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Barracuda Phone System

Manually Monitor Call Parking Lot Extensions

  • Last updated on
Required Product Version
 This article applies to firmware versions 2.6.006 and 3.0 or higher.

Call parking lots are a convenient way to put callers on hold without keeping your phone active on a call. You can use Blinking Light Fields (BLFs) in conjunction with call parking lots to monitor call parking "space" status.

Use Case

When migrating from key line systems and other legacy PBX systems, end-users may be used to manually transferring a call to a parking lot "space" instead of having the Barracuda Phone System announce the parked lot to the person originating the attended transfer. If users manually transfer callers to call parking spaces without knowing if that space is occupied, then conceivably two outside callers could be joined together in an ad-hoc conference bridge. To prevent this from happening use BLFs on the phone of the person originating the transfer.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, create a call parking lot range on the EXTENSIONS > Call Parking Lots page. For more information, see Setting Up Call Parking Extensions.

Call Parking Lot Example

The following example assumes:

  • Call parking lot extension range is x200-x205.
    • x200 is the the announcement extension for auto parking calls (not used in this example)
  • x201-x204 is the parking lot range.
    • x205 is the parking lot pickup extension (not used in this example)
Step 1. Create Blinking Light Fields
  1. Select a user from the EXTENSIONS > Users page, and then select the person's phone. Within the phone configuration in the Lines and Utility Buttons section, create a new line appearance and use the BLF/Line Monitor function.

    Note that BLF support varies from model to model, refer to Supported Phones Matrix for a list of supported functions.

  2. Set the extension to monitor 201.
  3. Click Add and enter a button label.
  4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 above for each parking lot extension you want to monitor.
  5. Click Reboot Phone or navigate away from the phone configuration page to reboot the phone.
Step 2. Use the BLF/Line Monitor Feature
  • BLF LED cadence and color vary across manufacturer.
  • Depending on phone model and manufacturer, some physical buttons may not support BLFs.
  • The BLF function in Polycom documentation is sometimes referred to as Buddy Watch.
  1. Transfer the caller blind using the phone's transfer button in conjunction with keying in the manual call parking lot extension. Depending on the model, the transfer button may support pressing the BLF line button instead of manually typing in the extension number.
  2. Once the call is transferred and the phone is idle, on phones that are monitoring the call parking spaces, the BLF key LED will light indicating that there is a caller waiting in a call parking lot space.
  3. On the phone that is to answer the caller, press the BLF key in question to bridge the call.

As with any kind of shared line appearances (e.g., BLFs, Shared Lines, SLA, etc.) each appearance button is a subscription to the Barracuda Phone System. As a result, phones that are behind NAT routers or networks with high latency or packet loss can cause the BLFs to reflect an inaccurate line state. As more subscriptions are added to phones, the amount of traffic on the link increases. Even though the line subscription messages are small in size, the volume of traffic can become an issue on networks using switching equipment that has small packet buffers or other scale limitations.