Losing your phone system programming due to a power problem or outage can be costly and disruptive to your business. All today's phone systems have batteries that will hold your phone system programming in the event of power loss. Usually these batteries work fine and will hold your program settings for days if not months when power is removed from the system.

Manufacturers traditionally have used Lithium or Nicad batteries that are soldered on the main circuit board or processor card. These batteries over time can go bad, and be costly to replace as it requires finding a technician who will take on the daunting task of removing and replacing these batteries.

The Partner ACS has taken on this problem by designing the system to use common AAA batteries. Looking at the controller card you can see at the bottom front of the module a place to install 2 AAA batteries. When these batteries get low, extension 10 will display "ChgBat W/PowerOn" or "ReplaceSysBat W/Power On"? notifying you that the batteries need to be replaced.

When and if the time comes to replace these batteries do not remove power from the system, simply remove the battery clip holding the batteries in place and replace with new ones. If the batteries are installed correctly then the change battery warning will no longer appear on the display of extension 10.

Despite having batteries as a first line of defense against program loss, you still can lose your system programming for various reasons. The Partner ACS addresses this with the ability to backup your programming to PC Cards that you can insert into the controller card. There are two different PC Cards that allow you to do this.

The first is the Partner Backup and Restore Card (or green card). This card is specifically designed for backing up your programming. The other card is the Partner Remote Backup and Restore Card (silver card). The silver card allows you to backup system translations and gives you the ability to remotely access the Partner ACS using a modem to administer the system using special software.

Partner ACS R7 also introduced the ability to use internal memory on the processor card to be used for backup, which eliminates the need for the external PC Cards.

For owners of the Partner ACS R7 or either PC Card backup solutions, you should check to see if your system is properly programmed to take advantage of these options. By default Automatic System Backup is not turned on so there is a good chance this feature was not activated when installed.

All system programming must be done at extension 10 or 11 and have a display. Locate either one of these extensions. Press FEATURE 00 and press the left intercom button twice. The display will read SYSTEM PROGRAM. Dial #123 for Backup Programming Automatic. For the Partner ACS R7 press 1 for Internal memory or press 2 if you have a Backup and Restore PC Card installed. Lower revisions of Partner ACS require that you have a PC Card for backup installed in your controller and you need only press 1 to active automatic system backups.

To initiate a manual backup of your system to a PC Card or internal memory use program #124. On the Partner ACS R7 you can press 1 for the internal memory, or 2 for a PC Card. Press the ENTER button (check photo below for location of Enter button). The display will indicate that a backup is in progress and when finished will read that the backup was successful. It's good practice to use this procedure before you make major changes to the configuration of your phone system, as it will allow you restore your system to its former state in the event you don't like the changes you've made or you really bugger up the system to the point where things are not working correctly.

Now that you have you your system program nicely stored on your PC Card or Internal memory, let us go through the steps on restoring your system settings. Again, all system programming must be done at extension 10 or 11 and have a display. Press feature 00 and the press the left Intercom twice. Display will read "SYSTEM PROG". Press #125 for Restore Programming.

Now Choose the backup file you want to restore:

• 1 Internal Man.mmddyy, where "mmddyy"represents the date of the manual backup to internal memory of the processor module
• 2 PC Card Man.mmddyy, where "mmddyy"represents the date of the manual backup on the PC Card
• 3 Internal AUTO.mmddyy, where "mmddyy" represents the date of the manual backup to internal memory of the processor module
• 4 PC Card AUTO.mmddyy, where "mmddyy"represents the date of the manual backup on the PC Card

Press Enter button to start the restore (see picture above for location of Enter button). If the system does not detect an error, the restore begins. A successful restore will cause all calls in progress to disconnect and the system resets itself. Keep this in mind before you decide to do a restore during business hours. The only feature that obviously isn't backed up is system Time and Date, so will need to reset these after a restore. You can find instructions here: Time change on Partner ACS.

Hopefully this tutorial will have you ready for that unfortunate event of losing your phone system settings. The few seconds it takes to backup your system will save you the headache of reprogramming or the money to hire someone, if you can't.

A feature that had been missing for the longest time in the Partner ACS feature set was the ability to forward calls to a remote number. Release R6.0 finally brought this feature to the Partner ACS.

Check your system version

Let's go through the steps of setting this up for your extension. The first thing we need to do is make sure that your system is an R6 or higher. System programming is done from extension 10 or 11 with a display, so locate either one of these and press the FEATURE button and dial 59 on the keypad. The display will show you the release number of your phone system. If you see a number that starts with a 6 or greater then your all set.

Enter System Programming

By default all extensions in the system are not enabled for remote call forwarding. To enable this feature for your extension we need to get into system programming. Press FEATURE 00 at extension 10 or 11 and press the left intercom button twice.

Remote Call Forward #322

The display will read SYSTEM PROGRAM. Now press #322 and then enter your extension to enable remote call forwarding and press 1 to assign the feature for your extension.

Entering Centralize Programming

Now weâ??ll switch to CENTRAL TELEPHONE PROG to program a button on your extension to activate the feature when you want your calls to forward to your cell phone. To enter CENTRAL TELEPHONE PROG press the right intercom button and enter your extension. The display should now read CENTRAL TELEPHONE PROG.

First we need to program a personal speed dial location with your cell number. In this example we will use speed dial number 81 but you can use any available speed dial number from 81 to 99. Press FEATURE 81 and enter your cell number. If you make a mistake just repeat entering FEATURE 81 and dial your cell number.

Next select a button on the phone that has a light. This is the button you will use to activate the feature. Make sure that the display reads BLANK or you will program the feature over a button that already has something programmed. Press FEATURE 11 XX 81 where XX is your extension. What this effectively is doing is programming a Forward button that forwards your calls to the number that is programmed on speed dial bin 81. Press FEATURE 00 to exit programming mode.

The only thing to do now is test it out. Go to the extension and press the button that you programmed to activate the forward feature. The button light should go green and the display should read FORWARD . Now with your cell phone in hand have someone intercom your extension. Within a few seconds your cell phone should start ringing, when answered you should be connected to the person who called your extension.

Feature Considerations

Keep in mind that when using this feature what essentially happens is the system will access a new line to call out to your cell phone. If someone calling into your business is connected to your extension either through your auto attendant or transfered to your extension by another user, two phone lines are being used for one call. Careful consideration is warranted, as you may tie up too many lines when this feature is activated by multiple users.

This is the first in a series of articles on customizing your Partner ACS system. Check back for future tips.