phone number assignment software

[johnboy]

So Bobby:

Is there an ETA for this? So we can assign a number to our hub and a separate number to our scout? and move them???

John

[Bobby B]

Hi John, originally this functionality was scheduled to be released last week. The software release was delayed a bit, but it should be available by the end of this week.

Thanks,
Bobby

So Bobby:

Is there an ETA for this? So we can assign a number to our hub and a separate number to our scout? and move them???

John

[taskconsult]

Greetings,

I am still waiting for the availability of this feature. Could someone at ooma please give us an update. I have called twice and each time I was told it would just be a few more days. I have a second Scout sitting in its box waiting for this feature to become functional.

As another note, I would be just as happy with the ability to release the second number from my hub and then get a new number that I could assign to the Scout. Right now, I am stuck with a second number that I don't use.

I think the ooma system is great and I am looking forward to this feature working.

Thank you,

Robert

[Bobby B]

Hi Robert, I apologize for the delay in getting the web software release out. We ran into a few software bugs that stopped the release from going out last week. Hopefully it should go out this week. I will post to the "ooma Status & Updates" forum as soon as it's available.

Thanks,
Bobby

[johnboy]

Hi Bobby:

Your Tech rep was very patient with me tonight. I called with questions minutes after the new software was implemented. I figured this was not a good night to call back. So here it is in a forum.

I would like to assign a number to my hub and the other to the scout. I would NOT like the scout number to ring on the hub or vice versa.

Problems I have encountered so far (and I was told to wait a few hours for full deployment).

1. I could not move one of my numbers to the scout. The tech rep did it for me. he said I would be able to do it online soon.

note that once moved, the number did ring the SCOUT ONLY! Cool.

2. When I picked up the phone plugged into the scout and dialed my other number, I got voice mail - as if I was calling from the HUB number.

3. I tried to "assign a device" - that is, assign the hub as a device and the assign my other number to the hub (thinking that the hub was still a shared device and the scout didn't know it was an 'independent' device). When I tried that, the software said I already ahve a hub and can't assign one. but the screen shows only SHARED DEVICES and SCOUT (no hub as an assigned device).

I have a goal here:

a. I would like to put my fax machine on the second number - have it ring only the fax. I don't care if my hub gives me a second line in or out. I want to cancel my landline for my fax. I know it may not work 100%, but it has worked so well with OOMA, I want to cancel it with ATT.

b. I would like an incoming call NOT to ring my Scout. before I had a scout, I got a call waiting tone. With the scout (and phones plugged in) I get the call waiting tone and people hear the phone ringing. I would prefer that it not ring to the scout.

c. I have a second scout. I would like IT to share the primary / hub number so I can retrieve voice mail from it, do the auto go to voice mail button on it which would instruct the hub also. This may not be clear. On the second scout... i want to be able to press the envelope for 2 seconds for 'quiet time' at home and have all calls to the primary number go to voice mail but still have the 'fax scout' receive calls and have the fax answer that second phone number.

Lots of questions... didn't want to test the patience of tech support tonight with the new deployment. Can you answer some of these?

Thanks.

Go OOMA!

P.S. I assigned scouts and hubs before this software was ready and could not delete my errors. I did that (delete them) without a problem tonight. Worked like a charm.

John

[Dennis P]

So let me summarize and make sure I understand what you would like to do.

(1) You want your Hub and ScoutA to share your main voice phone number
(2) When someone calls your main voice phone number, it should only ring the Hub and ScoutA. It should not ring Scout B.
(3) You want to listen to your voicemail and control Do Not Disturb from either the Hub or ScoutA
(4) You've connected a fax machine to ScoutB and have assigned a second fax phone number to it
(5) When someone calls your fax phone number, it should only ring ScoutB. It should not ring the Hub or Scout A.
(6) When you are on the Hub phone already and receive another call, you do not want ScoutA to ring. You just want the call waiting tone.

If that accurately describes what you want to do, then here is what I would recommend:

(a) leave your Hub and ScoutA as "shared devices". This allows both of them to share the same phone number and let's you access your main voicemail account and control Do Not Disturb from either location. By default, your main voice phone number will be assigned to the "shared devices".
(b) Assign ScoutB as a personal device and assign your fax phone number to it.

From what I can tell, you've already have both (a) and (b) setup. If so, (1)-(5) should already work for you. (6) will not work until we roll out the ability for you to enable/disable Enhanced Call Waiting. We're targeting to get this out in about 6-8 weeks.

Although you should not assign your Hub as a personal device, the website should have allowed you to do this. Can you post a screenshot of the error when you tried to do this?

And lastly, generally we do not recommend users to configure a fax machine to a Scout since it is less reliable than connecting it to the Hub. That said, it sounds like you've already connected it in this manner and it is working for you. I say don't fix what ain't broke.

