Door phone or contact closure strange issue...

[phonesaz]

We were called to a site where the customer had a power outage. First the lines were doing what they do when the system loses its programming so the auto attendant was grabbing all the calls. Fixed that, and then incoming calls were ringing twice and then getting a noise, in the customer's words, 'like the gate phone was answering it.' He has a phone number that trails through the Partner and has a single line set attached to it as well that people call to get the gate opened. It is also connected to extension 27. We resolved this issue by turning off the ringing on his main lines from extension 27, since after the power outage all the lines reverted to ringing on all the sets. We tested the incoming calls after turning the ringers off, and they went to the automated attendant correctly.

Today I got an email from the customer that states the following:

"We have a gate phone and when someone presses 001 it goes to extension 27 in our Partner system then it immediately rings the phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx and from a separate phone other than the partner phone system we are able to answer it and open the gate by pressing 9.

Right now when 001 is pressed it says extension 57766 is unavailable please leave a message. Notice that it said 57766 which is the middle part of the phone number that it should be ringing xxx-657-766x.

I am sure something just needs to be programmed but I don't know what is the right sequence."

So.. I don't disagree that something is off in the programming, but I have never heard of using 001 as a code on the Partner, and I have never heard the Partner attendant address an extension that is 5 digits long. Plus the 5 digits are, in fact, the middle of the 10-digit phone number.

I don't have that much experience with door phones and/or contact closures, so am not sure the proper way to troubleshoot this. The phone number in question comes into the building and terminates on a wall jack with a non-partner phone connected to it. Extension 27 is an extension without a phone, so I assume it is the doorphone extension. I am clueless as to the relationship between the house phone and extension 27. As a test to see if it was possibly NOT connected to the partner, I had the customer unplug extension 27 from the Partner and then go to the gate and dial the code (001). He no longer heard the 'extension is not available' message; the phone rang briefly and then went to dead air.

Looking for advice on troubleshooting this; thank you in advance.

 

[TouchToneTommy]

That you dial 9 to trigger the door release relay says that the doorphone is probably made by Doorking.

Because they visitor is dialing 001 instead of pressing a simple CALL button, it is really designed for multiple residents. You dial 001 for the Smith residence, 002 for the Jones residence, etc. The Doorking grabs dialtone, (usually a dedicated line) and dials the resident's phone number that has been programmed. The resident answers their regular phone, if they want to let the visitor in then press 9, which is detected by the Doorking and trips a relay to cycle the door strike or gate opener.

In your case, it's probably using a station port to feed it (27?), and is dialing the phone number for the single line phone that he answers on. The port should NOT be programmed as a doorphone or hotline, just an extension that gets outside dialtone when going off hook, with NO ring on the lines.

 

[phonesaz]

So if I understand you correctly, the fix could be as simple as making sure ext 27 wasn't reprogrammed as a door phone, make it a regular extension, that no lines on ext 27 are set to ring, and ALS is set for outside line not intercom.

That makes sense; my only question is what is triggering the 'station not available' message when 001 is pressed from the door phone?

 

[TouchToneTommy]

Although you don't want to post the entire telephone number, could the leading digits dialed on Intercom have caused it to access voicemail or an auto attendant?

 

[TouchToneTommy]

If you have a digit grabber, find out what the doorphone is dialing. You might be able to put a display phone on Ext. 27 and see it on the display

 

[phonesaz]

When we programmed ALS and then dialed 001 from the gate it rang busy. Not sure the customer programmed it correctly so we are going back to the site. Next will try the display on ext 27 and see what's happening. Do you think there is a chance that the power outage affected the Doorking unit and the programming issues are on that end?