Help Configuring Phone Setup

[boylerman]

Help!! I'm about ready to start pulling out my own hair trying to configure our new office phone system. Here's what we've got:

1 SPA9000
1 SPA400
3 SPA942
1 SPA962
1 SLM224P Switch

I am using the SPA400 as access to 3 analog phone lines. I have upgraded the firmware to the latest versions on all devices.

The AT&T Merlin system which we are replacing was configured so that when the phone rang, the two front office extensions would ring. When the phone was answered, the caller was placed on hold, and the call could be picked up by any of the four phones on the system.

With the new Linksys system, I have it configured so that the front phones are in a call group and all incoming calls are routed to this group. However, if a caller is placed on hold, only the phone which put the caller on hold can pick up the call again. The best compromise I could work out is we can park a call and then any other extension can unpark the call, but this is not ideal because there doesn't seem to be any way to tell if a caller is 'parked', and it is not as intuitive or simple as I would like.

Using the Linksys Wizard, I've configured all of the phones so that BLF and CP is checked for all lines. The Wizard gives me a warning that the lines are already being monitored by another extension.

Is there any way to configure it so that any phone can pick up a call placed on hold?

I would greatly appreciate any help you might be able to give me on this.

Also, I've noticed that outbound dialing can be persnickity. If I dial an outside number (using the 9 prefix), sometimes it will go through, but other times I will get the operator telling me it is necessary to dial 1 when placing a long distance call. I clearly dialed the 1, and sometimes the call needs to be placed three or four times before all of the digits get picked up.

Thanks

[Walford58]

Not entirely sure whether your front phones are manned, but insteadof placingon hold, the caller could be transferred to a hunt group of the other 4 phones on simultaneous ring and the first to pick up seizes the call. However the caller will hear a ring tone rahter than MOH in this case if it is a blind transfer (I'm assuming that the SPA9k will handle blind transfers to hunt groups) or should hear MOH if it's an attended transfer. An alternative is the group pickup which will capture a ringing phone in the group. You can't check at present whether or where a call is parked

For the outbound calling, check the dialplan doesn't have anything which conflicts with the numbers you are trying, particulalry checking the priority order of left to right.

[martinm]

Make sure the dial plan is the same for all lines too.

[martinm]

And if you have an SPA400, check the route for outgoing calls doesn't include the line that goes to the SPA400.