Shared Line Appearances

Users can employ Shared Line Appearances (SLAs) to use their phones to manage calls for other users. They can answer and make calls as if they were using an CIC station belonging to another user or using a group extension. An SLA is associated with a line key on the Polycom phone. Users can have both shared and private lines associated with different line keys on the same phone.

Note: Ensure all the phones that use the Shared Line Appearances feature are either managed or non-managed. You cannot mix the two types.

Terminology

The following table lists some terms for configuration and setup of SLAs.

Operation

An SLA occurs when a single CIC station (or line) appears on multiple phones. There is a single logical entity for the shared line, even though it can appear on several distinct physical devices (phones). A device using the shared line appearance does not have a unique identity or addressability.

SLAs are similar to extension phones in your home. When a call comes in, all of the extensions ring and you can answer the call from any extension. When you call from an extension, nobody else can call on the same line until you are finished. However, there is one important difference. The line belongs to a specific station in IC. This station is the primary and all the other stations on which this line appears are secondary. This distinction becomes important when CIC user status for the user associated with the primary station is set to Available, Forward, or one of the not available statuses.

Following are some features of the user experience with shared line appearances:

• Shared line appearances make the same line available on more than one phone.

• Shared line appearances can be associated with more than one line key on a phone.

• A specific icon on the phone display indicates a Shared Line Appearance. This icon is typically a telephone that is half black and half gray.

• In most cases, incoming calls to a shared line appearance cause all of the phones with the shared line appearance to ring.

  Note: If the status for the CIC user of the primary station is one of the not available statuses, incoming calls do not ring on the primary station. Incoming calls ring on secondary stations when the primary user is not available. These calls ring regardless of the secondary user's CIC status unless the secondary user presses the Do Not Disturb button on the phone.

• If the CIC status for the primary station user for the SLA is set to Available, Forward, none of the phones with the SLA ring for alerting calls. The call is sent to the forwarded number for the primary station user. If the forwarded number does not answer the call, it goes to voice mail for the primary station user.

• Any user who is party to an SLA can answer an alerting call or a held call on an SLA. Only one user is connected to the call if multiple users attempt to pick up the call simultaneously.

• Any call made on an SLA is reported as if the primary station user called.

• If an SLA is in use on one phone, it cannot be used on another phone at the same time. If two users attempt to use an SLA simultaneously, the system permits one to succeed and indicates to the other that the line is in use.

• The phone display indicates when an SLA is alerting, off-hook, on hold, or connected.

• Calls on SLAs can be transferred, put on hold, or added to a conference.

• If no one answers an alerting call on an SLA, the call goes to voice mail for the primary station user.

Shared line appearances configuration

You configure SLAs in both the Polycom phone configuration files and in Interaction Administrator.

The following example is for a situation where an assistant is able to answer and place calls on the line belonging to the manager through the use of shared line appearances. The assistant also has three private line appearances which are not shared with the phone for the manager.