Amanda Work Group Work Place Instructions Manual

							Chapter 5:
Setting Up Mailboxes
Accessing the Users Screen
While Amanda is running, you can create, modify, and delete mailboxes using the Users 
screen.
To access the Users screen:
1. From the Main screen (which has Main in the upper right corner), press Alt+U.
The password dialog box appears.
2. Type in the password. (The default password is AMandA, with the first two and the 
last letter capitalized.)
The Users screen appears. The word Users is in the upper right corner of the screen. 
The Mailbox field is empty, and the Basic Options area contains the default values for 
a new mailbox.
N
OTE:The password is not displayed as you type. If you enter it incorrectly, 
you must start over by selecting Alt+U from the Main screen again.
3. In the Mailbox field, type the new mailbox or an existing mailbox.
If you typed an existing mailbox, press Enter to display that mailbox’s current set-
tings.
While in the Users screen, you can change the value of any selected field.  
						

							34 Administering [email protected]
The Users Screen
Save  Auto  Delete  Notify  Table  Copy  Esc/EXIT  PgDn/NEXT  PgUp/PREVUsers
Mailbox: Comment:/Set Name: Security Code:
Extension:
Dir Name 1: Dir Name 2:
Basic Options Chains
Maximum Rings:0  (default is 4) Done:
Do Not Disturb:OFFLock:OFFRNA:
Screen Calls?OFFLock:OFFBusy:
Store Messages?YESMax:180 sec Delay:0
Copy Messages To:Menus
Message Volume:0Guests:-11: 2: 3:
Current Greeting:0Max:45 sec4:5:6:
Busy Message?SYSMax:45 sec7:8:9:
ID Call? NOD/T?YESName/Ext?YES0:
Created: NEVER Conn Secs: 0 Statistics Started: NEVER
Saved: NEVER User Secs: 0 Calls: 0 Last: NEVER
Messages Transfers: 0 Last: NEVER
Current: 0,   0 new ( 0 sec) Logins: 0 Last: NEVER
Maximum: 0 Total: 0 Notifies: 0 Last: NEVER
The Users screen has the following parts:
menu bar The rectangle at the top of the Users screen. The left side displays 
menu commands that you can access by pressing Alt plus the first let-
ter of the selection. For example, pressing Alt+S saves a new or mod-
ified mailbox. The right side lists keys on the keyboard and the 
actions they perform. For example, pressing Esc allows you to exit 
the Users screen and return to the Main screen.
User InformationJust below the menu bar. The fields in this area provide the minimum 
information Amanda requires for defining a mailbox. See “Mailbox 
Field Reference” on page 44, for more details.
Basic OptionsJust below the User Information and on the left side of the screen. The 
fields in this area define the options for the mailbox. For example, to 
screen calls, the Screen Calls? 
field must be set to ON. See “Mailbox Field Reference” on page 44, 
for more details.
Chains and 
MenusJust below the User Information and on the right side of the screen, op-
posite the Basic Options. The fields in this area control what happens 
to the caller if the user does not answer the telephone. See“Mailbox 
Field Reference” on page 44, for more details. 
						

