features such as music on hold (MOH), directory services, and Class of Restriction (COR)

This chapter discusses how to troubleshoot some of the problems you may encounter in these areas.