Concept

Call Parking is a feature that allows a person to put a call on hold at one telephone set and continue the conversation from any other telephone set.

The “call park” feature is activated by pressing a preprogrammed button (usually labelled “Park”) or a sequence of buttons (for ParagonVoIP this sequence is usually *701, but see below for details) . This transfers the current telephone conversation to an unused extension known as a Call Park Orbit and immediately puts the conversation on hold. (This is called parking the call; and the call is said to have parked onto a certain extension. Essentially, call parking temporarily assigns an extension number to an incoming call.) The telephone system will then announce the extension of the parked call so that the call can later be retrieved.

At this point, person that parked the call can make an announcement (often by paging some or all of the telephone sets and or overhead paging speakers controlled by the telephone system). An example would be at a grocery store where the bakery has a call parked. The user would say "Bakery you have a call parked on 627" and the bakery department would then dial 627 to access the call on hold.

A set time is then provided for any person to retrieve the call by dialing the extension number of the parked call on any telephone set.

 

 

Definitions

There are two types of call parking orbits supported on the ParagonVoIP system.

  • Directed -  This is the traditional call parking feature where the person that performs the park simply transfers the caller to a Call Park Orbit.  The orbit (also called a queue) must be pre-existing and must be empty in order for the parking attempt to work.

  • Dynamic - In this scenario, the person that performs the park will dial *** and the system will transfer the caller to any available orbit (the parker does not need to know the location of the orbit or if orbit is available or not).   After receiving ***,  the system will announce the orbit location.  

 

Creating the Call Park Queue

The first step in configuring Call Parking is to create one or more Call Park Orbits.

 

Create a Queue

Browse to the Queues page, and select the Add Call Queue button.

 

 

 

Configure Queue Extension and Type

In the Add a Call Queue screen, enter the following values then click Add:

  1. Name - can be any word that is descriptive of the purpose.
  2. Extension - For Call Park Orbits, the queue extension MUST be between 701 and 709.  This number range is reserved for Call Park Orbits in the system.
  3. Type - Select Call Park from the drop-down box.

 

 

 

 Verify Call Park Queue

Confirm that the queue you created is listed in the Queues page.

 

Set Call Park User to Unlimited Ring Timeout

After the Queue has been created, manage the queue User, and set the "Ring for" to Unlimited.   If this is not set, then parked callers will hear an option to escape the queue at intervals that match the Ring for setting.





 

Transferring Calls to the Call Park Orbit

Once the queue has been created you may transfer any caller to the queue by doing the following:

  • Dynamic -  Dial *** and the system will select an available queue and announce the location to you.
  • Directed -  Dial *702 (or the location of any other queue with the type of Call Park) and the caller will be placed into the Orbit 702.  There will be no system announcement.

Once placed into the queue, the caller will hear the music on hold file that is associated with the queue owner (702 in the example above).  If the queue owner does not have Music on Hold, then the caller will hear the system's default music on hold.

 

IMPORTANT:  Call parking will only work for callers from an outside line.  It is not possible to park a caller from an internal extension.  It is also not possible for a user to park a call that he has initiated.  In order to park a call, the person performing the transfer must be the recipient of the call.

 

 

Single Button Call Parking

In many cases, it is desirable to program a button on a phone so that a caller may be parked by touching the button and so that the button will display the status a Call Park Orbit.   Capabilities for Single Button Call Parking will depend on the type of phone.

 

Polycom

Configuring a Call Park status key that will show the current state of a Call Park Orbit, and will allow the user to retrieve the parked call by pressing the key. To configure a button to auto provision on your phone, please open a ticket with support.paragonvoip.com detailing the extension and button you would like this feature to be attached to.