atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Vodavi Telephones & Systems STS Auto Attendant

One of my customers bought a used STS with in-skin VM.
Not familiar with this, I downloaded the manual and dove in.
I got everything figured out EXCEPT that call forwarding BNA to VM for an extension that ALSO has CO ringing is a conflict.
The forwarding also affects the CO ringing. Is there a way to have an extension BNA forward to VM AND also have CO ringing which is delayed to Auto Attendant. I have the delay to AA working but not both. For example..if ext 100 is BNA to VM and is on the phone the incoming CO ringing at 100 goes right to AA instead of ringing 100 and other phones.
Thanks! Steve

If you are asking about one phone with B/NA forwarding receiving a call and ringing while offhook then you need to create an intercom button (flex code 645) for that phone. The AA does a check when transferring a call even a blind transfer. If there is no intercom path it will consider the phone to be busy. Its more of a half blind transfer if you ask me.

You do know that calls ringing on multiple phones will ignore any station forwarding. In that scenario you use co preset forwarding.

Derrick.

Derrick, Thanks for the reply. No to your first question.
The second part of your response IS related to my question. Let me try and be clearer. If I have multiple phones ringing on an incoming call and if ONE of those phones is Fwd BNA to VM and that phone is offhook, none of the phones will ring and instead goes right to the AA greeting. So it seems to be the opposite of your second paragraph.
In Flash 40 #10 I set all phones to ring in DAY and 440 to ring in Night. This worked ok.
Then I wanted delay ring to AA during the day so I set Flash 40 #5 (Preset Call fwd CO) to 440. This worked ok.
But I still dont have extensions forwarding to VM if their ext is entered in the AA or a call is transferred by the receptionist to them. I have EXT set in each mailbox for transfer. SO I assumed I needed to fwd BNA each station to 440.
This worked ok BUT now if ANY of those stations is offhook the CO ringing is going right to the AA in DAY mode instead of delay ringing to AA. The fwd BNA affects the CO ringing.
Maybe my mistake was using Preset CF CO to get the AA to delay answer? Is there another way?
Also..I couldnt connect my laptop to the serial port on the VM board for some reason so I did all the VM programming I could via the phone. You mentioned RELEASE transfer...I think Await Answer or Monitored transfer would work..then I could get rid of fwd BNA at each station. Im guessing I need the laptop for that.
I know its a simple connection (null) with Procomm or similar but it wasnt working for me. Any advice. And thanks for reading thru this!

You need a straight thru serial cable not a null modem to talk to the voice mail.

Set the phones to forward to voice mail in flash 50 programming. I usually use no answer forwarding only. Then you can set the co preset forwarding to the AA but you should put the vm/AA port extensions in station hunt group 450 and preset forward the co lines to that, not to 440. Also all extensions in the voice mail should be set to blind transfer.

Thanks Derrick,

I will try your suggestions next week when I go to site. Good idea about not using fwd busy.

Whats the reason for 450 and not 440? I thought I defaulted the programming before I started and they ended up in 440.

And thanks for the serial cable info! I read somewhere that it should be a null cable.

440 is the integrated voice mail group...any calls to that group expect vmid digits. 450 is designed to play the menu greeting only, no box id digits are sent to the vm by the phone system. In other words forward to 440 to be answered by a voice mail box, 450 to be answered by the auto attendant.

While it doesn't jump out at you from the manual, tech support always recommended 450 for auto attendant. 440 will work, but it has the potential for glitching due to expecting id digits as Derrick said.

There is a voice mail integration option in Flash 67 programming to turn the vmid digits off for a forwarded co call to voice mail. This option effects initial calls ringing directly to a phone or station group not calls that have been transferred by someone or the AA. I don't like to kill that option because I forget that I did that later and then spend too much time trying to figure out why the boss's private line won't forward to his/her box and play the personal greeting. That is why 450 is the best way to go.

Derrick, You are just a fount of obscure information!