Lucent Technologies MERLIN LEGEND Release 7.0 Feature Reference page 433

MERLIN LEGEND Communications System Release 7.0
Feature Reference 555-670-110
Features
Group Calling
Using Alarm Thresholds to Monitor the
Effectiveness of Delay Announcements
In Release 5.0 and later systems, a system manager or calling group supervisor
can use a simple formula to set alarm thresholds in such a way that
Calls-in-Queue Alarm buttons can indicate whether or not delay announcements
are functioning optimally. Generally, the interval between delay announcements
(called the announcement interval ) should be no shorter than the length (in
seconds) of the secondary announcement. Ideally, the announcement interval
should be the product of the secondary announcement's length multiplied by the
anticipated number of calls in queue during a busy time. For example, if the
secondary announcement is 10 seconds long and 5 calls are expected in the
queue, the announcement interval should be set to at least 50 seconds.
To set up alarm thresholds, follow these preliminary steps:
1. Set up primary and secondary announcement durations that seem
appropriate for your needs.
2. Specify a reasonable announcement interval (for example, 30 seconds
based on the rule noted above).
3. Referring to
the secondary announcement (Z) and round off this result. This determines
the maximum number of calls that can be in the queue before callers have
to wait to hear the secondary announcement again.
4. Use the value from Step 3 for any one of the three thresholds. When the
number of calls in the queue exceeds this value, the Calls-in-Queue Alarm
button signals the overflow.
Music-On-Hold sources, however, work only for the system where they
reside.
In Release 6.0 systems (Hybrid/PBX mode only), each networked
system should include its own voice mail and/or Auto Attendant
applications as well as its own external alerts and Music-On-Hold
sources. A single Auto Attendant, however, can transfer calls throughout
the network (requires MERLIN LEGEND System Release 6.0, Version
11 or later). It can answer only those calls that arrive on the PSTN
facilities of the system where it is connected. For this application, 4-digit
pool and line/trunk numbers are recommended. To avoid ambiguity,
trunks should be unique—for example, 890 and 8900 should not be
used together.
In Release 6.1 and later systems calls received on PSTN facilities can
be answered at a remote system in a private network by assigning the
trunks to a calling group with a non-local member.
Table 24, divide the announcement interval (Y) by the length of
Issue 1
April 1999
373