[asterisk-users] How to park calls on a specific extension

[Lacy Moore - Aspendora]

On 11/29/06, Brian Capouch <brianc at palaver.net> wrote:
>
> Complaints are always considered, but calling the developers childish
> and repeating that complaint over and over in an email isn't likely to
> do much to advance the cause you've taken on.


Sorry about the rant.  I apologize for making the childish remark and
apologize to any who may have been offended by the remark.

I apologize for saying Asterisk sucks, and I apologize to the developers for
saying Asterisk sucks.

I'm definitely not saying Asterisk sucks.  I wish I had clients a little
larger that could really see the same potential as I do.  Do I think it
sucks?  No way.  It's great, for me.  I made the mistake of pushing Asterisk
on a userbase that would have been better off with a system from Office
Depot.  However, their system integrates into a much larger system.  Again,
should have put in analog ports and hooked the Office Depot system up to
it.

I guess my point is that there are a few, and really only a few, things with
Asterisk that if we/the developers/whoever can come up with a better way of
doings things, would make Asterisk perfect for small installations as well
as medium installations.

It almost seems like we have a large enterprise pbx system for small
businesses.  I say that because a lot of people would say Asterisk is not
designed or maybe can't handle an enterprise installation (I don't know, and
have no experience, I'm assuming because enterprises want multiple
redundancies builtin).  But, the features that small businesses most often
use, are not included.

But, for what it's worth, there was kind of a kludge of things put together
over on the Asterisk forums that worked nicely with the Grandstream phones.
I abandoned them because of audio distortion.  It required only pressing
Transfer, then the parking spot button that you want the call transfered
to.  To pick it up, press the button.  You even had the status of the spot
showing if it was available or not.

The question is what is the best interface?  On our old system, we put the
caller on hold, went to another phone, pressed pickup and then entered the
extension where the call is on hold.  I never liked that, especially if I
was at an extension that wasn't mine.  By the time, I got to where I needed
to be, or someone called me and told me to pick that call, I would forget
what extension.  The same thing, I believe, will happen with the current
park method.  I don't know what would help with that, maybe better vitamins
to prevent memory loss?  :-)  I don't know.  Maybe a receptionist console
that could tell who is on park, their phone number and caller id info along
with who put them on park?

I'm wondering if maybe we are looking at having to have different ways of
doing it.  Being able to transfer the call to a line button, and being able
to press that line button to pick up the call, and having the status shown,
may be the better solution for small companies.

I'm going to show my ignorance here.  Since the phone displays the number we
dialed,or the incoming caller information on the screen (we're talking those
with displays), is there anyway to have it so that when the call is parked,
it also shows the parking spot the caller is parked on?  Kind of like hold
does now?  I know nothing about the SIP protocol, so I don't know if this is
possible or not.
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