Is there a way a button on a Yealink phone can be created to transfer a given call in progress to an extension’s voicemail, but without creating a speed dial as *EXT (where EXT is the given extension’s voicemail).
What I’m looking to accomplish is a button that can effectively start a transfer, prefix with *, and then I can press the DSS key on a side car for that particular extension and send the call to that voicemail box.
What I know works:
On a Yealink T46 phone I can create a button with a function type of Prefix, and a Value of *, labelled as “To VM”. I have a call in progress asking to go to VM. I place that call on hold, press transfer (on the Yealink soft key display), press “To VM”, and then press the DSS key for that respective extension. The held call is then transferred directly to that given DSS key’s mailbox.
Is there a better way this can be done, though? The problem is this function is needed for receptionists, but this process does not work well because receptionists can be juggling a lot of calls coming in. When a new call comes in, the Transfer soft key becomes “Answer” because a call is still ringing at that extension. It would be very hard to ask a receptionist to juggle 5 calls on hold and to be able to remember which call was for a given person’s voicemail when there are many calls coming in at once.
So basically I’m trying to bypass the need to place the call on hold and simply allow the call to be sent directly to that extension’s voicemail. I’ve tried this with a key as DTMF and value as ##*, I’ve tried it as transfer, forward, etc… still no such luck though.
Try Setting the key type to DTMF with value of ##* . On my system all I have to do is press the VM button ##* and then press the ext. BLF button or enter the extension. The transfer happens immediately. I also added ##*xxx under the “dial now” dial plan.
The Yealinks support FreePBX Phone apps, which allow you to configure a “Transfer to Voice Mail” Button, if you have licensed these apps on your system.
The best way to do this is in the yealink set the button type to “prefix” and the value to * my label is Transfer VM
Then they just press the button and enter the extension or press the button and then the bold of the person you’re transferring them to.
It seems that only transfers to ‘your’ voicemail and not another voicemail, at least according to the main RestApps page on the website. We are running RestApps at our office and are unable to make even “trans to our voicemail” work. If this can allow us to hit a RestApp button that is set to Trans to VM and then a DSS key, we can win this battle. Please advise. BTW we are running 73.50 firmware on the Yealinks
I would also recommend configuring dial now. This way it will immediately transfer to VM without having to press the send key or wait for the interdigit timeout
I have gone over your advice, and none of this functions. As soon as the system hears that ##*, the PBX goes into transfer mode, and not waiting for any more input.
To clarify, no matter what I do, the telephone sends the ##* and the PBX starts the transfer process.
We just have a bunch of BLF keys for everyone. Then when you want to transfer to VM you hit Transfer -> * -> hit the blf key and it sends it to voicemail. Works with near default EPM settings.
Of course some people like typing the number instead of button too.