Specifications

Working with a Key Voice System
GCA39-826 Rev 1, Issue 9/01 Page 24 Printed in the USA
When the technician sets up a Mailbox to transfer a call to an extension, he/she can choose to use
1 of 4 different transferring methods: Blind, Wait for Ring, Wait for Answer, or Screen. The
transfer method the technician chooses generally depends on the capabilities of the phone system
and whether the customer wants to use Key Voice’s call queuing feature to offer callers the
option to hold when an extension is busy.
• With the Blind transfer type, the Mailbox passes each call to the extension and lets go of
the call. If the extension is busy or goes unanswered, the Mailbox relies on the extension to
forward the call back to the Key Voice system along with integration information to identify
the extension number that the caller was attempting to reach. When the Key Voice system
receives the forwarded call and the integration data, it uses the data and the TRANS.TXT file
to send the call back to the Mailbox associated with the extension the caller was trying to
reach and to voice the Mailbox greeting to the caller. The greeting typically prompts the
caller to leave a voice mail message. That voice mail message is stored in the Mailbox.
Because the Key Voice system relies on the phone system to forward non-answered calls and their
integration data from extensions back to the Key Voice system, the Blind transfer type is typically
used only on phone systems with Call Forwarding and integration data features.
• Wait for Answer and Screen transfers are typically used when extensions on the phone system
cannot be programmed to call forward back to the Key Voice system in busy and no answer
situations. These transfer types are more port-intensive and therefore sometimes less desirable.
When Wait for Answer or Screen transferring techniques are used, the Mailbox transferring the call
to the extension holds on to the call during the entire transfer process until the call is answered. If
the call is not answered or the extension is busy, the Mailbox is able to pull the call back from the
extension. If the call reaches a busy or goes unanswered, the Mailbox can play the Mailbox’s
greeting to the caller. The greeting typically prompts the caller to leave a message for the Mailbox
owner. Furthermore, the Wait for Answer and Screen transfer types provide one additional feature
over Blind transfers: if the Mailbox detected a busy signal at the extension, the caller can be held in
a queue. The caller is then connected to the extension when the current call is completed.
Extension to
which this
Mailbox will
transfer calls
that are routed
to it.
Transferring
method Mailbox
will use to send
the call to the
extension.