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Barracuda Phone System

Group Paging

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Group paging allows you to broadcast announcements on the speakers of one or more telephones. To configure group paging, you first create a group, add the appropriate users to the group, and create a call router that performs group paging. Not all phone models support this feature, and each phone that does support it may behave a bit differently. For example, some phones may ring or beep before going into intercom mode.

You need at least two phones to test group paging: a phone in the group, and another phone outside the group. Start by creating a group and adding one or more phones to the group.

In the following example, 2050 is the group extension number.

Set Up Group Paging

Use the following steps to create a call router and set up group paging:

  1. Navigate to Extensions > Advanced Call Routers, and create a new call router named Test Page using extension number 2100.
  2. In the Default Action Set section, select New Action Set from the Default Action Set menu, and enter Page Group 2050 for the set name. Click Create. The edit call router page opens.
  3. Click Manage Action Sets and select Page Group 2050.
  4. In the Final Action section, from the If the call is not answered menu, select Page a Group and select 2050 as the Destination.
  5. Select the Paging Method: either Live or Record and Playback. Click Save. The group paging extension is now ready to test.
  6. From a phone outside of the paging group, dial 2100. You will hear a beep; after the beep ends make an announcement:
    1. If the group page is set for Live Speaking, then the page happens immediately.
    2. If it is set for Pre-recorded Message, then the Barracuda Phone System records your message and then initiates the page. To end the recording, remain silent for three seconds or press the # key.
  7. Each phone in the group goes into intercom mode and broadcasts the announcement over the speaker. Most phone models default to polite paging mode, so the announcement does not broadcast when the phone is in use.

    If you have page groups with many members, use Record and Playback as the paging type.

Important

If you use Live Speaking to initiate a group page to many users, unpredictable results may occur. A live speaking group page is considered a one-way call to every phone in the group, so it may saturate the link connecting the Barracuda Phone System to the LAN. This may result in some phones missing the page due to circumstances beyond the control of the Barracuda Phone System, such as an Ethernet switch or other network congestion. Also, congestion may occur at the Barracuda Phone System, if the system is near the concurrent call capacity. Test this paging method when your network is operating at normal capacity so you understand how the network responds to live speaking group pages.

You should also consider the maximum number of concurrent calls your Barracuda Phone System model handles. Because each page recipient is a separate call, the group page may cause you to exceed the maximum number of concurrent calls and cause degraded call processing or quality, or other adverse effects.

The Record and Playback / Pre-recorded Message paging type can alleviate many network congestion issues by sending the page in waves to phones in the group, thus reducing the number of simultaneous calls.