atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Inter-Tel Telephones & Systems DB Studio Inter-Tel help

hey everyone! i'm the new IT guy for a company based in california. they have an existing phone setup with Inter-Tel (Inter-Tel 5000), Oaisys Tracer system, and we use Inter-Tel's Session Manager to get into the DB Studio.

My problem is last week we had to move a few desks around and their corresponding phone (extension). Everything went great except that I had to come into the DB Studio to play musical extensions until they were properly adjusted. This was because i discovered that when i removed a phone from one desk and took it to another, it would still show up having the old extension (almost like it was hard coded into the phone or something).

I can see from inside the DB Studio under "Devices and Feature Codes" and "Endpoints" it lists all the extensions that are on the system (even some unused ones). It also shows the Type as Digital Endpoint and an Address (1:05.02.01, etc). My thoughts are it would be easier to change the address (keeping the endpoint and username configuration) than to try to shuffle everything around each time i want to move a phone.

long story short, i need to know how to move a phone from one desk and simply change the address of that extension to allow that phone to stay the same (not have to change username, features, programmed keys, etc.)

thanks in advance and sorry if thats confusing lol.

Welcome to the forum Alupis!

Digital phones will not keep their extension when you move them, however IP phones will since the extension is hard coded to their MAC address.

You can do extension swaps through DB Programming, but it can prove to be a little confusing if you don't have any experience with it. There is no way to do the extension swaps in DB Programming by just tweaking the address. It involves deleting and re-creating extensions so the voicemail boxes will remain associated all the while making sure to add the deleted extension back into HG's, extension lists, etc. to keep the original programming in tact. I would HIGHLY recommend getting your vendor involved if that's the route you want to take.

Your other option would be to re-punch the jumpers or move the patch cables depending on your setup.

Your final option would be to do a swap through a phone with Administrator features. I'm not in front of a system right now to tell you the steps but your vendor could probably get you that information as well. This is very quick and easily done.

To swap extensions from an Admin phone: Press
'Infinity Key', 9932,242, Enter 1st extension and pound (#), Enter 2nd extension and pound (#).

Wave hands in the air as if there will be no repercussions.

hmm... i'll have to look at this tomorrow when i get some time. thanks for the quick reply guys!

so if i'm understanding it correctly the only way to move a phone is to move the extensions thorugh DB because the "Address" is actually the physical phone line thats attached to the Inter-Tel boxes? as in each line has its own address and each phone has its own extension (extensions can be changed but not addresses unless if i change the physical cable layout in the server closet)

hope i'm getting that right. thanks.!

Correct, except in PBX-talk they are called ports. The port address is related to the card slot on the chassis. For example, the keyset card in slot 4 contains ports 4.1 to 4.16.

Doing a station swap from the admin phone is definitely the easiest way for a non-PBX guy to change extensions. The only real down side is they need to be one-for-one swaps. It can get tricky when moving a bunch of people.

If you don’t know which one is the admin phone, here’s a tip. Leave the handset off-hook on a random phone. After a minute or so, the admin phone will display an off-hook alarm.

If you’re going to maintain this system for a while, I’d buy a punch tool and learn how to use it.

The 'address' is the node, slot, card, and port that each particular phone is attached to.
Example...
your 1:05.02.01 would be node 1, card 5, slot 5, port 1 and could in theory be any extension...say 105. For whatever reason you decide to move the person on extension 105 to a different office. The old way would be to actually move jumpers, every time. With the newer systems it can be done through programming, as the others have said.

You have it correct in your last paragraph-

hmm... ok so say i need to move 5 offices to the other side of the building... correct steps for me to take would be:

1) Move all the stuff from one office to the other
2) Log into DB Studio (Programming? same thing???) and move the old and new extensions to blank temp holding extensions (to free up the extensions i want to use)
3) then flip the extensions so that they are now in the correct place for the office

i'm assuming thats what ill have to do each time ( which is what i've been doing). so i guess the phones wont loose programming or functions due to the move since those are hard coded into the phone?

so i guess there is no faster way to move phones than this juggling act of extensions lol... unless if i want to start moving wires on the PBX...

Nothing is hard coded into the phone. Everything is in the wire...You can put the phone wherever you want, the extension is tied to the port that the particular jack is connected to.

oh i see... since the DB Studio software is programming the Inter-Tel boxes the extension and info is programmed in there for the port... so its regardless of which phone is plugged in as long as its extension is there the phone will maintain all of its features, programmed keys etc.

sorry if i'm being redundant... just trying to fully understand the system.

thanks!

Sorry, tried to use the quote feature but got an error message…

Nope. You would need to delete and re-add the mailboxes, program keymaps, forward path, attendant station, outgoing access, etc, etc, etc.

Swapping stations via DB Studio should only be used as a last resort when you’re not on site.

Like I said previously, get yourself a punch tool and learn how to use it.

ya... i have a punch tool and have used them before but the idea of playing around with a call center's 50+ active lines is a little daunting :S ...

is there an easy way to keep associated features with an extension if i'm moving them around? such as vm box and key shortcuts and stuff?

i noticed that when i move phones around our huntgroup and stuff stays working (assumably because its only looking for extensions not address.)

There is no way to keep programming associated with an extension in place when swapping via DB Studio. It sounds like you’ve been lucky that the existing programming worked and the people can use their phones. Obviously, all the phones that have been moved were already members of the hunt group, so calls got to the agents.

I can recall having to go in and straighten out disasters caused by customers making “a few minor changes” to their systems.

Punching down cross-connects is no big deal; especially with only 50 phones. If this system is going to be your project moving forward, now’s the time to document everything and clean up anything messy. It may take a few hours of your time now, but the payoff will be huge down the road.

ya you are right. so on the punch-down block (PBX? i hope i'm using the right terminology) all i would need to do is move the 4 wires (looks like 2 blue and 2 orange for each line?) to the new "port", which would change the "address" i see in DB but would maintain the extension and all features.

just trying to make sure i got it before i start pulling up these tiny wires lol.

also, has anyone run into an issue with the current wires being really short, as in they may not reach from one port to another?

ok so now i'm a little confused. you're saying that the best way to move a phone now is to use the DB Studio since we have a newerish system? wont this loose features and vm box etc like DND has said?

to add to my last post i'm mostly asking because its goning to take a long time to be able to properly trace which wires on the cross-connect are going where... so in the meantime i need a solution that wont cause the entire system to go screwy.

i just need to be able to have full control over where phones get located and be able to keep thier pre-programed features.

The blocks are just called blocks. The cabinet would be called a KSU.
PBX just refers to a large phone system, Private Branch eXchange.

Just a note about swapping.
I used to swap extensions on older systems remotely, un-associating mailboxes and changing the extensions around in programming. Intertel ended up telling me that they were getting reports of databases getting corrupted from that though.