SPA 504G Transfer stopped by incoming calls

[AgbangaKarite]

I've been having some trouble with my company's recently adopted PBX system and our 504G+S500 and found this post in another discussion (which was posted in the wrong area).  I've reposted it below and am hopeful that this community might be able to offer some suggestions or advice that could push me to find the answer.  Any help would be appreciated!

"Hey Guys,

So I have a receptionist with a Cisco SPA 504g that has a SPA500 attendant console attached to it. Here is my problem:

- Call 1 comes and receptionist picks up Person A

The call is for Person B, but she has to do an attended transfer, so she
hits the transfer soft key, followed by Person B's 4 digit extension. Person B picks
up and says he is available to take the call.

- In the meantime, a second call comes in Person C.

While the second call is ringing, she can no longer hit the "transfer"
soft key to send the 1st call to Person B. She has to wait until the call stops
ringing for the button to appear.

To handle this I told my receptionist to tell Person B that a call is coming in and that she will transfer Person A in a minute. She then need to hangup on Person B. Next is to pick up Person C and put him/her on hold. Then go back to Person A and transfer him/her again.

Is there a better way of doing this? It is fine if there are 1 person is calling but becomes a pain when 2 or more call in at the same time. It becomes more difficult.

Also is there a firmware release that fixes this problem? It owuld be nice if the new call came in and she could press the down or up arrow and get the transfer button back.

Thanks for all the help."

[AgbangaKarite]

Our first day doing this, and it certainly solves our transfer problem, but we are still determining whether it's a net gain in quality of service for our customers.  Thanks for your help with this Deepak, it's been very useful!

[deepakitkar]

You're welcome, James. If you still need any help, do let me know.

[AgbangaKarite]

Alright, we've replaced our 504G+S500 with a Yealink T38G and the problem has been solved.  Things are now running smoothly in our office.

Solution: Get a different phone.

[accsvcs]

If you desire to have the next call appearance show on the next LED versus just the screen (ANSWER / IGNORE), change the settings on the local 504G:

Login / Admin Login / Advanced / Phone

Miscellaneous Line Key Settings:

• Line ID Mapping:  HORIZONTAL FIRST
  
• SCA Sticky Auto Line Seize: YES
  

This should now show the second incoming call on the LED call appearance, as well as the screen, allowing you to visually see the LED's flashing for the active calls.

[gruppoeos]

Hi Greg. Two considerations:

First: I think that this issue is very important for this forum because if the only solution that comes out will be "Get a different phone" (as James Lehnerd suggets), this will not be a good conclusion for a Cisco support site;

Second: the solutions all we are looking for is NOT to "show the second incoming call on the LED call as well as the screen", but ONLY on the LED, leaving the screen as is, IN PARTICULAR leaving the possibility to TRANSFER the current call BEFORE answering the incoming one(s).

Please note that this is the common behaviour on all the phone that have a "HARD" transfer button (like Snom, Grandstream, the Yealink T38G as reported by James Lehnerd, the initiator of this discussion), as opposite to the "softkey" transfer butto on 504G.

I personally think that, if this problem will not be solved, no one would like to buy a SPA 50x phone (I've tested other models and the behaviour is always the same).

Tiziano

[jrodney182]

This is an issue (fatal issue) that Cisco has Ignored, and this happen in al series spa5xx.

In my particular case, i had tried everything (last firmware, programmable softkeys, support from Cisco), and the only solution is change it for other IP phone, from other brand. Imagine the situation:

An operator who receives 3 or 4 calls simultaneously, she can't transfer any calls until she answers all calls... that is not functional in a phone assigned to the operator extension...

This problem did not happen in previous versions of the SPA phones, i.e., in Linksys versions....

[plicheva]

Hello Jeyson,

My name is Plamena Licheva from Cisco Small Business Support. Recently we had the same issue reported by another customer of us and we managed to resolve it after changing the Interdigit Short Timer under Regional settings to something more then the default 3 seconds. Set it for example to 10 seconds. This will give the receptionist enought time to finish the call transfer.

Please provide me your feedback if that is helping.

Best Regards,

Plamena

[jrodney182]

Hello Plamena.....

That doesn't solve the problem, because the problem doesn't have anything to do with time. Let me explain the situation clearer:

1) A call comes into the SPA (call A).

2) The receptionist answers the call.

3) While the receptionist is talking with the client (A), the screen displays the options 'xfer' and 'conf'. Until then she can transfer the call.

4) Then comes a second call, the call 'B', and then disappear options 'xfer' and 'conf' of the screen, and displays the options 'Answer' and 'Ignore'. At that time the receptionist can not transfer the call 'A' until she answers the call B.

Now, imagine this scenario but not only with the second call (B), but also with more calls simultaneously ... She couldn't transfer calls until she answers all incoming calls in the SPA....

I think the problem with the SPA phones from series 5xx is that the soft keys that appear on the screen give precedence to incoming calls instead of the established call as previous versions of SPA phones did.  That makes it impossible to control the established call without first doing something about the incoming call.

[plicheva]

Hello Jeyson,

I would like to ask you to give us a call on our support line and to open a ticket with us. Maybe we can escalate this issue as a feature request. Here are the numbes you can reach us on:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/support/tsd_cisco_small_business_support_center_contacts.html

Best Regards,

Plamena

[gruppoeos]

Hi Plamena, here is Tiziano Martelli (gruppoeos) who already try to point out this problem on May, 15.

I would associate to Jeyson request that has clearly explained, better that I've done, the seriousness of this problem. I've already sobstituted 2 SPA504g with the Yealink model suggested by James Lehnerd (see before), but I have more then 20 customer that still use the SPA504 that are waiting for a solution. Thanks

[plicheva]

Hello Tiziano,

If you happen to have the same issue, I would also advise you to open a ticket with us on the above mentioned numbers.

Best Regards,

[cschippers]

Hello,

We have the same problem with the Cisco 504G. Is there already a solution for this probleem.  I would like to Xfer my first call without first pickup the second/third call. !!!

Regards,

[2lconsult]

Hello,

I'm surprised : this post is tagged as "answered" but it is not!!! the so-called answer does not solve the issue. There is a related one, which is hot answered at all and which point to this one. Al in all, I do not see  a solution for  that really important issue.

Does someone has a clue or a link?. Di someone open a ticket and got an aswer???

The other related post is

https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3619494

Laurent

[Dan Lukes]

See SPA504g 2nd Call has few options

[lzsc4y]

This thread is a little old, but I wanted to enlist the help of others.

I have the same issue in a school with several SPA514G's.  After being very insistent with Cisco, they have opened the following bug fix to correct this issue, the only problem is they consider it an enhancement.  It would be nice if everyone having the issue would open a ticket with Cisco small business support, allowing them to see that this is far from just my problem and that it is a correction of a bug not an enhancement.

https://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCun19415