Personal line appearances conflicting with pools...

[phonesaz]

I have a client with 7 lines. Four of them belong to a Spanish-speaking group, and 3 belong to their English-speaking counterparts. My problem is this: The Spanish group uses a full-time receptionist, who has a DLC console and routes the calls via a DSS. They tend to be very busy and would like to be able to have access to all 7 lines for outgoing calls.

The English group is very low-key. They do not have a receptionist, and just have their 3 lines appearing on 3 buttons on their MLX phones. I had originally thought I would just put their lines in the outgoing pool so they could be shared by their busy counterparts, but I forgot that if a line is in a pool, adding an appearance of that line to the pool automatically adds all the pooled lines to that phone (at least the way I do it . Is there another solution? I am not-so-good at ARS, having one pool grab from another when necessary, etc., but I think there is an answer in there somewhere....any suggestions appreciated.

 

[glg01]

Does the English group dial a 9 for outbound or are they trying to use their 3 lines like a key system? e.g. Button access or auto line select to outside trunks instead of dialing 9. When you are finished are the English people supposed to be able to use the Spanish lines as well? Depending on how you answer these two questions could affect the way you try to do it. However, you could put each of the three Enlish lines in three different pools. Assign the pools to the English sets to allow answering inbound calls the way they do now on three different buttons. Then add the 3 new pools to the ARS table. There can be up to six pools on your ARS routes. The only thing that I can think of...is when the English answer their calls they have to transfer the calls to other sets where under the present setup they could put it on hold and press a button to pick up the call on another set like a key system that I menitoned at the first of this paragraph. Maybe this will give you ideas. lg

 

[phonesaz]

See- this is what I was afraid of ARS tables and things - yes, the English side uses their lines like a key system. They are out of the office 90% of the time. What I am trying to do is make those lines available in some type of an outgoing pool for the Spanish employees, as their lines are busy all the time and it seems silly to add more lines when we have those perfectly good underutilized (thats a word, I think) lines available. If I put the english lines in one pool (like 890 - separate from 70) and I assigned a line, I think the only difference is the first button appearance on the MLX would say pool-I and the next two would be the actual trunks (806 and 807.) Having the English group have access to the Spanish lines would be icing on the cake - nice but probably never necessary. Short version is I think I hear an ARS w/ routing as the solution.

 

[TouchToneTommy]

You can program ARS tables and pools with FRLs to cause the English group to only call out over their own lines, and the Spanish group to use the English lines as thier overflow lines. But, you will need to put the English lines into their own (one) pool, remove the line appearances from the English phones, and have them also dial 9 for outgoing calls.

 

[phonesaz]

Why would I have to remove the lines from the buttons? I was hoping that I could both leave them on the phones and have them be used for outgoing by the Spanish group. I have seen it where the first button above the last SA button indicates a line appearance for the pool, but I thought you could still have lines two through whatever appear as line buttons. Actually I think I have (accidentally) programmed things that way - am I wrong?

 

[TouchToneTommy]

'Cause line in pools don't appear on individual buttons.

You need to remove the lines from the phones before you can put them into a pool.

Once they are in a pool, yes, you can reassign the pool to a button on a phone. I guess the question is Why? They can make the same call on an SA button by dialing 9 and the number. Only if you need to have incoming calls ring on non-operator extensions can I think of why you'd put a pool button on the phone.

 

[glg01]

If you take the three English lines and put the first line in a pool by itself, and the second in a pool by itself, etc. You can accomplish this. Each of the three English lines can then be put on the ARS Tables via their pool codes. You then would assign the three pools to each of the English sets. Be sure you know what buttons exist on the DLC console prior to building new pools because it will assign them to the console automatically and erase buttons that you will have to put back. You are right about the button saying Pool-I, but if each of the three trunks are in their own pool then you still get your calls in and you are able to put these pools on the ARS tables. I have done this same scenerio except each of my three pool buttons had three lines in them. If you print the ARS tables once you pools are setup, I believe you can figure out how the routes work. lg