Mobile Twinning in a nutshell

By the end of this post, you will master the “Mobile Twinning” feature and functionalities. This feature is part of the Avaya IP Office, allowing remote workers, and mobile users to stay connected when away from their offices, offering telephony features, and business continuation.

With so many ways of “collaboration” and UC Integration options today, this feature isn’t as popular as it once was, but still relevant today.

• 1.- What’s Mobile Twinning
• 2.- History
• 3.- Prerequisites
• 4.- Benefits
• 5.- Availability
• 6.- Pros and Cons
• 7.- Implementing

1.- What’s Twinning?

Twinning is a feature that gets programmed into a button that allows the execution of the “mobile twinning” – when a call gets presented to the twinned extension, it will ring at both devices, the respective extension and the twinned destination device,  allowing the end-user to either retrieve the call from either the desk phone or remote destination.

2.- History of Mobile Twinning

This feature was introduced with the IP Office 3.2 release, and it has been enhanced through out the years adding new functionalities such as One-X Mobile Client, Hunt Group Calls Eligible for Mobile Twinning, and many more.

3.- Mobile Twinning Prerequisites

To allow for this feature to work, the system will require a license for each twinned call. This feature will only work with ISDN, SIP, and IP trunks.

4.- Benefits of Mobile Twinning

Once the call has been answered by the remote device, the end-user has the ability to retrieve it back, to the desk extension by pressing the feature key already programmed “twinning”, without the need of transferring or disconnecting the live call, allowing for call continuation without disruption.

On the other hand, if the end-user gets a call at their extension, and he/she desires to walk away from their desk, he/she can do so by pressing the “twinning” button in their phones; once pressed the system will auto-call the twinned programmed number (device). It is important to tell the caller as they will hear the ringing of the phone when the call is being transferred from the desk phone to the remote device.

5.- Mobile Twinning End-Point Availability

Mobile twinning works with most of the IP Office Avaya phones, except for Analogs, 3700s, 3810s, 4100s, T3s, and the small versions of the digital and IP sets. e.g. 1403, 1603, 2402, 4601, 4602, 5402, 5601 and 5602 models.

6.- Pros and Cons

• Pros

Mobile Call Control – Besides giving the ability of making a remote transfer seamlessly, it offers PBX features to be performed at the remote device. To allow these features to be available you have to active the “Mobile Call Control”

Caller ID – It allows to display a designated number or pass thru the caller’s information to the destination device. Keep in mind that some version of IP Office will send the ICR information as the CLI. if there’s no ICR configured, the system will try to send the extension ID as the Caller ID instead. Some Service Providers are very selective when it comes to allowing Setup and Send digits.

• Cons

Toll Fraud – Like anything, securing your devices should also be the main goal. Mobile Twinning will allow company calls to ring at remote destinations, as already mentioned. these remote destination could be anything from allowing the PBX to act as proxy for malicious activities, etc.

Irresponsible Co-workers – Once this feature is allowed to a particular extension, anybody can walkup to the device and purposely modify any programmed numbers. or just turn the feature off.

DND – Selecting DND disables the twinning feature.

7.- Things to consider when implementing Mobile Twinning

Destination Number – Test the destination number before programming it, and remember to insert the number just as you dialed it.

Mobile Dial Delay – Allow up to 2 minutes minimum to ring at destination.

Accounts Codes, Authentication, and Long Distance Codes – Mobile Twinning won’t work with any of these features implemented.

Resources

• Mobile Twinning User Quick Reference Guide
• https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100073374
• Understand Toll Fraud
• http://www.ipservtechnologies.com/ways-to-prevent-toll-fraud/

Have you had issues implementing this feature?