How do you allow a supervisor to join an existing call??? 1

[jrITguy]

Hey everyone,

My first thread in this site. I need some assistance:

I have a Nortel Meridian phone system. The Director of Inside Sales requested that he can join/listen in on a existing phone conversation of his account executives that are speaking with customers. Does anyone know how to set this up? My plan was to setup another phone for the director and have all of his staff's extensions programmed to it. So KEY 00, KEY 01, KEY 02....etc has each extension. When I set it up, the director can see who's using the phone and who's off, but is unable to listen in. Please help.

An alternative was to purchase a PLANTRONICS headset, amplifier, and y cord combo and it will work, but for each station it will average $175.

Your help is much appreciated. THANKS!

 

[srmega41]

Check the Class of Service on the set(s) that the supervisor wants to observe. In the CLS, ther is a prompt for Privacy override. Change it to POA. I believe this will allow the supervisor to "join" in the call. He will be a funtioning part of the call, so he will need to either mute his side or stay "vewry, vewry qwiet."

Hope this helps,

Scott M.

 

[SAMMEE2]

OR if the agent has a Supervisor key on his phone the operation is like Conference key.
..press once outside party goes on hold whilc call is placed to supv.
..Confer w/supv.
..press Supv key again and all parties are joined.

 

[srmega41]

I did not think he was using ACD, but that would be a much cleaner way to do this. He could also allow Supervisor observation within the ACD to do this, and the supervisor could observe the call without the agent knoing it.

Scott M.

 

[jrITguy]

Thanks yal for the ideas. I'm not using ACD (its automatic call distribution right?) as it is a really small department. Basically, each sales rep has their own line and extension. And they tend to call out and talk to propective customers. We have the meridian M2008 digital phone, which also has the very basic functions and without the Supervisor key. Our phone system is setup to be very simple (w/ conference, forward, speed call, voicemail, etc). The supervisor just wants to be able to listen in when necessary without the customer knowing it. I'm not sure if our phone system has that capability based on our existing equipment. Any more ideas??

THANKS!

 

[srmega41]

Did you try to Privacy option? Without ACD, that would be the way to acomplish what you want. Other than that, I am not sure you can do this, without some form of Y connector.

Hope this helps,

Scott M.

 

[jrITguy]

Are you suggesting to disable the privacy function on the account executives' phones? where if I setup the supervisor's phone with each extension, the supervisor can listen by pressing the key at which the line is on?

 

[srmega41]

Yes. And by setting POA on the original sets, I believe it will allow him to join in the call by simply selecting the key he wants to listen in on.

I would test it on one set, change the CLS to POA, and then place the DN on another set. Ask someone to help you test, and after they place a call, verfiy you can "join" the call. It may be the POA setting must be set on the observing phone, but I am not certain. A quick test will tell you, and then you can apply that setting where needed. (Sorry I can't be more specific, I just have not used that in sol long I can't remember where the CLS change needs to be)

Scott M.

 

[jrITguy]

I have another problem. Our company's Nortel Meridian PBX system is denied the ability to forward calls to an external number. Here's the situation: I have a couple of users who answer the customer support lines. They are off at the same time and would need to forward the calls to their home. How do I enable this feature?

Thanks

 

[srmega41]

Set CLS to CFXA, then change the CFW key to allow for enough digits. (so if you do 7 digit calls, change to CFW 8, or 10 digits would need a CFW 11). You will also need to check in the CDB that you have CFF set. This says that the forwarding phone determines whether or not a call is forwarded based on the phones configuration or the trunk/line the call came in on.

Hope this helps,

Scott M.

 

[jrITguy]

Hey Scott (srmega41),

Thanks! You've been really helpful.

Back to the original question about the privacy option, how do I change the cls? I know you want me to try set the cls to POA, but I dont know how that is done. When I did a ld 11, prt, I see a whole bunch of settings within CLS, and I do see POA.

Please be patient with me as I am new to this area and might need step-by-step directions on who to set it up. Thanks! I also appreciate you help in the other thread.