Cisco Unified CallManager Route Plan Basics

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Identifying the necessary elements for creating external route plans in Cisco CallManager, including gateways and trunks, route groups, route lists, and route patterns
• Explaining how route groups are used to prioritize and group gateways to send external calls out of a preferred path and keep a backup path for redundancy
• Explaining how route lists are used to prioritize route groups that contain different types of gateways that connect to the IP WAN or PSTN
• Explaining how to create route patterns that use wildcards to route calls to gateways or route lists
• Describing how Cisco CallManager analyzes dialed digits to determine where to route calls
• Describing how route groups, route lists, and route patterns are used in a basic route plan to route calls to the IP WAN or PSTN

To determine where to route calls, Cisco CallManager requires knowledge of the patterns of digits that users dial to reach a particular telephone number. These patterns include access codes, area codes, and combinations of the digits that are dialed. The route plan is the set of configurable lists that provide Cisco CallManager with the knowledge of where to route calls. Related to call routing is call distribution, which, simply put, is the ability to specify the order and other factors in which Cisco CallManager extends calls to members of a group.

This chapter discusses the basic components of a route plan within Cisco CallManager. Basic components of a route plan include route groups, route lists, and route patterns.