							Chapter 5: Setting Up Mailboxes 35
To change a field:
1. Select the field. The selected field is highlighted, and a description about it appears in 
the status bar. When you first access the Users screen, the Mailbox field is selected. 
Do any of the following:
 To move from one area to the next, press Tab.
 To move from one field to the next, press Enter, Up Arrow, or Down Arrow.
 To return to the Mailbox field. press Home.
 For help (which appears near the bottom of the screen and provides more infor-
mation about the selected field), press F1. After reading the help, press Esc to 
return to the Users screen.
2. Do one of the following:
 Type the value you want. (You can also use the Backspace, Delete, Right Arrow, 
and Left Arrow keys to edit a field.)
 To toggle the value in the field (from YES to NO, ON to OFF, and so on), press 
the spacebar.
3. Press Enter.
At the end of this chapter is a summary of each of the mailbox fields. 
T
IP:Any time you return to the Mailbox field, the entire screen is refreshed 
as you make your next move. Use this to start over after a mistake. Oth-
erwise, make sure you save your changes (using Alt+S) before returning 
to the Mailbox field.
You can make changes to a mailbox while Amanda is running. However, 
if a caller accesses that mailbox or if the user makes changes to the mail-
box over the telephone, the screen is refreshed and your changes are lost. 
Save often while working on mailboxes that might be accessed.
Managing Mailboxes
Setting up the mailbox template effectively at the beginning can save you the most 
administration time down-the-road. Always create a new mailbox from the existing 
mailbox that matches the new mailbox most closely, even if that is not the mailbox 
GroupsAmanda cannot go from one mailbox to another unless the two mail-
boxes belong to the same group. A mailbox can belong to as many as 
four groups. Generally, all mailboxes belong to Group 1 so that Aman-
da can go from the company greeting and caller instructions to the 
mailbox for the person being called.
Even integrated calls cannot violate mailbox group rules.
StatisticsThe bottom rectangle on the screen contains statistical information 
collected by Amanda about the mailbox. This information can be used 
in generating reports. See “Mailbox Field Reference” on page 44, for 
more details.
Status barThe bottom line of the screen (not shown in the figure) contains a 
one-line description of the selected field. 
						

							36 Administering [email protected]
template. Asking users about their personal preferences can be very effective. A sample 
questionnaire is included in this section for that purpose.
To avoid security problems, always return to the Main screen after managing mailboxes 
and so forth. From other screens, non-authorized personnel can change and perhaps 
damage the system.
Using a Template
When you create a mailbox, it is created as a copy of the mailbox template (usually 
mailbox 997). Amanda copies:
 The fields in the existing mailbox’s Basic Options, Chains, Menus, and Groups 
sections.
 The contents of the Extension field if it begins with ‘@’.
 All notification and scheduling records.
The security code is a special case. Even when you copy a mailbox from a mailbox other 
than the mailbox template, the security code for the new mailbox is dependent upon the 
template’s security code:
 If the template’s security code is blank, the new mailbox has its own mailbox 
number as a security code. 
The Security Code field can appear to be blank—even when it contains a value. If the 
configuration option sec_code_display is false (which it is by default), the security 
code is never displayed. To be sure it is blank, fill the field with spaces.
 If the template’s security code is not blank, the new mailbox has the same security 
code as the template. By default, the security code for mailbox 997 is 997. 
Be sure that the template covers as many circumstances as possible before you create 
mailboxes from it. For example, if most extensions have message lights, the commands 
for turning message lights on and off should be among the template’s notification records. 
If all user’s will have Do Not Disturb turned on after hours, make sure the template has the 
scheduling records that turn Do Not Disturb on at 5 p.m. and turn it off at 8 a.m. This 
saves you from re-entering this information for one mailbox after another.
Also make sure that the template specifies group 1, the default group number for the 
Company Greeting mailbox (usually mailbox 990). Otherwise the new mailboxes cannot 
be reached from that mailbox, and outside callers can never reach the users with those 
mailboxes.
Using Templates with an Amanda/Norstar System
For Amanda systems that are connected to Norstar KSUs, the default template mailbox 
(997) has predefined notification records. These notification records turn the Message 
Waiting Indicator (MWI) on and off whether the message was retrieved from:
 The users station directly
 Another station set or an external telephone
 A Messenger client on the network 
Use the default mailbox template to create mailboxes that call extensions. For other 
mailboxes (such as those that have menus or are used in token programming), copy a 
different mailbox with no notification records or delete the notification records from the 
new mailboxes. 
						

