voicemail from our local phone company - Sundance Business VOIP Telephone Help

We use ProStar 816 for our office phones (4). Through our phone company, we have our voicemail boxes set up where we have to dial a local number to get into the system to check our voicemail. My question: When someone calls and wants to leave a message with someone not here, how do I get them to do that?? Is there a way to put them on hold and then call that voicemail number and then connect them to it to leave a voicemail for someone out of the office? I've tried the conference call button, but to no avail. Doesn't there have to be a way to do this?? Please advise. Thank you.

Well if you are using the telephone companies voicemail that means that calls get to the voicemail by someone dialling your number.Then if there is no answer it goes to the voicemail.I suppose you could do it by putting the caller on hold,calling yourself on another line and not answering it so it goes to voicemail.Then conference the original caller in (does the 816 have unsupervised conference) and drop out of the call.Man thats messy though.No way would I want my callers going through that.
Put in a voicemail system on the Prostar.

[This message has been edited by pvj (edited April 29, 2005).]

I know...that's been my confusion! How much does a "voicemail" cost for the Prostar? and what would all of that entail? I don't think we have unsupervised conference calling. i am still trying to figure out conference calling. I don't specifically know how to do that. 1.Put caller on hold 2. then what??

Well I never dealt with the 816 but I do have a816 Plus manual and it does have unsupervised conference.But really is that what you want?It would tie up 2 lines at a time and take time to do it.As for a voicemail,Samsung had a Starmail voicemail for that system but that was discontinued a couple of years ago.A 3rd party voicemail should work on it.

thanks, i'll give this info to the guys who know more than me about the system! you've been helpful.

Even if you can get a starmail, stay away! Most third parties will do fine as PVJ stated and more features and are easier to setup. I would get a flash style as they are very reliable; no moving parts like hard drive predecessors.