Hold/exclusive hold operation
The difference between hold and exclusive hold
Your ESI phone lets you put a call (internal or outside) on either hold or exclusive hold.
Each puts a call into a standby mode, but here’s the difference between the two:
- Hold allows anyone on the ESI system to retrieve the call. Users connected to outside (or Esi-Link) calls can press HOLD to place the call on hold. The system identifies held calls as being in numerically identified lines — e.g., “Line One,” “Line Four,” etc. Station calls that are put on hold are displayed as “virtual” lines.
For example, if you need to transfer a call to another station and know the person is in the building but not at his/her desk, you might page him/her to pick up a “call on Line One.” - Exclusive hold keeps the call only at the station where the user pressed HOLD.
Note:
The way the HOLD key operates will depend on how HOLD key operation was programmed by the Installer. (If you’re unsure about which hold feature is activated when following the instructions, contact your System Administrator.)
Hold
To place a call on hold
While on a call, press HOLD to place the call on hold. The HOLD key LED will light solid red on your ESI phone and will blink red on all other phones. Also, your ESI phone’s display will show the quantity, and numerical line identifications, of the calls currently on hold throughout your ESI system:
To retrieve a call from hold
To retrieve a held call from the same ESI phone where it was put on hold, press HOLD again and dial the appropriate line number (using the display for reference).
To retrieve a held call from any idle ESI phone on the system, press HOLD and dial the appropriate line number. If retrieving a call from a different Esi-Link location, press HOLD followed by a Esi-Link Location Key and then dial the appropriate line number from the Esi-Link location. After call retrieval, the ESI phone display will update to show lines currently holding calls.
Notes:
If your phone has any line keys programmed, each will blink red when a call is on hold on its lines; in such cases, just press that line key to retrieve the held call. On the phone where the call was originally placed on hold, such a line key will blink green.
If your phone has station keys programmed, each will slowly blink when a call involving its assigned station is placed on hold. If you were the one who placed it on hold, the blink will be green; otherwise, the blink will be red. To retrieve the call, just press the station key.
After you press HOLD, the display will help you choose the line number to retrieve: the top row will show how many calls are on hold and the second row will show all held calls in the system. Newly held calls are added from the right side of the second row.
Note:
If more calls are on hold than the display can show, each side of the display’s second row will show an arrow, indicating that more lines have calls on hold. Press the corresponding scroll key (either the “down” key to scroll to the left or the “up” key to scroll to the right) to view the other line numbers where calls are holding.
Exclusive hold
To place a call on exclusive hold
To place an outside call on exclusive hold on an ESI phone, press HOLD for at least one second. The display will briefly appear . . .
. . . and then return to its normal state. This exclusive hold will cause the HOLD key to light solid red on just that ESI phone (i.e., where the key was pressed) and none other in the system.
To retrieve a call from exclusive hold
To reconnect to a call from the ESI phone where the call was placed on exclusive hold, you may do any of the following:
- From a phone idle state, press HOLD for at least one full second.
- Press the blinking programmable feature key that you know is pre-programmed for that outside (or “virtual”) line or station. This will reconnect you immediately to the call.
- Press HOLD briefly and dial the appropriate outside line number. Only the ESI phone where the call was placed on exclusive hold will display an “E” next to the line (identified by number) on which the call is holding. (That line number won’t appear on the hold display on any other ESI phone, because no other ESI phone can retrieve that call.) In the example below, the ESI phone has a call on exclusive hold on line 12.
