The user seizes a call appearance (selecting a line appearance, going off hook) and enters the number to call a desired party or service. Typically, this is done on a digit by digit basis for digital or analog phones and can be done this way for UNIStim phones.

Depending on the destination state, the far end indicates a ringing state (or some other intermediate state enroute to success), call failure (with an applicable indication), reaches an interactive voice response menu to navigate, or is automatically answered.

Eventually, the call is answered (if it did not fail) and is cleared.

On the CS 1000, all dialed digits are handled by the Call Server, which completes the dialing phase after the digits match an internal extension or dial plan rule. UNIStim and 39XX phones support a Predial state where the user can modify the number before sending it to a call server.

With the Communication Manager, 96x1 Avaya Aura® SIP phones use en-bloc dialing. This type of dialing analyzes digits by using information received from the PPM Dial Plan Data section. Client SDK does the same. However, to the user the number can be digit by digit or “enter all digits and then send the data”; the en-bloc dialing occurs between the SIP client on the 96x1 and the Session Manager, which is analogous to doing the same in the digit collection code of a CS 1000 call server.