Our company is making the jump to a PRI for the cost savings. I am looking at two systems

1)Vodavi XTS-IP
2)Toshiba Strata CIX100

I know there are what some would consider better ways for this, but this is what the owner wants. Very similar to our current 22line telco system. All calls answered by a live person and if needed placed on hold (while customer hears on hold message), all customer service reps to see what lines need answered.

My question is with the PRI.

Toshiba says this is not possible with a PRI, that there is no way for a channel to be shown on multiple phones via blinking light. His work around is transfer to a "ghost extension" that would ring at all phones until someone picked up.

The Vodavi rep (who is my current rep) says the 30 button vodavi phone could do exactly what we are looking for. We would have "Park lines" that we could park calls to and have that "Park line" show up on all phones.

Who is correct? Toshiba says its not a phone issue but a PRI issue that prevents this. Vodavi rep says that it is doable with the vodavi system

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Greg

Lets see if this helps... I have a set up in an office in town where calls come into 1 person and they have a pri with 11 lines that show up on her phone. She can place transfer or park or send to vmail or whatever she really wants to do.

I have an eye clinic that has the full 23 channels and they do the same thing, park the call and announce thru page so and so has a call on (insert park location here).

Most of the phones in the second location have park buttons but some do not and for those if the person is at one of those phones they dial the park location.

Let me try and clarify. This is almost a call center with no assigned phones. 5 people answering phones on average. Occasionally 10 lines light up at once. Boss wants one person to be able to answer those calls live and say "we will be right with you, etc etc" and park the call. Now that person is taking an order and everyone will need to see that "park line 1" is blinking and has someone waiting that needs help. No paging, etc. Simply look at the phone and know that some is on "park line 1" whatever phone they are looking at.

This is hard to explain but hope that helps

Are you asking if all 23 channels of the PRI can have button appearances on the 30-button phones? If so, the answer is yes, but not a very good use for the buttons.

More like five. There is never more than five people holding at a given time. So someone can park this channel and have all phones see this call as parked and pick it up as soon as they are free

Yes you could put 5 park keys on the phones and they would all light when ever there was a call parked on them. You would need to have loop keys on the phones to be able to answer the calls originally then put the call on what ever park key you want.

I believe there is 14 Park locations but i'm not in front of a manual to check.

Thank you for the help. I am curious as to why the Toshiba rep said this was not doable. He clearly said the issue was with it being a PRI but maybe it was with Toshiba's system.

Again, thank you for the quick answers.

I am not familiar with Toshiba systems but I would think that they have some type of PARK or LINE keys but i'm not sure. Did you post your question in the Toshiba section? The experts there I'm sure will help you out.

This is no problem for the Vodavi system at all. The default for park keys is a solid light. But they can be reprogrammed to blink.

As nfc stated, you can have all 23 channels show up on 23 buttons. A better use would be to have multiple park buttons. Whenever a Park button is lit, you know a call is holding.

Vodavi systems will do this just fine. I would be concerned since your Toshiba rep is unfamiliar with what their systems are capable of. They use the term "Park Orbit" for similar functionality, although it is a bit more "clunky" on Toshiba for lack of a better word.

the XTS-IP handles PRI beautifully. One would think the enhanced value of this service would cost more, not less! If you can cost justify it, run, don't walk!

I've done this with GCO keys on a Toshiba CIX670 with full 23 channel PRI for a municipality. Each department had their own numbers and I programmed GCO keys on each phone simulating individual line appearance.

What was that dealer thinking?