							Chapter 5: Setting Up Mailboxes 37
Asking the User for Preferences
Use the following User Questionnaire to determine what settings to give a new user. Based 
on the company decisions about calls, you might delete some questions from the 
questionnaire. See the company questionnaire in Installing [email protected].
User Questionnaire 
Question
Circle
Response
Administrative Action to Mailbox Fields
1)  How many times do you want the 
telephone to ring before Amanda takes 
a message?1     2     3
4     5     6
7     8     9Set Maximum Rings to the circled number.
2)  Should Do Not Disturb (DND) be 
permanently ON, permanently OFF, or 
under your control?
(When ON, your telephone never rings, 
but callers can leave messages. When 
OFF, the telephone always rings. When 
you control DND, you call Amanda to 
turn it ON and OFF.)ONSet Do Not Disturb to ON.
Set Do Not Disturb’s Lock to ON.
OFFSet Do Not Disturb to OFF.
Set Do Not Disturb’s Lock to ON.
under my 
controlSet Do Not Disturb to OFF.
Set Do Not Disturb’s Lock to OFF.
3)  When Amanda screens calls, she 
tells you who is calling and lets you de-
cide to accept or reject each call.
Do you want call screening to be per-
manently ON, permanently OFF, or 
under your control?ONSet Screen Calls to ON.
Set Screen Calls’s Lock to ON.
OFFSet Screen Calls to OFF.
Set Screen Calls’s Lock to ON.
under my 
controlSet Screen Calls to OFF.
Set Screen Calls’s Lock to OFF.
4a)  Do you want Amanda to let you 
know who the call is for?
(This is primarily for people who an-
swer calls for more than one person.)YESSet ID Call? to YES.
NOSet ID Call? to NO.
4b)  If YES to 4a, do you want Amanda 
to let you accept or reject the call based 
on who it is for?
(This is primarily for people who share 
telephones.)YESSet Screen Calls to ON and ID Call? to YES. 
Amanda can tell the user either of the following:
 Both who is calling and who the call is for.
 Only who the call is for.
This depends on the value of the 
modified_call_screening configuration option. You set 
this option using the Setup utility.
NOUse the settings already specified for Screen Calls and 
ID Call? in questions 3 and 4a.
5)  Do you want Amanda to tell you the 
date and time a message was recorded 
before playing the message?
N
OTE:Regardless of this setting, the 
user can always get a mes-
sage’s date/time by pressing 
74 during the message.
YESSet D/T to YES.
NOSet D/T to NO. 
						

							38 Administering [email protected]
Personal Mailboxes
A user usually has only one extension and, therefore, only one mailbox. That mailbox is a 
personal mailbox.
A personal mailbox stores:
 Messages that are left by callers or other users—until the user deletes those mes-
sages or until you, as the system administrator, delete the mailbox.
 The greetings that are played when the user does not answer his telephone.
 Scheduling information for greetings—if the user decides to schedule them.
 Notification records for the user—if the user requests to be called at his extension, 
an outside number, or a pager when he has messages.
 The current status of user options. For example, the mailbox remembers whether 
Do Not Disturb is on or off.
When creating personal mailboxes, make sure you give the mailbox the same number as 
the user’s extension. For example, if the user’s extension is 147, then that user’s mailbox 
must also be 147. 
When a caller requests extension 147, Amanda accesses mailbox 147 and processes it. It 
rings extension 147 if directed to do so. If the user does not answer the call or if Do Not 
Disturb is on, Amanda plays the scheduled greeting. After mailbox 147 has been 
processed, Amanda returns to mailbox 991, the Caller Instructions mailbox, and plays its 
current greeting (by default, Greeting 1).
When the owner of a mailbox calls Amanda and asks for extension 147, Amanda asks for 
a security code. After accepting the security code, Amanda allows the user to listen to 
messages, change greetings, turn Do Not Disturb on and off, and so forth.
Creating a Personal Mailbox
As you fill in the fields for a mailbox, you determine how calls to that mailbox will be 
processed, the capabilities a given mailbox has, and what fields the user can change. 
To create a mailbox:
1. From the Users screen, type the new number for the mailbox in the Mailbox field, 
then press Enter. 
Amanda copies the information for the new mailbox from the mailbox template. See 
“Using a Template” on page 36, for details.
2. Do one of the following:
 If your Amanda system uses Rhetorex voice boards, type a comment in the Com-
ment text box. (Use up to 17 characters.)
For example, for an information mailbox, you might refer to the menu or data the 
mailbox provides.
 If your Amanda system is connected to a Norstar KSU, the Comment field is 
replaced with the Set Name field. You can type the set name (up to 7 characters) 
or use Autocreate to fill all the Set Name field automatically. See “Creating Mail-
boxes Automatically” on page 40 for details.
3. Type a security code or bypass this field by pressing Enter only. 
						