[johnboy]

Wow ... Thanks for the long reply. Here's a shorter reply to yours:

1. Yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes, but.
5. yes
6. yes yes.

So.. .you 'got' my question. but... the fax was connected, rang as it should, only on scout b... fax answered the call but, could not get a recognition that there was an incoming fax. talked to Josh who said, sorry, can't do it through a scout. Rings fine, answers fine, but no fax connection on incoming faxes. Incoming and outgoing faxes work fine on the hub...(main number)... but that's my voice number and not what I want to do. If you have any ideas... I would appreciate those.

6. thank you for appreciating this request and the information about later software.

final note. With the fax difficulties, I tried to, in the lounge, put the second number back to unassigned devices. Got an error message. Dante in tech support advised he got the same message and does not know why I (or he) can't move it. He said he will advise. Until I can fax from a scout, I can only use the second line for voice (which is a nice bonus, but I wanted to cancel my landline/fax number).

Thanks

John

So let me summarize and make sure I understand what you would like to do.

(1) You want your Hub and ScoutA to share your main voice phone number
(2) When someone calls your main voice phone number, it should only ring the Hub and ScoutA. It should not ring Scout B.
(3) You want to listen to your voicemail and control Do Not Disturb from either the Hub or ScoutA
(4) You've connected a fax machine to ScoutB and have assigned a second fax phone number to it
(5) When someone calls your fax phone number, it should only ring ScoutB. It should not ring the Hub or Scout A.
(6) When you are on the Hub phone already and receive another call, you do not want ScoutA to ring. You just want the call waiting tone.

If that accurately describes what you want to do, then here is what I would recommend:

(a) leave your Hub and ScoutA as "shared devices". This allows both of them to share the same phone number and let's you access your main voicemail account and control Do Not Disturb from either location. By default, your main voice phone number will be assigned to the "shared devices".
(b) Assign ScoutB as a personal device and assign your fax phone number to it.

From what I can tell, you've already have both (a) and (b) setup. If so, (1)-(5) should already work for you. (6) will not work until we roll out the ability for you to enable/disable Enhanced Call Waiting. We're targeting to get this out in about 6-8 weeks.

Although you should not assign your Hub as a personal device, the website should have allowed you to do this. Can you post a screenshot of the error when you tried to do this?

And lastly, generally we do not recommend users to configure a fax machine to a Scout since it is less reliable than connecting it to the Hub. That said, it sounds like you've already connected it in this manner and it is working for you. I say don't fix what ain't broke.

[johnboy]

New idea... please let me know if this will work:

Because I can fax from the hub and cannot fax from scouts can I:

1. swap numbers (i.e., have hub with my secondary number, )
2. have TWO scouts with the primary number. While this primary and secondary may have meaning to you, I am only using those terms to indicate that I want to switch them around.

So the plan would be to have the fax and only the fax plugged into the PHONE jack of the hub AND

two scouts each with the same phone number assignment (my old primary number)

will this work??

Thanks.

[Dennis P]

It's an excellent idea and that setup should meet your requirements. So basically you'll:

(1) Leave ScoutA and ScoutB "unassigned" with both of them belonging to the "Shared devices" pool. They will be assigned your primary phone number (your voice line).

(2) Configure the Hub to be a personal device and assign the secondary phone number (your fax line) to it.

Since you mentioned you ran into an error earlier when trying to configure the Hub as a personal device, you may run into that problem again. It sounds like a bug and we should try and track that down. Could you post a screenshot of the error that you see?

[johnboy]

thanks for your reply Dennis.

I have several problems...

First, I cannot delete my SCOUT from assigned devices.
I have a work around for now - I changed the 'number' to a fake number and now have MY scout back in the unassigned pool, but I still have the listing WITH MY 'fax number' assigned to it and cannot delete it.

Here's the error message I get... (don't know how to capture or post a screen shot)

"Device could not be deleted at this time


OSS has returned an error. Please try again later. 310 - Failed To Delete AdmDevice: AdmDevice Still Has AdmDids - Cannot Delete

(30530/110041)"

I was able to assign a hub. That was not the problem. The problem was in assigning the main number to it. When I tried that (the only number now listed in the shared pool) to the newly created assigned device (hub), I get:

"Your Number could not be saved at this time


Error received from OSS OSS Failed To Reassign DID:Update Failed: Cannot Move SPN VNum=0 AdmDid Pk[a66c8zjqpgmsowy9z07ig94xz8xocr]

(30451/160)"

I also can't reassign the 'fax number' now assigned to the scout (which does not exist with the fake number), back to the shared pool. I get the same error as when trying to move the main number to the new assigned hub:

"Your Number could not be saved at this time


Error received from OSS OSS Failed To Reassign DID:Cannot Deprovision AdmDevice Pk[pjgjmfrxqc5cb839kx3uy54fqm3ic8y8] - Invalid Voicemail State
(30451/160)"


So I am stuck. Can you help?