note:  a complete guide to attendant programming is posted here 

nexMatrix Telecom is pleased to announce a new feature enhancement to Protel LTS PBX.  The new functionality will allow you to deploy an attendant at will by using a feature code from a handset or softphone.  This gives your customers the ability to turn on an after-hours attendant at any time rather than have a pre-determined time schedule control it.

To set up an an ad-hoc attendant (sometimes known as a "Night Bell"):

1 - Create a New Attendant.  This can be a simple playback-only attendant, or you can add complexities such as keypress routing and timing layers if you want.  If you already have an existing attendant that would be appropriate, you don't need to create a new one.

2 - Go to the new Night Bell page, also in the Attendants section, and assign the attendant you just created (or an existing attendant) as the target.

3 - For each attendant that you want to be able to manually toggle to the alternative attendant using a feature code, go to the Edit Existing Attendant page, select the desired attendant, check the Night Bell box (located under the timing grid), and save the changes to the attendant.

4 - For each extension that will be allowed to deploy the Night Bell feature, go to the Limit Features for Extension page in the Extensions section, select the extension that you will allow to access this feature and enable the Night Bell Activation and Night Bell Query feature codes (at the bottom of the list).  You will need to do this for each extension that needs to have the ability to toggle the Night Bell attendant on or off.

5 - Run the Reload PBX command from the Maintenance menu.

Now, pressing the Night Bell feature code (33 is the default) from any extension that you have given this permission to will immediately activate the targeted Night Bell Attendant, and this attendant will replace any normal attendant that you have assigned using the check box.  Pressing the feature code again will restore the attendant(s) to normal operation.  Pressing the Night Bell Query feature code (default 34) will return the current status.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this feature or if we can help you with any customer deployment questions.