MiCollab Client call parking

[mcain]

Hello.  Mitel newbie here.  I could use some help and advice.

We're launching a new branch office and to cut cost we are trying to run them exclusively on MiCollab Client soft phone.  I need help comparing capabilities of the soft phone to a 5330 desk phone.

We need the ability to place a call on hold, make a different call, and then return to the first.  (Not conference them together.)  I understand the soft phone doesn't have lines like a 5330 does.

Can I park and un-park calls on the soft phone?
If so, how?

[NEPhoneGuy]

The way I'd train users to do this would be almost like making a conference call but not joining them together. You on on call A, you conference to make Call B which puts Call A on hold and then you return to Call A when you are done with Call B - just don't complete the conference.

[lundah]

First you'll have to program a 2nd appearance of the softphone DN, which as far as I know you can't do via a template (but you can do a copy from Mulitline Set Keys and it will change the DN for you).
Then you can do what NEPhoneGuy suggests. As far as putting a call on hold for someone else to pick up, I don't think you can park a call from a softphone but you may be able to do a Call Hold - Remote Retrieve so the other user will have to dial a FAC + the DN that placed the call on hold. So, given that, make sure your extension length setting for the PBX in MiCollab Network Elements covers the length of the FAC and DN's.

[NEPhoneGuy]

First you'll have to program a 2nd appearance of the softphone DN, which as far as I know you can't do via a template (but you can do a copy from Mulitline Set Keys and it will change the DN for you).
Then you can do what NEPhoneGuy suggests. As far as putting a call on hold for someone else to pick up, I don't think you can park a call from a softphone but you may be able to do a Call Hold - Remote Retrieve so the other user will have to dial a FAC + the DN that placed the call on hold. So, given that, make sure your extension length setting for the PBX in MiCollab Network Elements covers the length of the FAC and DN's.

You shouldn't need a second appearance to do the conference. This is how we train Hot Desk ACD users and they aren't allowed a second line in programming.

[mcain]

Thus far I've struck out on this idea.

First, in testing with my Mitel partner we found the MiCollab Client soft phone didn't respond to the feature access codes *519999.  (9999 is a stand-in for the park group).  Don't know if that is fixable via some configuration or not.

Second, my MiCollab Client soft phones are missing the transfer/conference button when they are in a call.  All they can do is hold and end call.  If I'm in a call on my 5330e desk phone, then MiCollab offers the transfer/conference button.  But not in soft phone calls.  Again, may be this is a configuration issue.

I tried adding a second key to the soft phone and that didn't help.

Is there something in the class of service on the device that I may need to review?

[johnp]

Did you make sure the extension setting in MiCollab allowed 7 digits before prepending the default outbound digit?

[mcain]

Ok, so I'm still a newbie on this.  Can you explain more about the extension setting to 7 digits?

If it's not set to 7 digits then that's why it didn't respond to the feature code?

[johnp]

If in MiCollab you have it set to insert a digit for outbound calls. The software will add it when the extension length defined is exceeded. This is found under the pbx node tab in MiCollab

[mcain]

I finally arrived at a solution to my problem.

We were using MiCollab Client 7 for the soft phone.  The hold, transfer, and conference buttons wouldn't show up or wouldn't work.  My partner said Mitel was no longer supporting MiCollab Client 7 as a soft-phone and recommended upgrading to ver 8.

The hold, transfer, conference functions are working as expected on MiCollab Client ver 8.1.