							Chapter 5: Setting Up Mailboxes 39
4. Type a value in the Extension field, then press Enter.
The Extension field is perhaps the most important field on the screen. It 
is programmable and determines what extension she dials and so forth. 
For example, for mailbox 122, if you use:
122H
Amanda dials extension 122 and hangs up. This is a blind transfer. 
122 is usually a supervised transfer (depending on the value of the 
dl_suffix option in the .PBX file). See Installing [email protected] 
for more details about .PBX files.
5. Type the user’s first name in the Dir Name 1 field, then press Enter. 
Amanda automatically adds the contents of two fields (Dir Name 1 and 
Dir Name 2) to the employee directory. When callers enter 411 (or 
whatever mailbox has been configured as the employee directory), they 
are normally instructed to enter the first few letters of the first or last 
name of the person they wish to reach. 
6. Type the user’s last name in the Dir Name 2 field, then press Enter. 
7. Set the other fields as appropriate. Press F1 for help or use the user 
questionnaire in the next section.
8. When you are done, press Alt+S to save the mailbox.
The Created field (in the Statistics area) changes from NEVER to the 
current date and time.
T
IPS:If you set the Lock field to ON, the user cannot change the 
value of the associated field from a telephone. In fact, by 
locking an option, the user does not even hear the menu op-
tion that accesses that feature.
To prevent the recording of a personal greeting, set the Cur-
rent Greeting’s Max field to 0 seconds. To prevent the re-
cording of a personal busy message, set the Busy 
Message’s Max field to 0.
To prevent Amanda from taking a message, set Store Mes-
sages to NO and select None for the Copy Messages To 
box. Otherwise, she records a message and stores it for the 
current mailbox and/or the mailbox specified by Copy 
Messages To. 
						

							40 Administering [email protected]
To keep a mailbox out of the employee directory, leave Dir Name1 and 
Dir Name 2 blank. 
Remember that a user can go by a nickname. The Dir Name 1 field might 
contain the nickname. For example, when searching for someone named 
Thomas, are people going to enter T-o-m for Tom or T-h-o for Thomas?
To add a menu, create a greeting that explains the menu, and direct the 
user to different mailboxes based on the selection from the menu. For de-
tails, see “Menus 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 0:” on page 48.
Creating a Mailbox for Someone Without a Telephone
A user who is offsite or, for some other reason, has no onsite telephone can still have a 
mailbox. Create a personal mailbox for that user. Then log on to the mailbox to turn on Do 
Not Disturb.
Creating Mailboxes Automatically
If Amanda is connected to a Norstar KSU and you have requested the Autocreate feature 
(by setting the configuration option tmo_names to a number greater than 0), Amanda can:
 Automatically create a mailbox based on the mailbox template (usually mailbox 
997) for each Norstar KSU telephone extension
 Place the unique name associated with that extension in the 
Set Name text box for the newly created mailbox
Amanda does not overwrite any existing mailboxes during this process. Therefore, 
Autocreate can use the Norstar KSU’s telephone extensions for either of the following:
 To create mailboxes for the initial users of the system
 To add mailboxes for new extensions—without affecting those created previously
 To update the name in the Set Name text box
Autocreate does not delete mailboxes under any circumstances. This is for your 
protection, but it means that you, as the system administrator, should delete mailboxes that 
are no longer in use and change the name (and perhaps other settings) associated with a 
mailbox when the corresponding extension gets a new owner.
To create mailboxes for extensions automatically:
1. From the Main screen, press Alt+A to run Autocreate.
A message informs you, “Updating Set Names. Press Enter to continue or Esc to ter-
minate.”
2. Press Enter.
The Enter Directory Numbers dialog box appears.
3. Amanda will create mailboxes for each Directory Number in the range you provide. 
Type the first number in the range of DNs in the Lowest Directory Number text box. 
Then press Enter.
4. Type the last number in the range of DNs in the Highest Directory Number text box. 
Then press Enter.
A messages informs you, “Dialing Sets. Screen will blank for xxx sec. Press Enter to 
continue.” 
						

