Topic: Station 100 auto attendant infinite loop

[Curt]

I'm working on a Vodavi STS  (version info Eng. V1.01 - AFEO) with a flash voice mail card and six 24 button stations.  All incoming CO lines are setup to ring station 100, and if there's no answer the auto attendant message is played giving callers the option of dialing an extension.  If the extension doesn't answer the caller is forwarded to the extensions voice mail.  This works for all the phones except station 100.  I've been reading manuals, trying various option both on the phones and via the serial port into the VM card and the KSU.  I haven't broken it yet but I can't get it to work.  Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Curt

[MacGyver]

Hi Curt,

Welcome to the board, and thanks for the question.  Ed is our Vodavi guru, and I feel sure he'll have your answer. 

[EV607797]

I would check the settings in flash 67.  Additionally, if you don't really need an attendant station in the system, you can remove ext. 100 from being so in flash 10.  That keeps the station from receiving unusual voice mail treatment during processing of calls.

[Curt]

Thanks Ed, I'll check those tonight. 

We like having the Auto Attendant give callers the extensions for the employees since there's just a few of them, it's a little friendlier.  Is there a better way to configure the system to achieve this?

The users have reported not getting Caller ID information when I have the Auto Attendant pick up the call without ringing the attendant (Station 100) first.  Is there some requirement I should know about?

Thanks for sharing your experience!
Curt

[hbiss]

The users have reported not getting Caller ID information when I have the Auto Attendant pick up the call without ringing the attendant (Station 100) first.  Is there some requirement I should know about?

As with any system, the attendant can't pick up until after the second ring if you want to receive the CID information. That's because the CID information is sent between the first and second ring by the phone company. So if the attendant picks up on the first CO ring you won't get the CID.

-Hal

[EV607797]

That is exactly correct.  In the CO line settings on page B, you can assign an ring delay timer of 00-20 (I usually use 4 or 5) in this field.  I'm also in agreement that if you only have a small number of names in the auto attendant directory, you should just record the names with their extensions in the main AA greeting.  This is much easier to manage since you don't have to connect a laptop every time a name change occurs; just re-record the greeting instead.

[Curt]

Thanks for the hint on the ring time, a set that to 5 and there's a minimal delay and caller ID works.

I changed the attendant station to one of the other phones and station 100 still went back to the AT instead of station 100 VM.  Note that if I dial 440 on station 100 I do get to voice mail.

Also, I reviewed the flash 67 setting and tried a few different ones to no effect.

Voice Mail In-Band Digits	0100
Voice Mail Transfer/Forward	ENABLED
Voice Mail Broker	ENABLED
VMID Digit Length	3
VM Port	don't remember
VM Port Number	don't remember

Are there any settings that when changed require a reboot or something like that?

Any other thoughts?

[EV607797]

There's nothing that requires a reboot.  I'm going to have to poke around to figure out the X100 thing.  I know that this is an ages-old issue and I can't remember the solution for the life of me.

[Curt]

Thanks for thinking on it, and I'm glad to hear it's an "ages-old" problem; although it's nice when it's a simple thing it can hurt the pride a little when you miss something obvious.

[MnDave]

What I am remembering is that Attendant stations don't send their VMID to 440 on no answer forward. That is why callers are being met with the main greeting. Why reassigning the attendant to another station didn't make a difference, I'm not sure. Is it possible that you may have not deleted 100 but have simply added a 2nd attendant? At far as a reset goes, you shouldn't need to, but your version is getting old and I have seen some older Vodavi systems being helped by one. Use the reset button inside the cabinet if you do this. I wouldn't trust the old CPU battery to hold the database too long on a power recycle itself.

[Curt]

Someone told me you need to exit out of the voice mail serial interface before the changes take effect.   That might have been why it didn't take.    Part of the confusion was the station 100 operator had recorded the same greeting for both the auto attendant and their personal VM greeting.  Even after that was discovered the phone system would still go to the auto attendant greeting. What ended up fixing things was re-initializing the phone system and restoring a backup. 

[MnDave]

Sorry to let so much time go by without a thank you for your follow up! Sounds like you had a data glitch that needed to be flushed out of the system. FYI: System setup will let you assign changes to take effect immediately rather than after a reboot.