If you want members of a pickup group to answer calls for another pickup group, but you do not want the other pickup group to answer your calls, set your system for flexible extended pickup groups.

Members of one or more individual pickup groups can answer calls of another pickup group using flexible extended pickup groups. However, the reverse scenario is not always true. With flexible extended pickup groups, you can prevent members of one or more pickup groups from answering the calls to another pickup group.

Flexible extended pickup groups allows more control over what pickup groups can answer calls for other pickup groups. Unlike simple extended pickup groups, an individual pickup group can be in multiple flexible extended pickup groups.

The system displays the Extended Group Number field on the Pickup Group screen only when you set the Extended Group Call Pickup field on the Feature-Related System Parameters screen to flexible. When you populate the Extended Group Number field on the Pickup Group screen, you are associating, or "pointing," that pickup group to an extended pickup group. By pointing to an extended pickup group, members of the pickup group can answer calls made to any member of that extended pickup group.

A specific pickup group does not have to be a member of the extended pickup group that the pickup group points to. To help clarify flexible extended pickup groups, see the Example in this section.

In this exercise, you will: