Special Dialing Characters

A special dialing character is a non-numeric character that you can enter in a field in the Administration Console or the User Console that requires an access code, phone number, or extension.

For example, you can use an asterisk ( * ) to simulate pressing the star key on a touch-tone phone, or enter an X at the beginning of a number to tell Vocera to treat that number as an extension.

Vocera supports the following special dialing characters:

Table 1. Special dialing characters

Character

Effect

,

When connecting to an analog PBX, pauses for two seconds before dialing the next digit. Use a comma to force Vocera to pause briefly during a dialing sequence. Use multiple commas if you need to pause for more than two seconds.

For example, suppose your system requires you to dial 9 as the local access code, but it is slow to establish an outside line. If you enter 9, in the Default Local Access Code field, Vocera dials a 9 and then pauses to let the system establish the outside line before continuing with anything following in the dialing sequence.

Do not use a comma when you are connecting to a digital PBX. The comma character is not recognized by a digital PBX, and it may prevent a connection. However, you can use commas in sequences issued after a connection is made. For example, you can use commas to the right of a semicolon.

;

Separates the data Vocera uses to connect a call from any data Vocera passes through after the call is established. Characters to the left of the semicolon are used to establish the connection, and characters to the right of the semicolon are passed through after the connection is made.

For example, you may need to use a sequence of characters such as the following to forward calls to a pager:

Q 9, 1 (408) 555-1313 ; %V %D #

In this sequence, Q 9, 1 (408) 555-1313 establishes the connection; the Q tells Vocera not to prepend an access code or area code, the 9 gets an outside line, and the remaining characters indicate the phone number to call. The %V %D # characters are pass-through values (the %V and %D are dialing macros, and the # is required by the pager to end the sequence).

Important: For any dialing string that includes a semicolon (;), the Vocera Telephony Gateway server automatically appends a # to end the sequence.

&

Simulates pressing the flash key on a touch-tone telephone.

#

Simulates pressing the pound key (also called the hash key) on a touch-tone telephone.

*

Simulates pressing the star key on a touch-tone telephone.

X

Tells Vocera to treat the sequence of digits following this special dialing character as an extension, without prepending either an access code or an area code to them.

Vocera ignores this character unless it is the first character of the number. This special dialing character is not case-sensitive.

Q

Tells Vocera to dial the sequence of digits following this special dialing character as a literal value, without prepending either an access code or an area code to them.

Vocera ignores this character unless it is the first character of the number. This special dialing character is not case-sensitive.