[frankg]

Our current phone system is an old avaya partner phone system. We have 8 PSTN lines that are used for voice.
When calls come in they go to line 1, then hunt to 2, 3, 4 etc...
If our receptionist answers the call the line 1 button lights up and is unavailable for anyone to click on, so if i pick up my phone line 2 lights up etc....

My boss and I have set up a proof of concept system using 3CXfree, and Cisco SPA509G phones, with a Grandstream GXW-4108.
We've got to far enough where we can make outbound calls, and receive which is good, but if I pick up line 1, on phone A
It doesn't show up on B.
Is 3CX capable of doing this? What is the feature called? BLF? or something else?

We don't really need to see if a specific person is on the phone, we just want to see if an outside line is in use, so if someone calls and our receptionist answers, she can put caller on hold, call me and say "so and so is on line1" and then i can press line 1.

Basically we want this to act like our old system as close as possible, I know there are some limitations with the free version. I just want to know:
A. Am i doing something wrong or have something not configured correctly?
B. Is it a problem with the model of phones we're using
C. Problem with our Gateway.
D. All of the above???

I apologize if this has been asked before, but I've searched the boards and have used them to get as far as we have with our system so far, but I'm just not familiar enough with voip stuff yet to know what exactly to search for in this situation.

[tsteffens]

You want to use what is called "shared Parking" in 3cx. Basically don't think of your line buttons as lines, think of them as waiting slots. So if a call comes in....who cares what line it is on, and your receptionist picks it up then he/she can park the call in slot 1. If using blf this will then show slot 1 in use on all phones via a light. Then the receptionist tells john doe there is a call in slot 1 and john doe pushes the slot 1 button and he gets the call.

Your can program up to shared parking slots in 3cx.

This is how we setup our legacy users that just cannot get past the fact that you don't "need" to see a line only a call.

[frankg]

Do you use this model phone? I've read some posts on this board about some sort of BLF issue with this phone and 3cx but that post was like a year old, and i'm not sure if thats been addressed with the current version of 3cx or not. There's BLF options in 3cx i can see, but they're greyed out, I'm assuming I need the Paid version for that.

[tsteffens]

We use yeahlink t28 phones. To make sure it isn't because of the free version you can install the demo key listed at the bottom of the linked page. This turns it into a full version with 2 lines.

http://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/3cx-ph ... -v10-beta/

[frankg]

Thank you!!

However now when I save the change I get

An exception occurred EditExtension Error: Unknown variable '%%blf1%%' in template.

[tsteffens]

What are you trying to save? did you modify the provisioning templates?

[frankg]

Here's an attachment of the screen I'm at and error message.

[tsteffens]

Are you sure you didn't mess with the Settings->provisioning templates at all?

[frankg]

No I'm not sure what all I've done messing around with all of this. Should I just reload 3cx and start over? Or do you have an unmodified cisco template that you can post and I'll see if that does the trick?

[tsteffens]

give this a try

[frankg]

Hey that worked perfectly! I must of jacked something in the config. lol

So basically it will work like this:
1. Call comes in
2. Caller speaks with receptionist.
3. Receptionist chooses what slot the call gets placed on.
4. Receptionist calls me says Frank you have a call on line 1.
5. I say ok, hit that red button and now the system acts as the old system we have

and if i'm understanding you correctly the word "lines" doesnt matter any more as we can have as many as we want.
So its more like a holding tank if you will, where the caller will sit and anyone can pick it up.

[tsteffens]

Yes, your thought process of how it will work is correct. The word lines doesn't matter, but you are still limited to your incoming line count. So if you have 3 incoming lines, you will only be able to put 3 people on hold in the "slots".

[frankg]

we have 8 lines, and my boss just confirmed that we only use 1-4 for the hunt group, and the other 4 are used for outbound calls, so if i've been paying attention to what i'm doing here, this is where i mess with outbound rules... and all outgoing calls can go to gateway B, then to A, if that's filled up... Am I on the right path here my friend?

[tsteffens]

Yes, outbound rules are where you setup what lines the calls go out on. There are only 3 routes per outbound rule, so if you have 4 lines you create two identical outbound rules. The first will list the first 3 lines as routes, the second will list the 4 line as a route, when all 3 are full in the first outbound rule then the call jumps to the second outbound rule.

[frankg]

Thank you so much for all your help, you're making me feel like I almost know what I'm doing here

Last question:
Can the sharedparking be renamed?
Instead of Sp0 can that be changed to Line 1 Line 2 etc...