Slight interruption in phone paging when parking call

[brandontfrank]

Hi - we have a client that uses the call park feature and paging feature of the Cisco UC560.

If a user is paging all phones and at the same time, a different user parks a call, there is a slight interruption in the paging system.

Is there any way around this scenario?

[danplacek]

Interest... are you "monitoring" the park slots from your phones?

We had an issue with a client that was monitoring a park slot from about 30 phones... it made the phones VERY slow.

When the receptionist parked a call, then went to page for the person... the phone was unresponsive for several seconds.

We resolved this by making the park slot a speed-dial instead of a monitor.

Of course this eliminated presence to the park slots... but it sped things up.

This may be unrelated, but just thought you should know.

Please rate helpful responses.

[brandontfrank]

Yes - we are monitoring our call park slots. We have 4 available call parks and they're monitored on all phones (around 40).

I'm not sure we could change these to speed dials. The company is use to parking a call the using the presence monitor to know which line the call is on. They also have a few SPA501 phones that do not have displays. They've also complained about slow response times when parking a call then having their line free back up... perhaps they're all related.

Any other ideas how we could resolve this? Is there any hardware upgrades available?

[danplacek]

The UC560 is already the top of the line in UC500.

Cisco was disinterested in helping us when we had this issue -- they said "monitoring park slots is unsupported... use the park softkey".

I would recommend just removing all the monitors and testing to see if it actually resolves the issue. If it does -- then you are dealing with the same problem... otherwise it might be something else.

Have you checked the UC's CPU usage while doing this?

Please rate helpful responses.

[brandontfrank]

I'll try removing a few of the lines tomorrow.

This is slightly off topic, but do you have any suggestion on how else we could handle our incoming calls?

Right now - the receptionist will hit the CALL PARK button and it'll automatically get assigned one of the four call park slots. These call park slots are assigned as monitoring buttons on all 7931 and SPA501 phones. The receptionist will then hit the PAGE button to inform a certain user / depertment that they have a call.

We have 5 incoming lines. Would it be possible to associate an incoming line to an individual monitored line? When a call comes in on that line, the user could hit that line, place the call on hold, and have another user from a different phone pick it up?

[danplacek]

That would generally be called a `key system`... it can be created on the UC500, but is not recommended as a best practice. I believe in CCA if you select a line type of "CO Line", you can assign lines directly to keys and have shared hold.

For UC500, the main call handling mechanisms are:

1. Shared Hold

2. Transfer

3. Park

4. B-ACD (Call Queue)

5. Auto Attendant

Based on your description... have you considered having the receptionist transfer instead of relying on Park's so much? What about an auto attendant?

[brandontfrank]

The client is coming from a key system and they're having a hard time incorporate your typical VOIP practices into their environment. The problem with transfering is the workers are typically away from their phones. They hear the page, go to the phone and know which call park number it's on.

For the CO Line option... I could assign a line to each incoming line. If the receptionist picked up the phone, they would need to press the line that was blinking or indicating an incoming call, right? Once that's connected, if they put them on hold, they'd have the ability to PAGE or hang up and keep that call active, correct?

[danplacek · Accepted solution]

Yes... except all 40 phones would ring for every incoming call. (Unless you set it up for silent ring on some phones? Dunno)

Honestly a key system for 40 phones is crazy.

We have run into the same problem -- customers get a new system but don't want to change how they do things. We have found that you just have to be firm about it and provide proper training. In the end -- after they are used to it -- they usually realize that a PBX style system is much more flexible and powerful than a key system.

[paolo bevilacqua]

Daniel Placek wrote:
The UC560 is already the top of the line in UC500.
Cisco was disinterested in helping us when we had this issue -- they said "monitoring park slots is unsupported... use the park softkey".

Shame on the person that said that. Not only is against the goals of excellence and customers satisfactions that Cisco trumpets in ther ad, but is also blatant lie. If something is mentioned in the manual (and that one is), then it is supported.

When I was working at Cisco the only people allowed to say samething is unsupported, was Engineering, and in these cases the documentation was quickly amedend to make it clear or warn the customer.

What a pity to see who once was the No.1 in technology now behave like a clueless manufacturer from developing country.

[paolo bevilacqua]

brandontfrank wrote:
Yes - we are monitoring our call park slots. We have 4 available call parks and they're monitored on all phones (around 40).

How exactly are you monitoring these? Try "blf-speed-dial".

[brandontfrank]

We set these up as monitors using the CCA, selecting the phone, and choosing an available line. Change the type to Monitor and select the call park number as the line to monitor.

[paolo bevilacqua]

Try blf-speed-dial instead of 'm'. Sorry, I have no diea if the CCA does that, but you can actually do that from the phone GUI itself - "BLF buttons".