atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Comdial Telephones & Systems ComDial DSU II + Key Voice Mail. Transfer to VM...

Our system has been workinf fine for several years (with a few hicups along the way of course) but last week transfer a caller to voice mail during the day suddenly stopped working.
The old procedure that's been working for 3 years was:
A caller calls and it is answered by a live operator, the operator hits the programmed "Transfer to Vmail" button, waits for the vmail to answer, enters the mailbox extension and then hangs up. The caller hears the mailbox greeting. Everything is perfect.

Now... the procedure is still the same, but when the vmail system picks up, and the operator enters the extension, the vmail system beeps like it's an invalid entry. Nothing the operator enters does anything. If the operator hangs up and the caller enters the extension, everything works.

Any ideas of where I should look?
The VM Operator Mailbox?
The phone system?

Thanks in advance!
Chris

Do a button query of that "Transfer to VM" button to see if it has unwittingly been reprogrammed. Let us know what you find out.

When you query, it should show as "Trans 38", assuming the first voicemail extension is extension 38. Of course it would be a different number if the first voicemail extension was something else.

If it shows up correctly (compare it with some others), I would start suspecting the voicemail system itself. That is unless there is only one person having the problem, where all others can still perform a voicemail transfer without problems.

Give us some more details, as you are able to gather more information.

Sorry for the delay, I haven't been in the office all week.

Thankfully the problem is company wide, so nobody can transfer to vmail.

When I queried the DSS buttn that was programmed, it does give the correct readout. TRANS 222. 222 is my 1st vmail port/extension.

I've also reprogrammed the button according to the documentation. No change.

The problem seems to be that any phone can initiate a transfer...once the vmail general mailbox answers, the extension is entered to send the caller directly to the vmail box. None of these digits are recognized and an error beep is heard. However, if the actual caller enters the extension, the final transfer to the mailbox is done.

Let me re-clarify.

Anyone in the company can transfer to the vmail system. The problem seems to be getting the caller to the final mailbox.

When the transfer is initiated, the vmail "General" mailbox answers. At this point, the user mailbox # needs to be entered for the final transfer.

A caller has no problem entering the extension. The person initiating the transfer can NOT enter the extension. Obviously, not ideal.

Thanks

General MAILBOX, or "main greeting" ROUTING BOX? It makes a HUGE difference!

It's a Routing Box. Box 800. The vmail is a Key Voice system. The box is setup to route calls based on "Digits Dialed". If no digits are entered, it's tranfered to mailbox 888 which is a standard mailbox. I'm checking more of the settings of the routing box.

Sorry, I'm a programmer & network admin - not a phone guy. Bare with my lame attempts at the terminology which I know is important for your understanding of my problem.

Ok. Problem solved.

Apparently, according to the phone system, the 1st 2 vmail ports were not configured as vmail ports. I have no idea how they were turned off unless it reconfigured when I powered down the phone system.

Anyway, thanks for your input.

Is it possible that a phone got plugged into the phone system on those ports? That would do it too, and I believe they would have then stayed that way, until programmed back manually.

That's correct. A digital port must be set back to a voicemail port after you plug a phone into it.