Tag: How-to

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.

Configure an Allworx IP Phone to Work with Your Phone System

Allworx IP phones are plug and play with Allworx phone systems for the most part. Once your IP 9212 or 9224 phone is set up with a user configured, you can go ahead and configure the phone to use the programmable keys on the side of the phone.

The Allworx 9224 and 9212 are not easy phones to configure despite the rest of the phone being simple to set up. You’ll want to log into your Allworx phone system’s administrator portal and navigate to Phone System > Handsets. From here you’ll be able to select the Allworx phone you’ll want to configure.

The first choice you’ll have to make is whether to set up your phones to work as line appearance phones or call appearance. Line appearance calls ring specific lines that run into your phone system. They are useful when several people need access to the same lines such as in a retail environment.  All users receive a call on the same ‘line 1,’ and users can specify to each other “call on line one.”

Call appearance phones are a bit more complicated and powerful. Call appearance are most often seen in larger companies where a few lines are not enough for the number of phones in use. Instead, calls are routed to the correct users by extensions. The calls must be transferred between users as the calls are not tied to any specific line. This is useful in making sure the right user receives the call (such as in an office).

To configure which system you’ll want to use, scroll down to the bottom of the tab open. You’ll see “Handset Configuration Templates” available. Select for each phone you use whether you prefer to use (line) Key or PBX (call) options for your phone system.

Allworx IP Phone Call Appearance Settings

To edit the phone’s configuration, select “view configuration” from the phone you wish to edit. You’ll load up a secondary page which shows all available options for editing your phone’s programmable function keys.

To modify the PFKs, select the modify link and you’ll launch into the phone editor. From here you’ll be able to input several different options for what each key should do. On an Allworx 9224, you can edit what each side of the phone’s keys do.

Some available options for programming your Allworx phone include additional call appearance keys, line appearance, the ability to park and retrieve parked calls, functions such as redial, and busy lamp fields that show you the status of other phones and extensions on the system.

When you’re done making the changes you desire, select the Update button at the bottom of the screen, followed by reboot phone on the next page. When the phone boots up again, it will be fully operational with your changes made!

Programmable Function Keys

 

Allworx IP Phone Line Appearance Settings

Line Appearances work as mentioned earlier by tying a specific phone line to the button, so whenever that button is selected the call that came in on that line is answered. You can manually map the phone lines to your Allworx phone by taking advantage of PFKs. Line Appearance keys work almost exactly like call appearance keys, but work by specifying the line you want to ring for each button. In the example below two line appearance keys have been configured to ring for lines 1 or 2.

Programmable Function Keys blank

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.

Outside Lines

 

New DID Block

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.

Phone Number to Extension Mapping

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:

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

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

  1. Click the modify key under ‘Action’

Disable or Change DHCP Server

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!

Adding Custom Music On Hold Prompts To An Allworx Phone System

Allworx On Hold Music

 

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!

Creating a Call Queue For an Allworx 24X

The Allworx 24X phone system is capable of supporting call queues for extensions that are busy.  To use call queues with the Allworx system, you’ll need to have the Automatic Call Distribution feature key installed on your system. Contact your Allworx dealer for this feature.

Assuming you have installed the feature key, you can set up call queues by logging into your admin portal at 192.168.2.254:8080. Once logged in, go to Phone System > Call Queue in the navigation menu. You’ll want to select modify of the queue that you are editing.

If this is your first time editing a queue, select Queue 0 and click modify. You’ll end up on a Call Queue page. The page has several settings you can use to set up the queue.

Allworx 24X Call Queue

The first setting you’ll want to change is the description of the queue. Give it a name that is descriptive and tells you what it is. In our example, we’ll call it ‘Tech Support.’ Next, choose the distribution mode of the calls and how they should go to the phones that are part of the queue. There are four options: all ring, fairness – longest idle, linear idle, and sequential round robin. Each is explained below.

Four Call Queue Ring Options

All Ring: All phones assigned to the queue will ring when the call comes in
Fairness – longest idle: The user whose phone has not been used in the longest time will receive the call.
Linear Priority: The phones will ring in a specified order of priority. The phones will ring in the same pattern every time.
Sequential Round Robin: The queue will rotate through the list of phones to ring, with a different phone ringing first each time.

Pick the distribution mode that best suits your company’s needs. You’ll want to skip relay status message if you’re new to Allworx. You can change the maximum wait time allowed, but 1800 is generally considered an acceptable number. For those with long wait times, consider changing this value to ‘0’ which is indefinite.

You can choose to have queue prompts play or just have a ring back tone played to the caller. Alarm systems are built into the phones that alert users to too many calls being in the queue. Users can specify the alarm to go off anywhere between 1 and 16 callers. Both an amber and red alarm can be configured in this way. Alarms can also be configured by wait time.

Those with music on hold (MOH) can select what source to play the music from, or simply play no music. Maximum rings sets how many times an agent’s phone should ring before being removed from the queue. The next settings should be left by new users first creating a call queue. Changing these defaults might result in a call being left in limbo by the phone system.

The last settings have to do with callers wishing to leave the queue. If you already have your default auto attendant set up, you can leave these as the default option 400. Alternatively, you can have a call transfer to an operator, a voicemail, extension, another call queue, or even hang the call up!

Following these instructions, you should now have a call queue set up on your Allworx phone system! As with other parts of Allworx configuration, the system is easy to understand and set up yourself.