Tommy,
I use pickup groups in small team environments where someone provides sporadic, temporary call coverage for a fellow co-worker for calls destined to individual, non-shared lines. A pickup group can be configured for visual-only notification so your phone is not always ringing off the hook. You can also associate multiple pickup groups for inter-team answering which provides further enhancement above and beyond a simple shared line.
Scenario:
Bill, Dave, and Jane work together in the same office. Bill has to go to a meeting but is expecting an important call from a customer. He tells Dave & Jane if Customer A calls please answer and tell them I will return their call shortly. Rather than getting up from their desks and physically checking Bill's phone every time it rings, they can be notified of Bill's incoming calls via pickup group and take the call from their own phones.
HTH, please rate useful posts.
