atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Nortel Telephones & Systems Nortel Norstar VM - can't change type from information mailbox

Hi all,

I have a client that I've been taking care of off and on for a while now and they recently moved to a new location with another company and some new employees. After setting up two new CCR trees for them, I set up a number of VMboxes for the additional employees without incident. One of the new VMbox extensions I set up is only coming up as an information mailbox however, and won't let me change the type. I tried deleting and re-creating it, as well as pressing "1" in the setup to try and get to information mailbox admin but to no avail.

Can someone tell me what's going on here? The version is 3.0.

Thanks a bunch,

- Phil

It sounds like you have reach the max amount of mailbox's with out additional license. When you reach the limit the rest of the box's created are info only.

Hey Phil: Welcome to the boards!!

As mcrackin has said, you probably have run out of mail boxes. I can only assume that you have a Call Pilot.
You can purchase additional mail boxes.
They come in packs of 4, 8, 16 and more if you need them.
If you buy TWO of the 4 pack you will spend more than ONE of the 8 pack. Keep that in mind.
You will also need to know your Call Pilot Serial Number (12 digits)

Talk to your distributor if you have one.
If not- send me an PM ( Private Mail )

I just had the same issues on a call pilot 100, I went in inventoried the mailboxes and found 3 unused ones that I was able to delete and solve my customers immediate need

That's probably it. I'm headed back in there tomorrow morning and I believe that there are still a number of VMboxes from departed employees that I'll be able to delete.

I think that they must have downgraded the number of mailboxes when the system was upgraded a while back by someone else. They used to have a LOT of employees and I don't know if they got any credit for all of the VMboxes they were previously licensed for, but it sure seems like they should have.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

- Phil

Its not a matter of "credit"

the license allows a certain number of mailboxs and thats it

do a inventory , see what mailbox's are there , see what mailboxs are actully nededed then delete any not needed

Looks like I did a better job deleting the old MBs before than I thought... there are none left.

It just doesn't seem like much of an "upgrade" when you pay money to go from 50+ mailboxes to 8. I mention "credit" because I would think that you would get a reduced price or some other benefit based on the number of mailboxes you had previously since you had already paid for them once.

I wasn't involved in that upgrade though, so forgive my ignorance.

- Phil

You can't "downgrade" a CP once the licenses are generated they belong to the unit forever.

There may have been a problem with the unit and it needed to be reinstalled/replaced. at that time maybe not all of the licenses were re-entered.

Thanks for setting that straight. That makes sense, and that's how I thought it should be.

This is what we're getting from the vendor however, and it sounds like they didn't add the licenses back in. I looked through all of the files they had available when I was on-site the other day but could not find any license keys.

- Phil

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Phil, when they upgraded their Norstar in 07, they also purchase a new CallPilot Voicemail system with 10/mailboxes. In order to expand, they would need to purchase additional mailboxes. Since they had downsized at that time, 10 mailboxes was more than sufficient. The older system had more mailboxes but the two are not license compatible.

Software licenses are available in seats of 1, 4, 8, or 16. I have priced out the 4 and the 8. Let me know if you need anything else.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Phil
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 10:52 PM
Subject: RE: Norstar Meridian switch network termination for *****


I agree that they should certainly have more than 8 mailboxes available but the system will only allow us to create information mailboxes now, so it would appear that they have run out of licenses for them. I went through both numerically and by name (searching by first letter) and was unable to find any additional VMboxes to delete.

Did the license keys need to be re-entered when the system was upgraded a while back? If so, is it possible that they were not put back in?

***** is currently using the rest of their T1 for Internet access, so putting the ***** numbers on the PRI would further reduce their available bandwidth and they really don't have much to spare at the moment. I enabled disconnect supervision on the ***** lines to try and eliminate the possibility of idle lines being tied up by the system but they get a lot of calls, and it appeared that Verizon did not have their lines rolling over correctly, at least at first.

