Anyone using BLF to pickup calls (using voip.ms as the pbx)

Help & Support
1

We have BLF enabled, and it’s working fine to show appearances. We have the main number being shunted to a sub-account, and that sub account has a BLF on the phones We can see the incoming call ringing, but when we try to access it via the BLF button it doesn’t pick up. So now we are trying to figure out how to enable pickup from that BLF. Should that be set up a different way (a parking lot maybe?)
Polycom VVX 410/411 phones.

2

Hello spom

I would strongly encourage you to reach out to our support team at support@voip.ms regarding this matter, as we can verify the details and provide you with an appropriate solution.

3

I reached out to support chat and was told it wasn’t possible. Is support@voip.ms a better avenue (more eyes maybe)?

4

If I understand correctly, you want to be able to “grab” a call that’s ringing on another extension, by pressing on that other extension’s BLF key?

The feature you’re looking for is “directed call pickup”, and despite what support says, does seem to work!

The feature code on voip.ms is *8. So to pick up a call that’s ringing to internal extension 101, you would dial *8101 from another phone.

You should first convince yourself that it’s working by calling *8101 from another phone (e.g. Microsip on a Windows computer), to rule out any Polycom-specific config issues.

A proper IP phone will do this when you simply press on your neighbor’s flashing/ringing BLF button, without requiring you to manually dial anything.

To get this to work on Polycom’s VVX phones, you’ll need to:

  1. Enable directed call pickup
  2. Change directed call pickup string to *8 (call.directedCallPickupString)
  3. Ensure the internal 10X voipms extension is set as the “call address” for BLF lights (attendant.resourceList.X.callAddress), so that it’ll correctly dial e.g. *8101.

Here’s an example xml config from my Polycom VVX411 phones:

feature.directedCallPickup.enabled="1"
call.directedCallPickupString="*8"

attendant.resourceList.11.address="300000_RECEPTION"
attendant.resourceList.11.callAddress="101"
attendant.resourceList.11.label="Reception (101)"
attendant.resourceList.11.type="normal"
    
attendant.resourceList.12.address="300000_NURSE"
attendant.resourceList.12.callAddress="102"
attendant.resourceList.12.label="Nurse (102)"
attendant.resourceList.12.type="normal"

attendant.resourceList.13.address="300000_DOCTOR"
attendant.resourceList.13.callAddress="103"
attendant.resourceList.13.label="Doctor (103)"
attendant.resourceList.13.type="normal"

Now if a call is coming into the receptionist phone, any other phone can “grab” it by simply pressing on the flashing button.

Hope this helps- let us know how it goes.