Total newbie to Partner ACS - please help ?!?

[smith1660]

Hi Forum Folks.

I hope you might help to direct me a bit, please ??

I work for a very small office which has recently re-signed a centrex contract for POTS lines.
It has ancient phone equipment as well.
Since we are stuck with POTS lines for some years due to a very high breach fee in the contract - the switch to VOIP must be delayed until then.

In the meantime it is necessary to have decent phone equipment.

I was able to pick up a very clean Partner ACS system & phones as a lot from another business which has switched to VOIP and no longer needed it.
It was sold as fully functional and I would like to install this system in place of the really ancient system that is in use now.

It consists of an expansion box with 4 system components, a backup card and an assortment of phones.

Trouble is, I have zero experience with the Partner ACS systems.

My prior work has included all sorts of other systems starting decades ago with Siemens, Comdial, Nitsuko and Dash/Picazo systems - so I am somewhat able to relate with the subject matter.

My queries, please:
- Any help in precisely identifying the equipment I have on hand will be wonderful - perhaps there is some list someplace of model numbers and versions I can use for this ??
(Thus far I have been unable to find such a thing by searching the internet.)

- Any help in finding the most basic & simple starting-from-scratch sort of guide to get from a pile of parts to an installed, working phone system ??

There are manuals which came with the system.
The main one is dated 1997 and I suspect the system is newer than that and/or has been updated, but I do not know how to confirm this.

The only coherent (model ??) number found thus far is:
103G15/16G16(28)

Any help and/or guidance will be hugely appreciated !!

Thank You.

[thiel2]

Photos are the best thing to determine what you have. Power it up and plug in a phone with a display, press Feature and dial 59, it will tell you which release of Partner ACS you have. They range from R1 through R8, features were added along the way. If you have voicemail, you will have to program some phone system parameters which depend on which slot you put it in, and what modules are in the other slots. You can find cheat sheets at http://www.touchtonetommy.com/files.html

Post your specific questions, and I'm sure they can be answered

[smith1660]

Thank You Thiel2 - I will do that.
In the meantime I was able to find which numbers were meaningful and looked them up all around with good results.

As purchased, this system has:

Avaya Partner ACS 6 Processor 308
700216047

Avaya Partner ACS 308EC R3.0 Module
108265471 (seems the same as the 700429277, also one of these)

108107756
Partner Mail VS R4.1

And at least a backup card and a VM card.
I've yet to examine the phones.

My biggest concerns revolve around making a quick, sort of drop-in replacement for the really ancient Nitsuko system currently in place, so I want to get the facts straight and the cabling understood so as to be as efficient as possible because I travel quite a ways to work at the office and cannot always get there.

As such, I am hoping that it is possible to gain PC access to the ACS v6 via the network as I use mostly VPN access from home for remote work there.

Thanks for helping to point me in the right direction !!

[thiel2]

Not gonna happen. This is a simple key system. No IP connectivity. There is remote access programming software, it utilizes a dial up modem, and a Remote Access Backup and Restore Card in the processor, and a LOT of good luck to get connected. In addition, programming with the software is offline, and requires a reboot to make it active. Programming through Ext. 10 or 11 is simple, fast, and real time.

Wiring - these are 4 wire Hybrid TDM telephones. One pair (the center pair) is traditional Tip and Ring, carry the voice part of the connection. The 2nd pair, straddling the center pair (green if you are wiring 568-B Cat-5 jacks) carries digital information between the control unit and the phone, to send the keypresses to the control unit and receive the display and light information back.

With the cards you have listed, you want to put the 308EC module in slot 1, the VS Mail module in slot 2, and the ACS Processor module in the center slot. (If you are saying that you have (2) of the 308EC modules, put them in slot 1 and 2, the processor in the center slot, and the voicemail in slot 3, which is actually the slot to the right of the processor (which is in slot "P")

It will be important to know if there is a PCMCIA card in the VS mail module, which will determine if you have 2 or 4 ports of voicemail.

From there, just need to know how many outside lines you will have, where they need to ring, who gets voicemail service, and if you want to use the Automated Attendant for answering, Day/Night/Both

[smith1660]

Thank You Thiel2.
The system powers up fine with the modules arranged as you suggested.

It has a PCMCIA card in the VM module.
It also has the Backup/Restore Card in the processor.

As for programming - I read someplace else that with the correct adapter & cable, all it takes to do it from a PC is the software - why do you say it takes a lot of luck ??

Since I have the PC I used for programming the former system, I wonder if someone might direct me to where the s/w and adapter may be found so that I may try it that way ??

As for the setup:
There are 5 outside lines; they need to ring always, at all phones; one general voicemail box is all that is needed; no Automated Attendant; no Day/Night settings really - and these folks like to be able to pick up any line from any phone anytime - meaning no privacy settings are needed.

Aside of that I wonder about something which may be apples vs. oranges:
We have an Amanda VM unit that works perfectly with the old system - and from their manual it appears to have settings to integrate with the new system, so I wonder:

Is there any advantage between using the Partner's own VM module & card vs. using the Amanda VM (especially given that no automated attendant and only 1 VM box is needed) ??

Thanks for helping me out here !!!

[smith1660]

I had hoped that someone might reply with further help and/or suggestions here...
Anyone...please ??

Thanks.

[thiel2]

Are you "vtsnaab" from Tek-Tips?

Completely default the system, it will make ALL line ring on ALL phones, no privacy assigned, anyone can barge into anyone else's call.

Set the number of lines to 5, so it will remove the unused line appearances

Set the Date and Time

Program the ACS and the Amanda as per the instructions that should be provided by Amanda.

Create only 1 mailbox in Amanda, for one of your Partner ACS extensions, probably for Ext. 10, as it is the "Operator" extension

Assign Auto VMS Coverage to 10, and assign the 5 lines with Ext. 10 as the covering extension, so when not answered, mailbox 10 will answer.

[smith1660]

Thank You.

Thanks Thiel2. Guilty. To my thinking - though there are usually many of the same folks at different places like this - sometimes there are also other, different folks as well. My hope in bumping my posting here was that someone - similarly to myself, might have done exactly what I am attempting with an ACS & Amanda - and that this kind soul might also remember & share how exactly they got the 2 talking together politely. As of now, I am well upon my way thanks to the great help I've gotten at Tek-Tips as well as the added info from the original seller of the Amanda unit. As of this minute the only element of doubt is regarding the exact integration code. The seller remembers that he used either 112, 111, or 110 - and does not know whether the exact model of Amanda we're using has the 112 code, which is the exact code for a Partner ACS listed in the Amanda documentation. Please pardon me for being a bit of a follow-up freak who likes to be very careful rather than screwing things up by doing them incorrectly. Happy Holidays to All !!

[smith1660]

At last...

Despite the age of all this stuff and the difficulties in tracking down the exact info needed, the system is finally as finished as it is likely to get.

As it turns out, I was advised to look in the pertinent files in the Amanda's HDD and found that 110 & 112 are exactly the same.
111 is a bit different - but also seemed to work OK.

The only oddity is that this installation is using the ACS R8 with MLS-12D phones because they are in better shape than the newer phones we got.

In the final result - and after far too many attempts to get things exactly & perfectly right, the Amanda & ACS are working fine together with a single exception:
No MWI on any station after a VM is left.

There are 2 lines of code in the Amanda's settings which are supposed to make it work, but it just refused to do so no matter what was tried.

So in it goes, despite no working MWI and after many delays due to life's demands.

Thanks for the pointers here folks !!