Individual Staff
Staff are allocated 'person' or 'non-person' phone lines. Person lines are paired with SSOs (Oxford Single Sign-On), which allow users to access all functionality on Chorus.
Non-person lines are standard phone lines usually assigned to deskphones, which do not have access to Chorus functionality beyond voicemail and making and receiving calls. Users can tell whether they have 'person' or 'non-person' phones by following these instructions.
Users who have been assigned a person phone may be able to migrate to using Telephony over Teams. This means that your University extension is associated with your SSO in a way that allows you to make and receive calls using your extension via the Teams client. Please see the Telephony over Teams help pages for further information. Please note, you will need to speak to your local ITSS or Phoneman Administrator to find out if you are able to use Telephony over Teams.
Non-person phones can be forwarded to another device, for example a personal mobile.
If an extension is physically unreachable due to an outage or disruption, Remote Activation Call Forwarding can be used to forward the calls to another number. This means that if staff are decanted in an emergency from their usual workplace, that they are able to redirect calls to their team without needing access to their phone; they can simply dial into a number which will prompt them for their PIN, and the number to which calls should be forwarded. Please contact the Chorus team to request Remote Activation Call Forwarding if your team needs access to this functionality.
Group Working
Calls to hunt groups cannot be distributed to the preferred devices of team members. Remote Activation Call Forwarding can be used to forward the calls of any University Extension to a single number, which will allow teams to handle their calls. However, if a team who uses a hunt group needs all of its members to be able to continue to handle incoming calls, Chorus recommend implementing Contact Centre.
Contact Centre is an application which adds function and flexibility to hunt groups. To upgrade an existing hunt group, or implement a new contact centre, please raise a Service Request.
Cloud based routing
Some University extensions (for example, College Lodges) must continue to route calls even in the unlikely event of the whole University having a network outage, or the whole telephone system going down. It is possible to host these lines 'in the cloud', so that calls can continue to be delivered to their intended recipients even during a serious disruption. Please email the Chorus team for further details.
Dependable Diverts
In the event of a local outage, it is also possible to set up Dependable Diverts. This allows the University phone system to re-direct calls in the event of particular handsets being unreachable. For example, if a College Lodge has a power cut or network outage and the phones stop working, a Dependable Divert will re-direct incoming calls to a preconfigured destination, e.g. a mobile phone. Please contact the Chorus team for further details.
Critical Lines
Critical Lines are analogue phone lines which are maintained even when there are disruptions to the local electrical power, the local network, the wider University network, or the University telephone system. These use dedicated equipment and wiring and must be set up in advance. To learn more about how they work, or to request an installation, please refer to the dedicated Critical Lines help page.
