"Best Practice" setup for incoming CO lines

[Mike8530]

Hoping to get some advice from you experts!

One of our locations is equipped with MICS4.1 & 4channel Flash Vmail v.2.010. The system generally seems to function correctly, however I get periodic reports from customers & users that calls are being mis-directed, getting wrong voicemail, etc. and I thought it might have to do with how our system is setup. In short, we would like to have external calls ring at a group of phones, and be picked up by the AA/CCR if unanswered.

We have 10 CO lines coming into the system. Flash is set to answer all of them after 4 rings (ie. no one is available to answer). All DNs are programmed to have no lines assigned...instead, the 10 lines are assigned to a hunt group where they ring (only) at a set of 5 reception phones in broadcast mode, with overflow being the DN of the hunt group. DRT to prime is disabled & all lines have Prime Set to "none".

Would it make more sense to disable the hunt group & set all CO lines to "ring only" at each reception extension - or is there some advantage to the hunt group-style setup that I don't know of?

Since every external call immediately becomes a 'hunt group call' with this setup, will the AA always answer after four or will the Vmail box of one of the member DNs take precedence?

Also, might it be better to set Flash NOT to answer any CO line, but instead set the Flash DN as the prime set for all lines and set DRT to prime after 4 rings? (and since there is nowhere to set the greeting table with line answer set to 'no', would the call go to AA or CCR?)

I've read through all the documentation and it seems to me that there are many, many ways to setup a 'working' system...but I'm not clear on what's most appropriate for our setup.

Thanks in advance.

 

[luv2ski]

if you have all 24 button sets then just put on all sets and set AA to rings required..remember AA line setting are ring thru 99 rings and fna is 2,3,4,6,10 for sets ..if set to same ring duration AA should take preseidence over vm fna but if AA is busy with 4 calls may go to user mbox... a 4 port vm will only handle 4 calls at 1 time that includes checking vm and leaving vm..if your all 7310 or 7208's then hg make more sense the options are really to many and a hour with a pro will make you job much easier

6 months until ski season starts...sadly i must resign myself to the warmer weather"this will include a normal 8-5 work day, 5 days a week"

 

[senk1s]

mis-directed/ wrong vm ... are these the problems u are trying to fix? - that would need more analysis

if u prime a line to VM, then the AA picks up followed by CCR

 

[Mike8530]

A few of the reception phones are 7316s and a few are 7208s, so having the lines appear on all sets isn't really an option. From my own testing, it would seem that the only advantage to having outside calls answered by a hunt group is that CallerID info gets fed to each set in the group, even though the lines are set to ring only. My main concern was preventing someone's personal mailbox from getting the hunt group/external call. I suppose setting the CFNA above the Flash answer threshold would take care of this possibility.

 

[senk1s]

when the call is 'in' the hunt group, the cfna settings do NOT come into effect

 

[nortelnorstar]

DTR Prime to VM DN: Even if the line answer is set to no they will will answered by the AA using table 1. You can force it to other tables by saying answer yes with rings set longer than the DRT setting.

Lines in a Hunt Group: Because cfna/cfb does not apply to huntgroups your recptionist can be cfna/cfb to forward personal calls to there own mailboxes (once a call is answered and transfered its no longer in the hunt group). You can still use DRT to voicemail DN using hunt groups for AA answering. Unanswered hunt group calls will not go to a personal mailbox unless you set the the over flow to a DN that has cfna/cfb set to voicemail.

Marv

http://www.telemarv.ca

 

[phitzer]

luv2ski-
if 4 calls come in and wont be answered by aa due to no channels free. How can call divert to voicemail box???

 

[Mike8530]

drdebug, I believe that use of (in this case) Flash in any capacity at all counts as one channel (ie. caller hearing AA or using CCR, or caller leaving message, or user checking messages...). My system can only handle four such events at once, meaning -I assume- that Flash is essentially disabled when that fifth person attempts to use it. I guess if that were an external caller waiting for the AA, their call would just ring & ring.

Thanks for the info folks. There seems to be minimal advantage to changing our setup to use DRT to prime, so I guess I'll continue to troubleshoot these mis-directions.