Monthly Archives: August 2018

How to translate four digits to an eleven digit PSTN call in Avaya Communication Manager

Hello all!

I was recently contacted by an old client who is moving offices. They have four-digit dialing between offices and use a lot of h.323 tie lines. However, they’re migrating to Cisco and during the transition, they just want to convert four digits to a PSTN call. Most of our telephone systems probably do this, but we rarely need to change it or add new ones, so I figured I’d summarize the process here.

Typically, four-digit translation is done based upon the first two digits (i.e. 100 numbers at-a-time). There are really only a few steps: Create the entry in the “dialplan analysis”, then the “uniform-dialplan”, then the “aar digit-conversion”. It is possible to perform some digit-conversion in the uniform dialplan, but I prefer to use the aar digit-conversion table due to consistency and flexibility. In this example, we add translation for the 83xx range to dial 914-555-83xx.

Step 1 – Verify the Dialplan is available for the first two digits

There should no entry for ‘83’ in the “dialplan analysis” table.

display dialplan analysis                                       Page   2 of  12
                             DIAL PLAN ANALYSIS TABLE
                                   Location: all            Percent Full: 11

    Dialed   Total  Call     Dialed   Total  Call     Dialed   Total  Call
    String   Length Type     String   Length Type     String   Length Type
   8           4   ext
   80          3   dac
   86          4   ext
   87          4   ext

Step 2 – change the dialplan analysis

Next, change the dialplan analysis adding an ‘83’ with a total length of 4 and a call-type of ext. We’re really going to use AAR to route this call, but that will be done through the uniform dialplan next. Confirm the entry:

display dialplan analysis                                       Page   2 of  12
                             DIAL PLAN ANALYSIS TABLE
                                   Location: all            Percent Full: 11

    Dialed   Total  Call     Dialed   Total  Call     Dialed   Total  Call
    String   Length Type     String   Length Type     String   Length Type
   8           4   ext
   80          3   dac
   83          4   ext
   86          4   ext
   87          4   ext

Step 3 – Check uniform dialplan

Next, check the uniform dialplan. It is possible to have entries in the uniform-dialplan that are not in the dialplan analysis table (as far as I can tell, this is a mistake because you’ll get wave-off). In my case, I don’t have 83s:

list uniform-dialplan                                                  Page   8

                      UNIFORM DIAL PLAN TABLE

Matching Pattern   Len   Del   Insert Digits   Net    Conv   Node Num

7977                4     4      7577          ext     n
7978                4     4      7578          ext     n
7983                4     4      7583          ext     n
7986                4     4      7586          ext     n
7988                4     4      6111          ext     n
8651                4     4      1111          ext     n
8662                4     4      1111          ext     n

Step 4 – OPTION 1 – Uniform dialplan only

Like everything else in a telephone system, there are multiple ways to do this. Let’s call this OPTION 1 where we only use the Uniform Dialplan (and not aar analysis)

Create an entry in the uniform dialplan for 83 with a length of 4 and no deleted digits. However, we are going to insert the digits here to route through the PSTN. In this case, insert 1914304. We set the Network to ‘ars’ so that this call goes through ARS routing. Note that we do not include a ‘9’ in the inserted digits. This is because we’re explicitly telling the PBX to use ARS routing (which is also what the ‘9’ does). Also note that you can only insert 10 digits here, which is not enough for some international translations. In that case, I use ars with digit translation. But this is fine for USA numbers. However, to be consistent between a mix of USA and international, I will typically use ARS digit-conversion as described in the next step OPTION 2.

list uniform-dialplan                                                  Page   8

                      UNIFORM DIAL PLAN TABLE

Matching Pattern   Len   Del   Insert Digits   Net    Conv   Node Num

7977                4     4      7577          ext     n
7978                4     4      7578          ext     n
7983                4     4      7583          ext     n
7986                4     4      7586          ext     n
7988                4     4      6111          ext     n
83                  4     0      1917304       ars     n
8651                4     4      1111          ext     n

[Note, the option above works for the North American numbering plan, but not for longer international strings, so I always use the next option]

Step 4 – OPTION 2 – AAR digit conversion

This is the most consistent (and my preferred) option, because if you have any translations to international numbers you’ll probably need to use this method. Create an entry in the uniform dialplan for 83 with a length of 4 and no deleted digits. However, we also want to perform digit conversion on this pattern so be sure to stroke the “Conv” column to ‘y’ so additional conversion can take place.

list uniform-dialplan                                                  Page   8

                      UNIFORM DIAL PLAN TABLE

Matching Pattern   Len   Del   Insert Digits   Net    Conv   Node Num

7977                4     4      7577          ext     n
7978                4     4      7578          ext     n
7983                4     4      7583          ext     n
7986                4     4      7586          ext     n
7988                4     4      6111          ext     n
83                  4     0                    ars     y
8651                4     4      1111          ext     n

Next, create an entry in the aar digit-conversion table for 83. Set the min/max to 4 and insert the new digits in the replacement string. Then set the Net to “ars” to tell the PBX to route the call out to the PSTN. There will be no more digit conversion, so leave Conv to ‘n’.

list aar digit-conversion

                      AAR DIGIT CONVERSION REPORT

                                Location: all

Matching Pattern     Min   Max   Del   Replacement String   Net  Conv ANI Req

0                    1     28    0                          ars   y
1                    4     28    0                          ars   y
5982                 4     4     4     12155550542          ars   n
7317                 4     4     0     555929               aar   y
7501                 4     4     4     13105555425          ars   n
83                   4     4     0     1917555              ars   n
x11                  3     3     0                          ars   y

And that’s it! You should be able to dial 83xx and it will use ARS routing to the translated value of 191755583xx. If you have any trouble at all, you can refer to my flowchart of Avaya routing to help troubleshoot this.

Happy routing, everyone!

Roger