sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Comdial Telephones & Systems FX-II Voicemail Issues

Okay, having some issues with the voicemail system hanging off of the Comdial FX-II. The voicemail system is an old Key Voice 8.2 (yes, MSDOS) system.

We use four digit extensions and DID, and we're having some issues with some of the extensions and DIDs. The extensions that are causing the biggest headaches start with 0. For example, we have 0565 and 0917 (actually, a whole block of 09XX numbers, from 01 to 099). The extensions work fine as DIDs through the phone system, but when the calls get transferred to the voicemail system, the voicemail system doesn't seem to recognize the extension and, instead, sends the call to the default greeting box.

I've enabled tracing (DT and DTP) on the voicemail system, and, interestingly, when the FX-II transfers a call for one of the 05 or 09 numbers, I don't see *any* trace output on the screen. If I do a different number, like a 77XX number, I see the digits dialed and the translation table processing. So, perhaps it isn't an issue with the voicemail system, and it's something misconfigured or buggy about the FX-II and how it sends out the digits??

Any hints would be appreciated! On a related but separate topic, if anyone has any quick hints on how the trans.txt, trans.day, and trans.nit files work - syntax, etc. - I'd very much appreciate it. I don't have a manual for this system, and there aren't really a lot of hints for those files.

Thanks!
-Nick

Nobody in their right mind would setup an extension starting with 0. What do your users dial for an Operator? The DID numbers don't have to match the extension numbers. You have a conflict with your dial plan.

8.2 is old as dirt. FXIIs were delivered far after 8.5 and Windows units were developed. Sounds as though you have a hodge podge of equipment put together by a less than knowledgeable/certified dealer or installer.

We've always just had direct DID <-> Extension maps - it makes it much easier on the users to be able to know that their extension is also the last four digits of their DID number. The extensions themselves work fine - no problems dialing extension to extension. The DIDs even work fine - no issues there. It's just the FX-II to Voicemail system that is causing problems. I could set up different extensions, but perhaps I'll just migrate those to a different phone system.

Yes, 8.2 is old as dirt - MSDOS 5.2 and everything on that system. I'd love to migrate away, but I'm not too keen on spending much if any more money on my Comdial system, which is why I'm trying to find other possibilities for integrating my Comdial system with another PBX. Unfortunately Comdial hasn't made that real easy.

I agree with RBF and the extensions that start with 0. Seems that that would be buggy, but I have 2 8.2 Corp office and DID's running although on DXP and DXP+, and they almost never miss a stroke.

First thought is in COS and the routing boxes, where does "0" point to. Seems that the routing box would need digit 0 to point no where. In the switch, are the extensions set to personal call forward to VM rather than all calls. Since the DID is pointing to the extension and that works, then the switch should look for RNA to send the extension to the VM. If you call the station internally does the VM answer after RNA?

The 0 in the ext number could really be the culprit. Like RBF said, I think if you used "normal" ext numbers and just pointed the DID's to the normal extension numbers, and then let the switch and VM do it's job, you would be working.

Good luck

Thanks, both Russ and RBK, for the hints. I actually did manage to figure out how to get it to work. First, in FX-II, we've had the 0 for operator disabled for quite a while. It's not a feature we've ever needed, so there was no reason to have it. So, that should solve most of the concerns on the FX-II side. However, when using tracing, I did notice that, for the extensions starting with 0, the voicemail system never saw any attempt by those systems to pass digits along. So, something about that link is still not quite right.

However, the trick to get it to work was in the DID translation table - in the Voice Mail ID field, I simply put the extension number without the leading 0. On the voice mail system, the box numbers don't recognize leading zeros, anyway (so, 0900 is actually box 900), so there's no reason to pass the leading zero on to the voicemail system. This seems to have done the trick - dialing the number now goes through to voicemail as expected.

Thanks, again, for the hints, and, in the future, I'll try to avoid any more extensions starting with 0 :-).

-Nick

By using the VMID field you have overriden any input modifications that you make in trans.XXX.

Hope you have a simple dial plan and have covered the operator bailout from routing and personal mailboxes.

We don't do much with routing, so that isn't a problem. Our system is set up pretty simply, and even operator bailout isn't really a problem, but we'll find out here over the next few days.

I redid the modifications to the trans.* files with the new VMID field modifications, and that was part of getting the voice mail working. Time will tell...in the long run I am still going to attempt to remove these extensions from the Comdial system so as to prevent an future problems.