Regards,

- Phil

Judging by your email correspondence the voice mail was changed to a Call Pilot which only has the original 10 mailbox licenses. You need to purchase licences to add mailboxes. If you connect via the browser interface you can see exactly what mailboxes are used and by whom. It sounds like you are hunting via a telephone.

Your vendor is correct older licenses are not compatible the Call Pilot.

Older norstar voice mails did not require licensing for mailboxs. Out of the box their capacities were:

Flash 2 - 24 mailboxes
Flash 4 - 48 mailboxes
NAM - 250 mailboxes

Bummer... that's a shame that you basically lose all of the VM licenses that you originally paid for because they're "not compatible". I wonder how long it took the marketing folks to come up with such a politically correct way of describing it. 8)

This sort of thing is probably how Nortel wound up in trouble, especially when open source solutions such as FreeSwitch and Asterisk are available. They're potentially a bit more complicated when it comes to implementation though so it's the same old story: pay now or pay later.

Thanks a bunch for clearing that up though! We'll grab some additional licenses for them.

Cheers,

- Phil

They probably upgraded from a Flash to a CallPilot. There are no "licenses" for the Flash. CallPilot is a totally different animal. Keycodes allow the CallPilot to be expanded. If they initially paid for the keycodes for additional mailboxes in the CallPilot, they would still be there. According to the e-mail from the vendor, your client upgraded to a "stock" CallPilot, which only has 10 mailboxes from the get-go.

How are you doing this client any good by working on their system when you know nothing about it?

LOL, that's pretty tough talk coming from one who apparently didn't bother to read the message thread. This company previously had more than 50 employees, ALL with voicemail. I was not involved with the telephone system prior to the upgrade, I began taking care of their system later. I certainly would not have recommended such an upgrade had I been involved without fully explaining to the customer what they would be losing by doing so. Hence my temporary confusion. I've somehow managed to make the client happy after all though, setting up multiple hunt groups and CCR trees despite "knowing nothing about" their system. I just started hitting some buttons at random, and lo and behold it all worked the way we wanted it to!

All joking aside, I should probably ask in turn, how are you doing this forum any good by posting such a response? Since you apparently know it all, you really don't need a forum for answers like the rest of us.

I would like to thank everyone else though, for their helpful responses.

Cheers,

- Phil

Phil- What was the previous VM installed before the Call Pilot?

That be the big question.

Does sound like it was a Flash or NAM, however I doubt a vendor would sell a CP in place of a NAM unless there was a history of issues with the NAM and/or it was one of the causes to do an overhaul.

Don't be so quick to jump on the dealer. I interpret it to mean that the client was aware of the "upgrade" at the time of "upgrading" and he/she/they were content with 10 mail boxes. Clients always, or at least 95% of the time, want the lowest price available, whether it's the "smart" thing to do or not. Now he pays.

No mailboxes available. Next?

OK everyone, let's try & keep this calm & cool.

Stay focused on the topic.

May have been NAM but I'm really not sure, since that was before I started doing the part-time admin of their system after they downsized. I've got some additional IT-related work to do for them, so the next time I'm in there I'll take a look through their old files and see if I can determine what they had.

- Phil

Agreed. Please forgive my somewhat irritated response above.

One of the employees there told me that the vendor rep said something like "it might reduce the number of mailboxes you have available", so they told them up front... sort of.

The additional features conferred by the upgrade didn't really seem to be worth it for their situation at the time it was performed but I think they're coming in handy now with some of the things they've had me setting up for them recently. As far as I know there wasn't a problem with the old module but again... it was before I was really involved.

They're going to be adding additional mailboxes now, so this will cease to be an issue.

Again, thanks to all for the help and insight. I (obviously) don't do this every day, my "day job" is developing embedded hardware and software (which actually includes some telecom-related stuff, ironically), so it's nice to be able to ask questions here from time to time as the need arises.

- Phil

No worries...we love CG's around here. They keep us busy with service calls! (Going to one right now) :toast: