Hi Brad,
I noticed nobody had responded to your question yet so I thought I would address it myself.
Today, you can configure a multi-line phone as follows. Configure a dialed number in partition 1 on line 1, the same number on partition 2 on line 2 and again on partition 3 on line 3. Call forward no answer line 1 to dialed number partition 2. Call forward no answer line 2 to dialed number part 3. Call forward no answer line 3 to VM. Calls forward busy all three lines to VM. The same methodology may be applied to secretaries sharing same DN on their bosses phones and Call forward no answer/busy accordingly.
Note that this wastes buttons on the phone that could be better used for speed dials or other line appearances. This is the way Lucent and Nortel, for instance, do call coverage per phone.
Each pixel-based 7940/60 phone has a large display so in the future we’ll likely have the ability to have a single button handle multiple calls, maybe as many as twenty. That way we don’t have to waste the extra buttons for multiple call coverage on the same phone. The display and the phone's display "navigation" buttons (scroll, numeric keypad) would allow multiple calls to be received, placed on hold and managed by the user. To select the call instance and operate (retrieve, place on hold, transfer, etc), the user would scroll or select the call instance number, then perform the desired operation. The other five buttons on a 7960 could be used for speed dials, other line appearances or even unknown future applications.
It would be worth your time to talk to your account team to get some more clarity on the direction we are heading with this technology. Do any users in the forum have experiences to share with Brad on this topic?
Thank you for the post.
