Users might need to answer a call that is ringing at a nearby desk. With Communication Manager, a user can answer a call that is ringing at another telephone in three ways:

• Use Call Pickup. With Call Pickup, you create one or more pickup groups. A pickup group is a collection, or list, of individual telephone extensions. A pickup group is the way to connect individual extensions together. For example, if you want everyone in the payroll department to be able to answer calls to any other payroll extension, you can create a pickup group that contains all of the payroll extensions.

  A user extension can belong to only one pickup group. Also, the maximum number of pickup groups might be limited by your system configuration.

  Using their own telephones, all members in a pickup group can answer a call that is ringing at another group member telephone. If more than one telephone is ringing, the system selects the extension that has been ringing the longest.

• Use Extended Call Pickup. With Extended Call Pickup, you can define one or more extended pickup groups. An extended pickup group is the way to connect individual pickup groups together.

  There are two types of extended pickup groups: simple and flexible. You administer the type of extended pickup groups on a system-wide basis. You cannot have both simple and flexible extended pickup groups on your system at the same time.

  Based on the type of extended pickup group that you administer, members in one pickup group can answer calls to another pickup group.

  For more information, see Setting up simple extended pickup groups, Setting up flexible extended pickup groups, and Changing extended pickup groups.

• Use Directed Call Pickup. With Directed Call Pickup, users specify what ringing telephone they want to answer. A pickup group is not required with Directed Call Pickup. You must first administer Directed Call Pickup before anyone can use this feature.

For more information, see Setting up Directed Call Pickup.

Throughout this procedure on pickup groups and extended pickup groups, we show examples to make Call Pickup easier to understand.