As your company's system attendant, you will probably answer most calls that come into the business and transfer many of those calls to other people in the office. This section includes descriptions, instructions, and suggestions that will help you transfer calls and use Auto Intercom buttons, the Loudspeaker Page and Group Page features, the Send Message feature, and the headset. For more information about any of the MERLIN® Plus Communications System features discussed here, refer to Section 5, "Reference."
The main attendant console, plugged into jack 10 on the control unit, also serves as the administration voice terminal. All of the company's lines appear on separate buttons on the administrator/attendant console. It is important that, as the attendant, you have an Auto Intercom button with lights for each voice terminal in the system. Therefore, most attendants use a 34-button deluxe voice terminal that has enough buttons for lines and Auto Intercom buttons. When you plug your 34-button voice terminal into intercom jack 10 on the control unit, your console automatically has a button for every line and an Auto Intercom button for every person in the system.
If you are using a 10-button voice terminal as an administrator/attendant console, all the lines to which your system has access will appear on separate buttons on your voice terminal, but you will probably not have an Auto Intercom button for each person in your system. Therefore, when you want to place an intercom call or transfer a call, you may need to dial the person's intercom number rather than use an Auto Intercom button. Since the
10-button voice terminal does not have a Send Message button, you must use a special procedure described in "Using the Send Message Feature" in this section in order to turn on the Message light at the voice terminal of the person who has a message waiting.
On the following two pages are illustrations of the 34-button deluxe voice terminal and the 10-button Hands Free Answer on Intercom (HFAI) voice terminal. Look at the picture of the type of voice terminal that you are using and check the location of the buttons and the dial pad.
If you need to check the initial button assignments for the 34-button deluxe administrator/attendant console in regular call-handling mode, see Section 3, "Administering the System."
