CALLMaster Tour - Create Notification Records

Notification records are used to tell CALLMaster how to signal the box holder that there is a new message in his box. Choose Manage | Notification from the CALLMaster Manager menu bar.

• Click on the ‘Add new’ (plus sign) button on the bottom tool bar.
  
• The first field is the ‘Mailbox’ which is the same as the mailbox number. Since we are adding a notification record for mailbox number 1000, enter ‘1000’ here.
  
• The record number determines both the type of notification and the sequence of notifications. Record number zero must be setup for Message Waiting light. Anything else must be record number one (1) or higher. Record number two (2) would be used after record number one has been exhausted without success. Since we are hypothetically on a phone system here, let's make it a message light; enter record number as zero.
  
• The next field, Dialing Prefix, is where you would put a number to get an outside line if your PBX requires one (e.g. most PBXs require a ‘9’ to dial out. The only time you would use the prefix field on a human or pager notification is if you require a dialing prefix before the area code, and do not use the System Parameter ‘Local Dialing Prefix’. Since we are entering a message waiting light, we will not require an outside line and therefore not require a prefix. The Area Code and Phone Number field are self -explanatory. Put the extension that mailbox 1000 is attached to, which is 100 (or whatever you chose in the beginning of the tutorial) in the ‘Phone Number.’ field.
  
• In the ‘Notification Type’ field, you are going to tell CALLMaster what kind of notification you wish to activate. View the drop down list until you get to ‘Message Light’; then select it.
  
• Continue on to the ‘When to Call’ section. Leave Earliest Hour to Call and Latest Hour to Call at 0 so that messages received at any time will trigger the notification. Keep in mind that the time is entered in military format (0 is midnight, 13 is 1:00pm, 23 is 11:00pm). One of the most common questions Technical Support gets in regards to notification is ‘If I get a message during the time earliest and latest hours say NOT to notify me, can CALLMaster notify me once my notification turns back on?’. The answer is yes. If you get a message after the Latest Hour to Call, CALLMaster will notify you when it has reached the Earliest Hour to Call. Set all the days of the week to ‘checked’.
  
• The Call Attempt Schedule fields are used to tell CALLMaster how many times to try and how often to try notification if there is no response to the notification. The first of these fields is for a ‘No Answer’, where we tell CALLMaster how many times to try the notification given a no-answer. In the ‘every ___ minutes’ boxes, we will tell CALLMaster how long to wait until retrying. There are controls for ‘busy’ and ‘no-log in’ also. No-log in means that the box holder hasn't logged in to check his messages. Since we are working with a message waiting light, it is unlikely that we're not going to get an answer. Set each of the next 6 fields to 1. If we were using a pager, we might set the try count to 2. CALLMaster would try 2 times before giving up. We might set the no-log in ‘Every ___ minutes’ box to 15, meaning the box holder has 15 minutes to log in before the system attempts another try.
  
• Save your work. Again, don't worry about the protected fields. These are not things you want to alter anyway.
  
• The next step in making notification work is to enter string data in the System Parameters ‘MSG-Light-On Dial String’ and ‘MSG-Light-Off Dial String.’
  
• From the Manager Window, choose Parameters | System Parameters from the menu bar. Find the System Parameters ‘MSG-Light-On Dial String’ and ‘MSG-Light-Off Dial String’. By double clicking on the parameter, a dialog box will appear where you make the appropriate selection or enter the appropriate information.
  
• If you are on a phone system for this tour and you know the true strings required here, go ahead and enter them. The brackets [ ] represent the extension number that you placed in the Notification record. If you don't know the strings or if you are not on a phone system, leave these fields as is.
  
• While we're here, we might as well set a few other parameters. Find the ‘System’s Area Code’ and ‘System’s Phone Number’ and fill them in. If you require it for your phone lines, fill in the ‘Local’ and ‘Long Distance Dial Prefix’.
  
• Save your work.
  
• Now that you have enabled a port for outbound dialing, created a notification record, and updated the system parameter with the correct message waiting light string, when your operator gets a message in box 1000, CALLMaster will use the strings found in the ‘MSG-Light-On Dial String’ field to activate the message waiting light on the operator's phone. To turn off the light we'll use the ‘MSG-Light-Off Dial String’
  

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