[Asterisk-Users] RE: Shared line appearances

[Daryll Strauss]

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:04:11 -0600, David Gomillion
<dgomillion at eyecarenow.com> wrote:
> According to the admin manual, the phone supports "shared call
> appearances (SCA) using the SUBSCRIBE-NOTIFY method in the 'SIP Specific
> Event Notification' framework (RFC 3265).  The events used are: -
> 'call-info' for call appearance state notification - 'line-seize' for
> the phone to ask to seive the line" (Polycom Administrator manual,
> version 1.3.0, page 135)
> 
> The trick is that we don't offer shared lines, per se, but shared
> extensions.  So, if there are 2 phones in the same office, they can
> share the same 2 extensions, allowing transfers without transferring, if
> that makes any sense.  Only one party can have the call at a time, but
> any phone can see the status, and seize the line if the call is on hold
> or ringing.

David I think you've hit the nail on the head. This is an hugely
useful feature and every PBX I've ever seen supports it. I don't
believe the statement that only key systems do that.

Currently it is a pain to handle the simple problem of a assistant
with a boss. A call comes in, the secretary puts it on hold, then
tells the boss who's there and he picks it up. You can do that with
call park, but why should the secretary have to say pickup park #743,
and have the boss have to dial 5 digits to pick up the call? Heck,
most PHB's have a hard time pushing the button next to the blinking
light. They'd die of old age before they could figure out how to pick
up a parked call. :)

What is not really important is a correspondence to trunks or having
everyone pick up the same line and be in a conference call. The first
is pretty much irrelevant in the VOIP world, and the second is used so
rarely that you can push the extra digits when you need to do that.

Please someone, make this work.It'll be a huge benefit to Asterisk.

- |Daryll