bulletin board operator

Let me review. From the main Auto Attendant, some option takes you to what you call a Bulletin Board. At this stage, you can zero out to x220, which happens to be call-forwarded elsewhere.

From the main Auto Attendant, choosing option #4, then option #1 will take you to (or appears to take you to) the identical Bulletin Board mailbox. However, if you zero out at this point, you are transferred to the CAS operator instead.

Couple of questions:

1. What selector code takes you straight to the Bulletin Board and where does is it tranfer the call to?
2. What does the 4 & 1 submenu point to?
3. Is the Automated Attendant assigned to the operator's extension?
4. Does the unwanted tranfer send you to a live human, or a mailbox? I'm trying to see if you mean General Mailbox instead of the Call Answer Service operator.

You could probably obtain a vast amount of insight by connecting to the SERIAL PORT of the MERLIN MAIL and doing a print of the CONFIGURATION REPORT.

Ok, I have done a print of the VM and the Legend. Tell me what you need.

Here's the basic setup:

Automated Attendant #1
General Mailbox Owner: 208
Touch Tone Gate: Off

DAY MENU

CODE SELECTOR CODE ACTION NUMBER

1: Submenu 01
2: Direct Extension Transfer
3: Submenu 03
4: Submenu 04
5: Submenu 05
6: Submenu 06

Timeout: Operator Transfer

SUBMENU 04

CODE SELECTOR CODE ACTION NUMBER

1: Selector Code Transfer 255
2: Selector Code Transfer 220
3: Selector Code Transfer 219
4: Selector Code Transfer 254
5: Not Used

From Merlin Mail Printout
Box Name Cos Lang Personal Oper
255 RENTAL 19 English 220
208 PINO 13 English 206
220 BEASLEY 13 English

Ext 255 is Bulletin Board (COS 19)
Ext 208 is General Mailbox owner for all AA
Ext 220 is personal operator for BB
Ext 211 is Operator extension
211 is forwarded to 208 since no one mans the operator station (I know that's kinda weird, she doesn't want the "big" phone)

So to recap:

Dial main AA
dial 255 and get list of rentals from BB
Dial 0 = transfer to ext 220 which is forwarded to Cell phone

That is all OK

But doing this:
Dial AA THEN
dial 4 for Submenu 4
then Dial 1 for Rental BB (aka merlin mailbox box 255) should goto BB which it does everytime
But Dialing 0 at this point should go to ext 220 like before, instead it ends up ringing 208.

Why the difference? I figure 208 is ringing because the operator console is forwarded to 208, but why is the operator rung instead of 220 this time?


I think this info answers Dagwoodsystems first 3 question and the last question is the unwanted transfer is to a live person at ext 208 who happens to have her own mailbox #208. During hours the unwanted transfer rings at her desk and if she's not around it of course goes to VM

Merlinman: I have complete recent txt files of both systems if anyone needs more info.

Sorry for the long post..

Something is missing here, because the Dial 0/Timeout action in the submenu is inherited from it's definition in the Automated Attendant. Therefore, there's no reason that the call should ever go to the CAS Operator.

At face value, it would seem that there's some kind of difference between a Direct Extension Transfer and a Selector Code Tranfer. My experience tells me otherwise.

I'm beginning to wonder whether the problem is related to the Call Forward business. In a Direct Extension Transfer, control is passed to the switch. And in that case, it would seem that the restrictions of x220 determine if the call will go off-site or not.

Does trunk-to-trunk transfer need to be enabled somewhere? Hmmm. This is a little odd. I'll send a PM to Merlinman and TouchToneTommy if you don't have an answer by the next post.

thanks, it's been puzzling me. Monday I'll try un forwarding my bulleting board operator's phone and see if that helps. I'll let you know. It seemed logical also to me that direct transfer versus submenu should have no affect on options inside the bulletin board box. But you guys are the awesome experts, not me. I have solved so many problems using the posts on this forum. Let me know how i can help you, help me!

Grateful telephone expert wannabe,
mobiletrainer1

ok, I unforwarded the extensions. It didn't seem to help. I changed the BB operator to another extension, that didn't help. Still, when dialing the BB extension from the AA main menu direct extension transfer and the pressing 0, I goto ext 220, that works fine. However dialing from submenu of AA and going to same BB then pushing 0 goes to operator.

So, to get around this I chose the option in the BB that if someone pushes 0, to send them back to the AA main menu. I then instructed the BB owner to change their BB message to state "to reach so-and-so press zero and dial 220" to go directely to them. It's a small extra step, but it works.

If you have any other suggestions I'm open for them, however I think this is satisfactory.

I understand that you've come to a compromise on how to handle calls, but I'd sure love to see this thing work the way you intended it to. I'm still baffled about the behavior of the submenu. Write back if it makes you as crazy as it does me, and I'll dial in and take a deeper look.

Thank you for posting your thoughts.

I am an obsessive person about some things. My fortay is for PC hardware and software support. I like to think I've never found a machine that beat me, but I'm sure that would be incorrect.

If you have the time and the obsessive gene also, let me know what you need to dial in. Something tells me posting the information here is not the best idea. Do you want to dial into the Merlin Mail or the Legend?

mobiletrainer1

I'll tell you about my obsessive gene and how to "dial in" to the voicemail if you wanna email me. We're not allowed to post such information (due to webcrawlers collecting that information). However if you took my forum name and suffixed it appropriately, you just might find a website with my contact info.

My availability is getting thin right now, but I think we can get to it soon.

--Tim