atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Nortel Telephones & Systems CFNA & Ringing Lines

At one of our sites the manager wants incoming calls to ring at all sets until answered by a human (currently CP100 answers all calls). Each DN has VMail, CFNA after 4 rings and all lines set to appr&ring. This setup has worked fine until now, but when I take the CP out of the equation, the individual set mailboxes will be answering incoming calls that go longer than 4 rings...which isn't a good thing.

In thinking about this, I first thought I could move the lines into a HG which I could add every DN to as a member, but I would prefer to keep the lines ringing at line buttons rather than I/c or HG buttons.

Any way to accomplish this?

We usually work around this by making the AA or General Delivery mailbox pickup in fewer rings than the rest of the phones. For example, have the set w/ gen. del. mailbox FNA in 4 rings and the rest FNA in 6. Or set the AA to answer in 3 rings etc.

That's what I've done for now - but because the manager doesn't want any AA, I've set it to 9 rings & CFNA on the sets to 10.

Obviously, this is way too long to be ringing at a set before allowed to leave a msg, but it was all I could think of at the time.

Why don't you use a lower number of rings? CFNA the set with the General Delivery Mailbox to 4 and the rest to 6.

And when will these Nortel Engineers ever get it right? What happened to 5 rings. I have had SO SO many times that I need 5 rings and they skipped it. Sometimes 4 is not enough but 6 is too many.

I use "Answer DN" to work around this problem...Just set up ringing on a phone without a mailbox and then add that phone to the "Answer DN" of your other phones that you want to ring.

Toner - No GD mbox at this site (didn't want one) and I was quite specifically told that there should be *no* AA. But, in order to prevent user mailboxes from picking up incoming calls, I had to setup an AA...I just set it for a high number of rings so that it would rarely, if ever be heard. I then set CFNA to 1 higher.

Best solution (I think) would be to have AA/CCR pickup unanswered calls after 3 or 4 rings, and have CFNA set to 4 or 5 rings. Once the manager realises that clients are waiting for 10 rings/60secs before they are able to leave a message, he may reconsider!

ctaylor - That's a good idea. Only problem is every set but one has a mailbox, and that one is for outgoing calls only and must remain silent at all other times as it's in a workshop.

Can't you just disable the CFNA??

Let the people answer the phones, and then transfer it to the correct extension. If the person is not available, it will ring back the original extension. The original person could then do V/M Transfer (F986) to transfer directly to the mailbox. I like this scenario better also because if the receptionist knows the person is not in the office, they can transfer directly to the mailbox without the caller having to wait.

You could try changing the prime set setting on the lines to an ext that does not forward to voicemail. Then enable DRT to prime and set it to 3 rings and the CFNA to 4 rings. Since you have the lines set to Appear and ring on the sets they sould still ring all the sets even though DRT has cycled. But this way nothing else at your site changes. and because DRT has activated the lines should not go to an individuals mailbox.

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When all else fails, Give someone else a try!

Carl - also a good idea, but there's no actual receptionist at this site and I imagine a transfer/wait/transfer to vmail might be problematic (everyone helps answering phones as everyone is rarely at their desk). CFNA is really just to keep it simple stupid in this case.

PDub - I could try that, but once DRT has kicked in, won't the call stop ringing at the appr&ring sets and ring only at the ext. not forwarding to vmail?