I am using Cisco SPA-50x phones with the SPA-500s sidecare. I have a virtual Extension (198) setup with VoiceMail as a GENERAL VM. I would like to use one of the indicators on the SPA-500s to show if/when there are any VMs for extension 198.
Any one have any ideas or help?
There are two ways to do it.
First, with the FreePBX Distro, you CAN set-up a Busy Lamp Field to monitor voicemails. Instructions for that are here:
http://wiki.freepbx.org/display/F2/Subscribe+a+BLF+button+to+Monitor+a+Voicemail+Box
Alternatively, you can create a second extension for the same phone, and register that extension to the last line button on the phone. Then go back and modify the extension settings and change the Mailbox field from “extension@device” to “extensionyouwanttomonitor@device.”
So, let’s say you want to be notified when there is a voicemail on extension 100. Create an extension 200, register the last line button on your OTHER phone to extension 200. Then change the mailbox field in the extension settings from “200@device” to “100@device”.
There is currently a bug in FreePBX that can cause this method to fail, because FreePBX can delete the symlink necessary for this to work if you restart FreePBX before the extension gets its very first voicemail. If you find that it doesn’t work, go into extension 100, disable the voicemail, save, and apply, and then re-enable the voicemail, save, and apply, and the bug will be fixed. Once it’s fixed, the bug won’t occur again.