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Configuring an Analog Phone to Work On an Allworx 48x Phone System

For those of you who have an Allworx phone system, you might run into a situation where you want to add an analog phone or fax machine to your phone system. The reasons to hook up an analog phone to an Allworx phone system are numerous, including adding an analog Polycom SoundStation 2 conference phone, or backup phone in case a Power over Ethernet switch should fail.

Where to begin…

When setting up an analog phone with the Allworx 48x, the good news is that the switch is plug and play to get dial tone. Simply plug your analog phone into one of the system’s FXS ports using an RJ-11 cable (standard four pin analog phone line). The FXS ports are marked as “inside extensions” on the phone system.

Login to configure analog phone

To configure the phone for incoming phone calls, you’ll need to login to your Allworx phone system’s admin portal. The default IP address for an Allworx phone system is 192.168.2.254:8080. The default password is admin.

Allworx Phone System:

Default IP Address = 192.168.2.254:8080

Default Password = admin

Once logged in, you’ll want to navigate to Phone System > Handsets (see figure 1). When in the correct menu, you’ll see your list of available analog handsets at the top of the page. The ports run incrementally from left to right, and are also labeled on the system itself for your convenience. Select the handset that you wish to configure by clicking modify under actions.

Analog Handsets — **Figure 1** (Home > Phone System > Handsets)

Once in the modify handset page you’ll be able to assign an owner to the phone, an internal caller ID name as well as an external name when placing calls outside of your system and over the PSTN (see figure 2). You can assign an owner to the phone as well as configure the internal caller ID number.

Modify Handet — **Figure 2** (Home > Phone System > Handsets > Modify Handset)

Additional features are available such as auto off-hook dialing for use as a door phone, auto answer DTMF string for an intercom system, and caller ID display for showing caller ID on the analog phone’s display.

Enabling DID Blocks on an Allworx Phone System

The Allworx phone system has the ability to configure DID blocks, or Direct Inward Dial blocks, of phone numbers for modification and control. The Allworx 6x, 24x, and 48x can support blocks of numbers handed out for your Telco provider. To add your DID block to your phone system, you’ll need to log in to your Allworx phone system and navigate to Phone System > Outside Lines. Here you’ll see Direct Inward Dial Blocks as an option. Select ‘add new DID Block’ to set up the phone numbers your phone system will use.

Select the starting phone number that is a part of your DID block, and then add how many phone numbers are a part of the block. You can also select a routing plan if you have one created, or create a new routing plan now.

Editing the DID Routing Plan:

Once your DID block has been created, you’ll want to edit your DID routing plan. To do so, you’ll need to navigate to Phone System > Outside Lines if you’re not already there and select the routing plan you wish to edit. If you just created your first routing plan, you’ll want to modify Routing Plan 1.

From the Routing Plan information tab, you can see the default description of the plan, the default extension the lines will ring, and the default DNIS that the line can show instead of the incoming caller ID.

To edit each DID to ring a specific extension, you’ll need to add the phone numbers to the phone number to extension mapping. Select ‘Add number to table’ to modify which incoming number dialed will be directed to what extension. This is done with a simple drop-down. A DNIS name can be entered here as well to be used as a caller ID substitution.

Edit all the phone numbers in the block you want directed to specific extensions. When you are finished you’ll now have all of your DID numbers set up and pointing to the correct phone extension, automated attendant, or voicemail.

Disabling or Changing the DHCP Server On Your Allworx Phone System

By default, the Allworx phone system ships with a DHCP server enabled. The Allworx phone system can be configured to disable DHCP if you have another router handing out IP addresses.

To disable the DHCP server, you’ll need to:

Log into your phone system’s admin panel
Navigate to Servers > DHCP Server

Here you’ll see your active leases as well as known hosts on your currently active DHCP server.

Click the modify key under ‘Action’

This is where you’ll be able to disable your DHCP server.

Additionally, you can specify the dynamic address range of addresses your Allworx system gives out to lease. Your DHCP address reservations can also be configured and managed from this page.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to restart your system after updating these settings in order for your changes to take affect!

Allworx Phone System Feature Keys / Licensing Explained

Allworx phone systems are IP phone systems that provide many great features to users standard such as CO line connectivity and SIP trunking. Additional features can be unlocked by purchasing Allworx ‘Feature Keys’ also known as Licensing. These feature keys come in several different variations that enable various extra features to work on the Allworx 6x, 24x, and 48x.

The following features / licensing are currently available for Allworx phone systems:

Allworx Reach: Allworx Reach enables full Allworx PBX connectivity from your Apple iPhone or Android device. Reach is an app that works on both cellular data networks and Wi-Fi for connectivity across the world. Allworx Reach works on Allworx phones systems with software versions 7.5 or higher. One Reach license comes with your system, and additional licenses may be purchased.