							Chapter 5: Setting Up Mailboxes 41
5. Press Enter.
A message informs you, “Updated Set Names. Press Enter to continue.”
N
OTE:The Autocreate request can take a while because only one port 
(which might not be available immediately) can perform the request. 
Amanda logs information about the new mailboxes in the trace file. 
If you see the message, “Failed to update Set Names. Press Enter to 
continue,” Amanda was unsuccessful. Refer to trace.out for further 
information.
If you see the message, “One or more Set Names could not be updat-
ed. Press Enter to continue,” Amanda was partially successful. Some 
of the extensions dialed were identified successfully; others failed. 
Refer to trace.out for further information.
If you delete a mailbox and then run the Autocreate Process, the 
mailbox is re-created by the Autocreate Process if it corresponds to 
an existing extension.
Informational Mailboxes
Informational mailboxes provide information via their greetings. For example, the 
company greeting is a greeting from mailbox 990. Informational mailboxes can:
 Provide information for callers such as your business hours or directions to your 
office. 
 Direct the caller to one or more other mailboxes for further processing. 
For example, the greeting may list other informational mailboxes: “For directions, 
press 22; ...”
The greeting may suggest users’ mailboxes: “For more information, dial Mary at 
extension 147 or Tom at extension 150.”
The greeting may offer a single-digit menu, “Press 1 for ...; press 2 for ...; etc.”
If no selection is made from an informational mailbox, Amanda plays the greeting for the 
Caller Instructions mailbox (991). This is so the caller does not get lost in the system.
Creating an Information Mailbox
Some mailboxes give out information to callers or instruct callers about their options. Cre-
ating a mailbox to perform such a task is a matter of creating a mailbox with the right values 
in the right fields.
The proper settings are:
Extension:blank
Dir Name 1:blank
Dir Name 2:blank
Do Not Disturb:ON
Lock:ON
Store Messages?NO
Copy Messages To:blank 
						

							42 Administering [email protected]
The other Basic Options fields are not evaluated, so their values do not matter for an 
informational mailbox. 
 T
IPS:You can lock the Current Greeting setting after recording your informa-
tion (by changing the Max field to 0), so that it cannot be changed acci-
dentally.
In the Comment field, you might refer to the menu or data the mailbox 
provides.
If the informational mailbox provides information to the user after which 
only a hangup is appropriate, the Extension field might contain some-
thing like the following:
@P(G1)G(999)
Amanda plays Greeting 1 for mailbox 122 and goes to mailbox 999’s Ex-
tension field for an immediate hangup.
This last example using the Token Programming Language. For more de-
tails, see “Programming Amanda” in Installing [email protected] 
for more information about the Token Programming Language.
Creating a Range of Mailboxes from an Existing Mailbox
Occasionally, you might want to create a range of mailboxes. For example, you might 
create the mailboxes for all the extension numbers at your site at one time. The mailbox to 
be copied can be the mailbox template (usually 997) or any other mailbox. 
In general, you want to select the mailbox most similar to the mailboxes you create so you 
make the fewest changes to each new mailbox. Sometimes you use this procedure to 
create only one mailbox. For example, you might create a mailbox that requires only a 
name change.
To create a range of mailboxes based on another mailbox:
1. From the Users screen, type the mailbox to be copied in the Mailbox field, then press 
Enter. 
2. Press Alt+C.
The Range To Copy To dialog box appears.
3. Type the number for the first mailbox in the range, then press Enter.
4. Type the number for the last mailbox in the range, then press Enter.
Amanda creates the specified mailboxes by copying the fields from the current mail-
box. See “Using a Template” on page 36 for a list of the fields that are copied.
T
IP:You can copy just one mailbox by using the same mailbox as the first and 
last mailbox in the range.
1Creates a 3 to 6 second pause allowing the caller to decide what option to 
select from the menu. If there is no menu, the Delay should remain 0, the 
default.
Delay:30-601 (when the Menu fields are used)