Locking phones to dial one extension

[ScottL]

I work at a prison. We have been going over scenarios that could happen here. One is a takeover of a pod by inmates. The phones are already locked down so that they can't dial the outside world. They can of course dial any extension on the PBX.

In the above situation, would it be possible to lock the extension in the pod so it would only dial a set extension? That is, only dial the 'Hostage negotiator' extension?

Also, could it be set to refuse calls from any other extension?

OR, can we connect two Mitel phones to each other without a PBX? A takeover happens, I pull the patch cable from the port in the server room and plug it directly into another phone.

Question 2: Can we conference other people into the negotiator phone, and mute them from our end?

Thank you for help,

Scott

[johnp]

Good question, through tenanting and going to a night mode could put the extension in permanent do not disturb that could be overridden by a privileged extension. I don't know if you can hotline to disa, but if so, all calls would require a code entry prior to making them be it internal or external. It might also be possible to hotline to a loopback trunk that could be restricted by the night setting.. The loopback requires enterprise licensing versus stand-alone.

I await other thoughts on this.

[Jordan]

We just tested a hotline in our office which worked well - as soon as the pod handset is picked up it will dial the negotiator. If the negotiator puts the phone down, it will ring again, and again, until the pod handset is put down. This was configured in Users and Devices > Telephone Directory Management > Associated Directory Numbers

Directory Number = Pod phone
Associated Type = Hotline
Associated Number = Negotiator

Only issue with this is it is a manual process - but you could pair that with changing the tenant number of the pod and negotiator so no other handsets could call them as part of the standard take over procedure?

[PC77375]

I would definitely use associated directory number as suggested by Jordan- I don't think tenanting would be necessary- probably can use Interconnect restrictions between the target phone and negotiator phone. I would set up a restricted interconnect, for example 2, and when enacting the protocol change the interconnect of the two devices involved to be 2. It would be some manual process as well but then you have the ability to control from the PBX, which specific phones are allowed to communicate with each other. Test these possible scenarios before implementing a protocol.

[lundah]

I've actually got experience with prison installations back on the SX-2000. We always had inmate-accessible phones blocked from dialing other phones via interconnect restriction, and with intercept handling set up so that if they did attempt a restricted call, the intercept would send the call to the control center (manned 24-7, watching all the cameras).

[sunspark]

another suggestion: interconnect number + Ars route to call only neogciator number (if it s external number)

[ScottL]

I set up a hotline, it works well!  I have a phone designated for the negotiator, we just plug it into a POE port in whatever office or area has been designated for the negotiator staff.

I just have to make up a short procedure for either IT or jail shift supervisor to log into MyVoice Business, make the necessary configuration changes, and delete them after the even has ended. (There isn't any way to disable the hotline, but still retain the configuration changes.)

The Jail administrator has asked me to program a phone for the Lobby, for after hours.

Thank you for your help!

Scott

[ScottL]

In reading over the posts, I see that I can limit which phone extensions can call the Pod phone. How do I do that? Managing the PBX isn't my main duty. so I don't know what tenanting is.

Thank you,

Scott