Advanced Multi-Site Software: Allworx advanced multi-site software enables users to connect phones between multiple sites seamlessly between the main phone system and each branch site. The software enables entries to appear in global call routes and the global directory from both sites. Advanced multi-site software also allows handsets from other sites to work through busy lamp fields. Multi-site software is sold as a onetime purchase for each location it will be used.

Automatic Call Distribution: Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is Allworx’s system for distributing calls in a call center environment. The Allworx automatic call distribution enables different queuing of calls including linear priority, round robin, longest idle, and ring all. The feature supports up to 10 call queues with 16 calls per queue and up to 32 total calls at once with an Allworx 24x. When using an Allworx 6x is used, the system can support up to 10 queues with 8 calls per queue and a total of 16 simultaneous calls in a queue. Automatic Call Distribution is sold as a onetime license fee.

Call Assistant: Call Assistant is an add-on tool for Allworx phone systems that enable PC-based answering position and call management. Call assistant is designed for small and medium businesses and enables features such as centralized call management and a built in GUI. Call Assistant supports drag and drop features for transferring calls and works with all Allworx phones and can work with either SIP trunks or CO lines. Call Assistant is a onetime license fee to enable unlimited uses of the feature.

Conference Center: Conference Center is a feature key that provides access to a GUI based system that easily allows users to schedule and manage conference calls. The conference center feature enables ID and password protection for conference calls. The feature is sold as a onetime license fee.

Dual Language Support: Allworx Dual Language Support is a feature key that enables companies to have two separate language prompts when users call in. Dual language support is available in Castilian Spanish, French Canadian, and English. Dual Language Support is sold as a onetime license fee and supports unlimited users.

Allworx Interact: Allworx Interact is a PC based GUI that provides additional control and access to your IP phone. Interact enables phone users to control presence management, parked calls, contacts, and call history from a single screen. Interact enables one touch recording of phone calls. The program connects to Microsoft Outlook and enables one touch dialing from your address book. Allworx Interact requires software versions 7.5 or higher and requires an individual license for acitivation.

Allworx TAPI: TAPI is an add-on module that works in conjunction with Call Distribution. TAPI works with Windows PCs for managing the phone directly from the PC. TAPI is free with a Call Assistant License Key.

Allworx View: Allworx View is a data management tool that provides data from phone calls. Allworx View can handle both real time and historical data trends. The tool provides statistics for agents as well as call volume. Allworx View requires system version 7.7 or higher. Licensing is sold per server.

Adding Custom Music On Hold Prompts To An Allworx Phone System

The Allworx 6x, 24x, and 48x phone systems all support using music on hold for calls in queues or while waiting for extensions. In addition to the supplied music on hold prompt, Allworx allows for the creation of custom music on hold prompts. To create custom music on hold prompts, you’ll need an FTP transfer program.

Access your Allworx’s FTP server by navigating to ftp://192.168.2.254/prompts (IP may change depending on configuration). You’ll need to login to the phone system (the default password is admin). Once logged in, you can transfer files over to the prompts folder. In order for the system to recognize your file as a music on hold file, you need to follow a specific naming convention: moh_#_X.snd where # is a number between 1-30 and x is a character string that helps describe the music on hold source. An example would be moh_1_sales.snd.

The hard part about creating custom MOH music is that it must be saved in the .snd format and be recorded in raw u-law, mono, 8 bits per sample, 8 kHz sample rate audio. This is in order for the Allworx to play the sound back over the telephone network. You might have trouble creating this audio yourself, but you can find examples to use online.

Once you’ve transferred the .snd files over to the proper address, log into the admin port at 192.168.2.254:8080. Proceed to Phone System > Music on Hold in the navigation menu and scroll to the bottom. You’ll want to select load custom recordings to put the prompt you created into use by the system. Once you’ve done this you can begin using your music on hold prompts for things such as call queues, hold, and ring groups!

What’s the difference between the Allworx 9212 and 9212L IP Phones?

A common question we face from Allworx users is “What’s the difference between the Allworx 9212 and 9212L”. This is a great question since the two phones look very similar, so allow me to explain.

The volume control buttons are different…

If you were to look at both the 9212 and 9212L phones side by side, you would notice that the volume control buttons are a bit different. This is a quick and easy way to distinguish between the two phones without powering them on, or turning them over to look at the part number.

The two major differences…

The two major differences between the Allworx 9212 and 9212L phones are that the 9212L has a backlit display and requires a software version of 7.3 or higher. Other than that, both phones are virtually the same. They are both PoE and feature 12 program buttons, speakerphone, Ethernet switch, handset port, and the list goes on.

Overview…

The point of this post is to point out the differences, or lack thereof, and to clarify that the 9212 is still a quality phone. I will admit, the backlit display is a major selling point for me since reading the screen gets difficult in a dark office however it’s not a necessity. As for the software version, this will pretty much dictate which phone you buy for your office.