Extension from phone to VM only

[pv055]

I have an employee who is changing offices and wants to leave a message in the old office for a couple months. I want to take the extension off the phone set and assign it to VM only and then put a different extension on the phone set. Where can I find a "how to" on this?
Merlin in R7 v11 with Merlin Messaging.

 

[tdaugirdas]

Two steps required:

One - go into the VM admin mailbox, press 9 for programming, press 2 for extentions, enter the existing extention number (mailbox), choose the propmt to modify phone status - and change the status to "no phone". So the voicemail autoattendant will transfer any calls to that ext number immediately to the person's mailbox - and no longer ring the extention.

Two: in system programming - you will need to renumber the existing actual phone extention number to something else. To do so - you need to know the number you want to change it to (which cannot be an active ext number in your system). You may need to print out your dial plan to see what ext range is not being used. Then press menu, system program, start/exit, system renumber, single, extentions, - enter existing/old extention number and press enter - then key in the new ext number you want to change it to and press enter. If you get a beep - that means the number you want to change it to already exists - and you need to choose a different extention number. Press home/exit to get out of programming mode.

Tom Daugirdas,
President
STCG, Inc.
stcg.com

 

[TouchToneTommy]

After you renumber the phone, you should renumber an adjunct to the old number, and cover it to voice mail, so you can transfer "live" callers to the mailbox, not just from the Auto Attendant.

 

[tdaugirdas]

TouchToneTommy has a good point - to allow transfers to the now "phantom" mailbox from otside and inside callers that are not calling through the autoattendant. However if all calls go to the autoattendant first for routing and you are not concerned about inside callers - there would be no need to that.

Tom Daugirdas,
President
STCG, Inc.
stcg.com

 

[pv055]

I made a mistake, Merlin Mail not Merlin Messaging.
How do I change the status of the mailbox to no phone?

 

[tdaugirdas]

You can't change phone status in Merlin Mail.

Tom Daugirdas,
President
STCG, Inc.
stcg.com

 

[pv055]

I want to thank you all very much for your help.
I was able to accomplish what I wanted with your help.

Thank you again

 

[TouchToneTommy]

You can actually change the phone status of an extension on Merlin Mail or 007MLM, though class-of-service. However, it is actually better to create the adjunct extension and cover it to voice mail, so the call will end up in voice mail no matter if it came through the auto attendant or a manual transfer.