Voice Mail Question

[gregarican]

I figure that between the experts here I would have a great sounding board for some troubleshooting I'm doing. My main office has a Merlin Legend r7 with an Octel 50 for integrated voice mail. The Octel box has two Rhetorex 432 boards in it, providing two sets of 4 voice mail ports.

From what I can tell I think one of the 432's is going bad. When I try dialing the 8 inidividual VM extensions programmed in Merlin one of them in particular gives a busy tone 4 out of 5 attempts. Checking the status on the Octel it's not like another caller was using the port at the time. So I removed that VM extension from the group.

But still when dialing the group number I occasionally get a busy signal. I will have to dig deeper, as one of the 432 boards is likely dying a slow death. If the VM ports are bust servicing other callers doesn't the Merlin provide a ringback tone followed by a beep to indicate the caller is queued up? I just want to distinguish a dead port from a system that's taking other calls.

It's been a few years since I've had to mess with this aspect of the systems so I'm a bit rusty That being said none of the programming has changed in respect to these VM ports in years. I've rebooted the Octel as well as reset the Merlin card.

 

[dagwoodsystems]

You're right, a DGC is never supposed to give you a busy tone. The fact that it does is disturbing, and I agree that it is board related. Somehow that board appears to be available when it actually isn't. The Merlin says, "Oh, this guy's free" and sends the caller to a port that kicks back the busy tone. So weird.

I like your approach and description on this whole thing...very detailed and thorough.

You know, the cost of replacing the Rhetorex is only about $400. I found a number of places online rather quickly. Note your jumper settings, swap boards and you (hopefully) will be good to go for years to come.

In many ways, repair is so much "cheaper" than purchasing a replacement system. You know, the whole setting up and recording of all the greetings. Complaints about how "it's so different than our old voicemail". Then there's the whole political knashing of teeth from all parties about how the "new" automated attendant should sound.

But if you're up for it, perhaps the time is ripe for a wholesale replacement!

 

[gregarican]

Very true regarding replacing the VM system. Our company heavily relies on the distribution lists, the phone/paging alerts, and other features so much that it would be a PITA to look for a replacement. Plus, as you mentioned, all of the complaints regarding rerecording annoucements, greetings, etc. We have roughly 70 users of the system so I think for now I'll just bite the bullet and have ordered a couple of spare 432 boards. Plus a couple of years ago the system board died. Looking for new system boards with lots of ISA slots is tough, but I found a VAR online that sells new system boards that are perfect.

So my closet is full of lots of spares --- an Octel 50 system board, soon two 432 boards, not to mention some Legend/Magix boards that are ready to swap out. A few months ago one of my other sites had a Magix INA fail and I had a spare preprogrammed with the correct settings. I just plugged it in and off they went on their way!