sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones Question about pager notification on Shoretel system....

Ok, one of our customers ended up going with a Shoretel phone system. Their old Samsung voicemail used to have a mailbox that would alert a pager three times. If they didn't answer then it would go to the second pager for three times then finally to the third pager. Their new Shoretel phone system doesn't do it and Shoretel is telling them that they will have a fix in about 6 months from now. They cannot wait that long so they called us to see if we could think of something.

Can you guys think of something? All I can think of is somehow putting the Starmail on an analog port and getting it to work somehow that way. Anyone have any other ideas?

can the vmail, forward unheard messages to a new mailbox? so instead of one mailbox doing all of the alerting have 3 seperate ones? "cascading"

I really don't know anything about their Shoretel system. They have another vendor doing all the work on the Shoretel system. I am not sure if that system can even alert a pager three times that there is a message in the box.

From Shoretel news Jan 2006...

Quick Fact: Message Notification

What's the best way to grab your attention when you have
a new or high-priority message? ShoreTel's Message Notification feature enables you to choose if you want to
be notified when you receive a message, and how to notify
you — be it through a cell phone, email or pager.

Use message notification so you can:

Be notified via cell phone or pager when you have a message that's marked "urgent."
Determine if you want to be notified for all messages, no messages or urgent messages only.
Choose how many times and how often the system should attempt to notify you.
Receive notifications at the number that you are at if you are working at a remote location.
Send e-mail text notifications to your cell phone.



Notice the the how many times and how often the system should attempt to notify you portion. I'd wonder if the installers know about this...

build a distribution list with mail boxes that are set to nofify the pagers. you can then set the initial mailbox to automatically forward to the distribution list, then delete its own message. there is no "cascading" yet. note that I've had problems with MS Server 2000 stopping its notification for reasons unknown. my MS Server 2003 servers seem to be more stable.
seems to me that their pager service might also be able to accomodate some custom page groups, too.

You're a class act, SooprmanX! If one of my customers went with someone else and then asked for help on their new system, well, you know...

Yeah, you know they were one of our biggest customers for something like ten years then one day they called us and said they were buying a new VoIP system. They didn't tell us about it ahead of time, didn't take any bids, nothing. It was one of those systems where they pay monthly so they have no initial cost. They are ending up paying ton more at the end of the year on that system than if they were to go with one from us. And we could have done more for them. Oh wells, thats the way it goes sometimes.

But we are still really good friends with the owners and we do all their cabling work and misc. work like this. They know us for our abilities to find someway to get things done even if it's not conventional. That's why they still call us.

Anyways, I will have to suggest things those to them to tell their vendor and see what they say.

Here is the scenario that they are looking for to avoid confusion...
1. Person leaves a message in mailbox 201 after hours.
2. Mailbox 201 alerts pager #1 of the message. If they do not respond to the page then moves to next step.
3. Mailbox 201 alerts pager #2 of the message. If they do not respond to the page then moves to next step.
4. Mailbox 201 alerts pager #3 of the message. If they do not respond to the page then it stops calling.

If you do have a solution that involves programming or setting up things try to make it clear enough so that I could tell it to then or email it to them and they could give it to their vendor. Like I said, I have zero knowledge on this Shoretel stuff so I might be lost with some of the lingo. Thanks guys, you all have been a big help so far.

Email Delivery: DisabledEmail NotificationEmail Copy of VM
Email Address:
Mark Delivered Voice Mail as Heard

Automatic Message Forwarding:
Destination: None
Extension: Search
AMIS:

Delete Message after Forwarding

Notification by Phone:
Voice Mail Notification Condition: All Urgent Only None
Voice Mail Notification Method: Pager Phone
Notification Number: Extension: Search
External: (e.g. 9+1 (408) 331-3300)

Pager ID:
Pager Data:
Try Count:
Try Interval: minutes

The above clipped from the Personal Options/Message Delivery in Shoreware Director.

This application is a definite shortfall of Shoretel. Version 7 promises a 'cascade notification' feature. But note: you can set up the paging to try multiple time, it just won't change pager numbers or notify additional ones. You could use the email notification and send to a distribution list email.

Ouch, that really blows. Pagers are one thing an emergeny callout absolutely needs.

Since the customer is pretty desperate, this is probably what we are going to have to do...Install a 616 phone system with analog ports and a voicemail card. Connect one of the analog ports on the 616 to a CO line port on the Shoretel. At the Shoretel main greeting tell them press 1 for the emergency mailbox. When they press 1 it will pick up that CO port and dial the extension number of the voicemail system. I will program the voicemail that when it sees that analog port to answer with a certain mailbox. When they leave a message I can do cascading pagers and then they will be alerted. That would work provided that I have a land line to connect to the 616 as well.

I know it's a runaround but they are really desperate for this fix from what I can tell and so this might be the only option.