Voice Call vs. Intercom

[Mich2too]

First off...I am NOT a technical user of Nortel Products and work as the Business Operations Officer at a local American Red Cross chapter.

The majority of our phones are Nortel/Norstar/Meridian M7310s. Something that I am getting repeated complaints about and is REALLY confusing our volunteers is that when they press the Voice Call button to call an extension, the black triangle appears next to the Intercom button. When this happens, they think they have pressed the wrong button, OR start pressing the intercom button instead when calling an extension.

Office management prefers that the Voice Call feature is used when calling an extension so that the person on the receiving end does not have to be within reaching distance of the phone. As the majority of the extensions in our office do not normally answer incoming phone calls, they have their ringer volumes turned down or do not realize that the ringing phone is someone calling from within the building so they ignore it.

My question is....is there a way to program the system so that the intercom indicator does NOT light up? Or is it possible to remove the intercom button and feature from the phones to help alleviate the confusion?

THANK YOU in advance for any assistance you may be able to give us.

Sue

 

[descendant]

I would not advise removing the Intercom button, but if you wish to remove the Voice Call feature you can use 'Feature *3'. This allows progamming buttons to various features> Enter Feature * 3, press the 'Voice Call' button and program it for 'Feature 70" (Call Transfer). That would remove the Voice Call feature.

Otherwise you might just type up a user note stating that pushing the Voice Call feature will activate the extension and the user then needs to enter the extension to be called.

 

[Phonehed]

There's nothing wrong with your system and voice call is a great feature but it can be annoying. The voice call feature uses an intercom channel to connect to another internal party.

Why on earth would they not want to hear ringing when someone calls them internally? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Use feature *80 to adjust all of the ring volumes to a nominal level and tell them to start answering their phones when they ring.

If they just don't want to hear the outside lines ringing, have your vendor reprogram their sets to make those lines appear only.

If they are annoyed by the voice call feature, tell them to dial feature 88 to deny voice calls. That will force the call to ring in on an intercom channel. Feature #88 will cancel it.

Every phone should always have at least two intercom channels to allow any user to place their first intercom call on hold and then answer or place another call.

They are also very handy for conferencing both internally and externally.

Uses who don't have outside lines appearing on their sets should be able to hit intercom and dial 9 or some other access code to get to those outside lines.

People shouldn't have to get up from their desks and wander around the office just to talk to their co-workers. That's what business telephone systems are for!

Phonehed in Dallas

 

[Mich2too]

Thank you both for responding. However, you both have missed my question. It's NOT the VOICE CALL feature that is the problem and both of you suggested removing it and only using the intercom. It's the INTERCOM that is the problem.

Please understand that what might work conveniently for your office may not be the same as what is preferred in ours. The Voice call feature is the preferred choice over running around the office. And the main reason for the voice call preference is some of our offices are large and the voice call feature automatically turns on the speaker phone so we can answer from any where in the room without having to be near the phone to answer it. The reason that everyone's ring volumes are turned down is personal preferences of those people who do not answer incoming calls on a regular basis. All of our phones are set up with ALL 3 of our incoming/outgoing lines as requested by our Board of Directors and for convenience of our own use. Which, I really don't understand why that matter is of any importance to anyone outside of our office.


My question simply is if there is a way to re-program or keep the INTERCOM from lighting up when the VOICE CALL button is pushed?

 

[Phonehed]

Again, the voice call key requires at least one intercom channel. It will not work without one.

Phonehed in Dallas

 

[DigitelD]

Phonehed is correct. Voice Call will not work without an intercom path on the phone. Training, familiarity of the feature and time can solve this problem.

 

[Mich2too]

will not work without an intercom path on the phone"....that one statement explains to me the answer to may question. THANK YOU!!

In my limited knowledge of the system, my thought was that the voice call was separate from intercom.

THANK YOU AGAIN!!