sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Vodavi Telephones & Systems Vodavi STSe - DID-like function without T1

Hey Everyone,
I was recently asked to setup a Vodavi STSe (3501-00) to function with DID, BUT the company does NOT want a T1 (they only have 7 or 8 lines).

They basically want to create a few "departments" that ring directly into a certain office. I realize that this creates all kind of other headaches, but if they have a low call volume, I'm thinking I might be able to pull 3 numbers off the back of the Hunt and have them only ring at the designated stations.

Of course, I don't know Vodavi programming at all - but I know on some older Executone (and Partner?) systems, you could select custom ringing rules per extension. Would that be a viable option with this Vodavi system?

If they are using voice mail you could set up a Auto-attendant and have the callers rte to the correct extensions by having the inbound caller dial the extension directly. I may be mis-understanding exactly what your trying to do but maybe you could give us some more info..

That's part of the problem - the company has an aversion to Auto Attendants - they want a "real person" to always answer the phone, yet they don't have a receptionist on staff.

I will offer that as an alternative though - that is a good thought.

The main idea is that they want to publish a brochure with "departments" (i.e. Project Design, Counter Sales, Showroom) and have people call those directly.

The issue isn't so much getting to the right PERSON as getting to the right Group of people.

Does that help at all?

Unless they are going to spring for a T1/PRI then they aren't going to be very happy unless they use the auto attendant.

\I don't know how the CLECs work in PA but if you have 8 lines here a T1 split between voice and data is cheaper than 8 POTS lines and DSL. You might look in to it.

Yeah without using an auto attendant grouping the PoTs(which would be in hunt) lines to particular phones would be the only way to do it and you would need to make sure they had enough lines for each department.

example: lines 1,2,3 ring to hunt group 450 (ext. 100, 101, 102)Showroom, lines 4,5,6 ring to hunt group 451(ext. 107,108, 109) Counter.

But would def. be easier to have AA then give callers choices for Showroom, Counter, etc. and send them to the respective Hunt groups or ext.

If they don't want to spring for T1 service, the only way would be to cobble something together whereby all the lines are put into a circular hunt group and then have different lines ring into different groups - as oobie says. The down side is that callers will occasionally hunt into each other's groups but that is the condition they would have to live with if they don't opt for the best solution.

Thanks guys - that pretty much confirms (and expands upon) my own thoughts.

I hadn't thought about the fractional T1 - I'll look into that.

I appreciate everyone's input!