Automatic hold

[magnus]

I am setting up a new system and my customer wants the calls to be put on hold automatically.
I told them I don't think that is possible. I set them up to have all calls go to a Hunt group and play the MOH file.

Now they are asking if there is a way we can have the phones stop ringing after about 3 rings.

There are 3 receptionists using 5340e phones and all need to be able to answer any calls. They have 1 line that is a direct line that rings all the time.

They want the line keys to be a different colour when someone calls in.

"As per our conversation today for our phones after the patient goes on automatic hold, if the ringer volume can be muted after some rings (3-6) but still blinking and have different LED color?"

As I said I don't know if this is possible but figured I would ask the brilliant people on this forum.

[DND ON]

There is no such thing as "automatic hold", but there should be a workaround.

The first thing that comes to mind: put an analog station on a Secondary Call Key set to zero rings. Make the analog station a member of the hunt group, and have the hunt group recall to the analog station after 18 seconds. No forward path or attendant on the analog station.

The end user experience should be phone rings 3 times with the light flashing, then just flashing light with no ring.  With no forward path or attendant, calls won't recall from the analog station. I don't think this will work with a phantom, but it's worth a try.

[NTEDave]

I would do this sort of the same as DND ON

Call rings into a Hunt Group with the Three Reception Staff
Recalls to the Hold Hunt Group after the 3 to 6 rings that has three new Phantoms in
The Three Reception staff have a button on their phone programmed up as Park / Pickup for the Hold Hunt Group
The Hold Hunt Group has the Audio For Calls Ringing to this Device set as the Music On Hold Source

The only thing I can't get it to do is show the Park Pickup key as a different coloured LED.

So the caller would hear ring tone as the call came in to the initial Hunt Group
After the alloted time the call would go 'on hold' at the second hunt group and the caller would hear on hold music
The reception team would have a flashing button to let them know the call was there

[magnus]

I got this to work pretty well like NTEDave described.

The customer added the difficulty of wanting to know which line was calling in.

I had to make a separate Trunk group for each line. Then send those calls to a STAR to sort them based on time (closed for lunch for 3 lines but not the 4th). Then send those to their own hunt group with the announcement "reception is not avaiable please hold". Recall to another Hunt Group with 1 phantom in it. Labelled as "Wait 1"

Then program the Trunk keys to each phone and the Park/Pickup key set to the Phantom.

They have 4 lines so this program setup required 8 keys.

So now when calls come in and are not answered on the first 3 rings then the Wait key lights up. 10 minutes later it will hang up. If they answer the call and put it on hold themselves then the Line key flashes letting them know which line is holding.
I used all System holds.

Kind of a convoluted way to program the system 4 times but it works now.