Night Service w/ Answering Machine

[Mattbliny]

Right now my company does not have a voicemail system on its Merlin legend (and cannot afford one). We want to be able to plug in a standard answering machine into an analog port and when the Night Service button is lit on the operators phone, all calls into lines 801-809 will dump into analog extention #s 44 & 45 (2 line answering machine). Can anyone explain how to program this?

 

[Rainman10]

The easiest way is just add 2-line machine to a couple T/R ports with the appropriate line pool(s) assigned. Then turn the machine off in the morning and on at night. Otherwise the documaentation describes night service well enough.

 

[bobsou]

on the station 44 & 45 pools ,set to no ring , put the stations into night service group, when operator places night service on the , ans machine will ans. lines ,then you do not need to power the ans machine on & off

 

[bobsou]

actully if you want ,you do not need to put the pools ,on the station for night service , i useally set it with the station with delay line pools ,so thaey will cover during the day with delay 3 rings, ans machine how mayring you want, its called poor man's voicemail

 

[Mattbliny]

Thanks all...Just relized after 9 months of not having voicemail that we were able to do it this way!

Now, I suppose using the same idea, I could plug a cheap answering machine into each of the analog ports and give my staff there own "voicemail". (only got 6 people here, spread out between 5000 sq feet...don't ask)...obviously the receptionist would transfer the caller into that box...

 

[bobsou]

your right thats all you have to do ,let the recp transfer to station with a ans machine

 

[TouchToneTommy]

With a two-line answering maching using stations 44 and 45, wouldn't you want station 44 to receive the night service calls, and station 45 to hace delayed coverage for 44? My reasoning is that otherwise the same call would ring simultaneously at both lines of the two-line answering machine, and both ports would try to answer. With the delayed coverage, the calls are sent to 44, but if it is already busy, 45 rings a few seconds later. (the coverage rings could be set to 1)

Just a thought.

 

[Mattbliny]

Good point....I'll check that out