General Number Configuration

[supam]

Hi

We have a customer who have approx 30 staff, 5 of whom are 'Administrative Assistants'.  They have no receptionist and currently have their general number terminating on one of the Admin assistant's handsets (let's call her AA1).  The issue with this is that if AA1 is arleady on the phone and more than one other call comes into the general number, this call goes straight through to the general number's VM.

Rather than modify this solution, what I would like to do is put a config in place where I set up a new 'group' that contains all admin assistants and the general number rings that group.  This (hopefully) would give them the capacity to take up to 5 concurrent calls, with any overflow going through to voicemail.

Assuming the above makes sense, how would I implement this?  Also, I'm open to any other suggestion as to how to approach this....

Thanks!

Greg

[bluewhite4]

Depending on your controller's software level and how you have this setup now, I would do it one of three ways:

1) With Ring Group. I would specify that the main number rings a ring group, composed of all 5 AA's phones. That way you can set the time-out and overflow point as the voicemail box for the main number. (Allows to multiple main number answer points

2) If the main number is setup on AA1's phone as a separate single line, then place multicall keys of the same dn on the other 4 AA's phones. (Lets each AA answer one incoming call, and to see the difference between internal and external calls.)

3) Set the main number to ring a hunt group. Create a series of key system keys on each AA's phone. Place those key-systems into the main number's hunt group. Then using call rerouting, send any unanswered calls to voicemail. (This allows for each AA to potentially answer multiple incoming calls, see the difference between external/internal calls, and for them to have access to held calls that a different AA might have placed into that state.)

[supam]

Thanks very much for that Bluewhite.

I think I'll go with the Ring Group solution however I have one other question:

Say AA1 is the only admin assistant in the office and she takes a call that comes into the main number, is she then able to take a second call to the main number when that comes in?  If so, how would she do this?

Thanks

Supam

[supam]

Hi

After a bit of trial and error, I ended up implementing Bluewhite's second suggestion and it worked beautifully.

Thanks for your help Bluewhite!

Supam