atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Vertical Telephones & Systems can calls be sent to an extension that isnt plugged in on a SBX?

hey guys, I have a SBX customer that insists on using mailbox 147 for a general mailbox. They do not have a phone plugged in but intend to eventually for an operator. In their greeting they recorded please dial 147 for the general mailbox. When you call though nothing happens. Just dead air. I was wondering if it is because the call forward on busy is not setup for that extension and the system sees it as "busy" because there is no phone there?? I am getting around it right now by just telling them to say press 2 to reach our general mailbox and the action going to sta voice mail for 147. I did set their 0 action to ring a group and then the overflow go to the mailbox which works sometimes, but most times it just rings forever and never timeouts and overflows....Very odd... any suggestions would be appreciated.

You have to have an active port, but there doesn't need to be a phone if station 147 is a hybrid port. If it is a hybrid port you can manually forward it to voice mail unconditionaly, and then you don't have to worry about a timer. Secondly the default timer for group overflow is 180 seconds, so you may want to shorten it.

Just curious, why not use a virtual mailbox as the general mailbox then you don't have to worry about ports or sets? You do need to have feature package 3.5 however.

I tried to explain to them about the virtual mailbox but they want an actual phone that way once they get an operator they can put him/her in front of the phone. As to why they wanted 147, since it is the highest extension is what I was told I told them 100 is what most companies used and was told 100 is for a boss....So I just said ok and I will figure it out...

147 is also the default modem extension, you may have to change this in PGM170 in order for the mailbox to work

Why not just tell them that by default, 146 is the highest station they should use because 147 is dedicated to other internal uses and should only be changed if absolutely necessary? The more your installs are standardized, the easier it is to remember stuff. Otherwise, a couple of years down the road, you will go out there and say "what the...?"

For what it is worth...I always tell customers that x100 is the operator, period. The few times I've changed the operator from the first port of any system, it has come back to bite me.

MNDAVE, its to late, if I would have known that they were going to want it that way I would have told them differently. They just asked and I replied 147 and then I said where do you want to have the 0 out option they said 147, because it is the last port....

Would using flexible numbering and swapping extensions 147 & 146 may offer some advantage? 147 would be using the position that 146 had. I think the optional modem is somehow tied to that last port because it becomes unavailable when it is used for a phone. But I'm still on a learning curve on this system.

I really try to keep things standardized. The more customized items that I need to remember really overloads my worn out brain.

Yes, I'm sure he could make it work that way. Just change the modem number, then change an available port to x147.