Can 3300 disconnect the line on a silent message?

[jayisgod2]

About 2 years ago, our company switched away from having a permanent receptionist. Where we used to have a user sitting at the console routing calls, we now have a ring group with several members, with an overflow to voicemail. Overall, it works well, except for the following situation, which I was made aware of a few months ago (although it's probably been happening since we made our change):

Every morning, my reception group gets 2 or 3 'phantom' calls - the phone rings, they pick up, and its just dead air. They hangs up, and another one will come through in a few minutes. After 2 or 3 of the calls, they doesn't get any more for the rest of the day, but they occur again the next morning. The call display shows a different number for each of these calls.

I've seen this in action when I'm in the office on a weekend (when no one else is here) - the reception line will ring, and, if I answer it, the display will show a calling number, and a call timer beside it. The call timer will indicate that the call has been ongoing for several hours (think 5-6 hours per call).

I have no idea who is calling, but I think I've found out why the calls are staying in the system for hours - if no message is recorded on our voicemail system (ie. the caller is completely silent), the call is dumped back into our auto-attendant. After enough time in the auto-attendant, the system assumes the caller needs help, and the call will be pushed to our reception number. If there is no one available in our reception ring group, the call will go to voicemail. If no voicemail is recorded, the call will get dumped back on to the auto-attendant... and so on.

So, what I would like to do is set our voicemail to disconnect when a silent message is detected. Just a 'Thank you for calling. Goodbye' message would do.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't worry too much about these calls. However, the calls are coming in on toll-free lines, and are long distance calls, so we are getting billed for 6-10 hour calls on a regular basis.

Is there any option in the Mitel 3300 (MCD 4.2, using embedded voicemail) that will allow us to disconnect the line in these situations?

Thanks in advance

 

[sarond]

Do you use any night modes?
If you don't need to take messages you could program night to go to an information type mailbox.
At the end of the business day put system into night mode.

 

[jayisgod2]

We still need to be able to take messages after hours, we're just trying to avoid having a call remain in our system when it's not actually leaving a message. I just want the system to hang up if it gets only silence when waiting for a message (right now, if I dial a mailbox but stay silent, it waits about 5-6 seconds before flipping me into our main auto-attendant).

I'm not sure if we have any night modes. We do have business hours set, and after hours, our auto-attendant states that our office is closed, but unfortunately, I don't know enough about my system setup to say if we have night modes, and, if we do, where they lead. I inherited this system (from someone who inherited it from someone else), and have never received any formal training on it.

 

[floppy1]

There is a class of service option call duration forced clear down timer. This could be one way to reslove the issue but I think that it would have to be applied to the trunks COS to work.

 

[jayisgod2]

Looking at that setting, it appears that that would be a global restriction - ie, the system would (after the clear down timer expired) forcibly disconnect ANY calls that ran past the 'Call Duration' setting.

That would be an issue for us, as we do have users who have extended calls, and we wouldn't want to disconnect a call that was still active.

I appreciate the suggestions, and if someone can give me a better understanding of the Night Modes, that may help us as well. As it stands, I don't believe we are using night modes at all.

 

[floppy1]

The voice mail system should drop the call if no message is left or silent. It does on ours 3300 4.2 embedded.



There is day, night 1 and night 2 services that can be set. There is detailed information in the help files of the 3300.



Depending on software level these can be set manually or scheduled. Look in the call rerouting form for day N1 and N2 entries this will give you some indication on whether or not your system is using night service.

 

[kwbMitel]

What type of trunks do you have?

If analog, it is probable that the system is not getting disconnect signalling and the call is simply orphaned in the system.

If digital, I would still be thinking disconnect signalling, but it is less likely.

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[jayisgod2]

Well, I can't comment on what it should be doing, only what it is doing. If I stay silent while the message is recording, I get a message that says 'Recording has stopped. Message too short'. Then I get shunted over to the hunt group for my trunk line.

Looking at the Call Rerouting form, all desk phones are set with the same value for Day, Night1 and Night2 - it is '1' for all of them (which is set to 'No Reroute' for all settings). The hunt group for my main trunk line is set to '2' for all setting (which is set to 'Reroute' for all settings, pointing to out voicemail hunt group).

I do not have any scheduling set up for Day/Night changes, so I have to assume that all of our phones are using day mode at all times (but, since all my stations have the same settings for day and night, wouldn't make a difference unless I changed the rerouting).

I'm willing to change my rerouting if that will make a difference, and I have stations I can use to test it.

 

[jayisgod2]

My trunk is digital