External Response Group Call Routing with Lync Server

Once you start playing with Response Groups in Lync (or OCS) it probably wont be long before you want one to dial out to your PBX. In my case recently it was to get a support line to call an on-call mobile.

Out of the box, Lync wont.

Any outbound call needs a voice route to determine its routing path and permissions – without one it simply cant go anywhere. In short when the RGS tries to dial out it will default to your global voice policy which (unless you’ve changed it – and you shouldn’t) wont route.

Your first task is to therefore create a voice policy that includes the number (or number pattern) you want to call and define a gateway device.

• You can do this via the Lync Control Panel or Powershell.
• Make sure the voice policy is of type ”User” otherwise you wont be able to apply it to your RGS object
• Make sure you commit the new policy otherwise it wont be available for use (you’ll get a policy is not a user policy error).

Then you need to bind that policy to your RGS object. You definitely need Powershell for this bit.

Grant-CSVoicePolicy -identity “RGSWorkflowObject” -PolicyName VoicePolicyYouCreated

For identity, use the display name of your RGS Workflow object.

And you’re done. Your RGS can now dial out.

Last tip – make sure the number you’re trying to dial out to is entered fully normalised in the format +<countrycode><areacode><number>@<sipdomain>.

eg. [email protected]