sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Avaya - Lucent Telephones & Systems Partner ACS and Partner Mail VS

Guys, I need a little help. I inherited a customer yesterday who has a Partner ACS. They have a ton of problems because the hacker who installed it didn't know squat about squat and has these poor folks totally upside down. My issue is this (and I feel like a dumbass because I have seen this before but my advanced age and decreasing memory chips have failed me!!) I assigned the voice mail extensions to the VS (it's a 2 port system) based on the configuration in the manual and they just go RNA. Thinking that perhaps the VS was bad, I brought it back to my lab and set it up here and it works fine. I sat here looking at the manuals forever and it dawned on me that there was a problem with the configuration. The manual shows a system configured with all 206 cards. The customers system has an ACS Processor, a 308E in slot 1. a 400e in slot 2, nothing in slot 4 and the VS in slot 5. If I program the system so that the VM ports are ext 40 & 41, as the manual indicates, no go. I am sure I have seen a chart that tells me how to assign these extension number by counting station ports and then adding some number to get to what the ports should be assigned as.

Can any of you help me here...have pity on a poor elderly phone guy!!

Thanks,

Ed

Move the VS mail to Slot 4 and try it. No Empty slots

Ed- the manual is just an example. Count the actual extension ports before the Voice Mail, but 1st arrange it as ACS in the center, 308 in slot 1, VS in slot 2, 400 in slot 4, and the 5th is the empty slot.

Now it's 10-17 or 18 on the ACS, 18-25 or 19-26 on the 308, and 26-31 or 27-32 on the VS.

Thanks guys....here's the outcome. I put the VS in slot 4. Based on what was in the manual AND the information you guys provided, it was obvious that the VM ports would start 11 extension numbers higher than the last extension port in the system. The Partner apparently assumes that each slot NOT occupied by a trunk/station card actually has 6 extensions to be allocated, and the first voice mail port in a 2 port system is five (5) "extension" numbers higher than that. So, given that math, and in that I have a 308 card in slot 1, and a 400e card in slot 2, and the processor in slot 3, my highest extension number was 25, 11 higher than that is 36. I assigned 36 and 37 to the voice mail system and in hunt group 7 and VOILA, Voice mail is up and working!!

A 400 is counted as 6 extensions even though it has none. You can have the 400 before your messaging but there were some older releases where that would cause a problem. Therefore we always recommend that any 200 or 400s be located AFTER the messaging system. That will always work and you don't have to think about them being worth 6 extensions when you figure your VM ports.

-Hal

hbiss,Touch Tone Tommy you guys rule on these Partner quistions, so forgive me for butting in.
I see this Voice Mail port question posted all the time and would like to suggest when in doubt about voice mail ports, dialing suspected extension numbers and waiting for the voice mail system to answer is sometimes an easier way to determine voice mail ports. This works with most small analog/dtmf voice mail systems.

I used the "brute force" algorithm to figure this out. After installing the card in the system, I just started with 1 higher than the last known physical phone extension and kept going from there until the VM answered on the intercom line. Then I knew I had the starting extension. Not sophisticated and not educated but it got the job done so long as I didn't ask questions. The 400 card quirk, for lack of a better word and I can see it came from the 206 days, is something I never came across before because the phone guy I asked when I did my first install told me "always put the VM card last. Angels will cry if you don't." It just seems there is no end to what you can learn about an ACS or any other system.