To identify possible malfunctioning trunks, use the automatic circuit assurance (ACA) feature that provides an alerting mechanism to monitor the occurrence of the following:

• an excessive number of short holding time calls

• calls that have an abnormally long holding time

When the number of short holding time calls exceeds the threshold administered for a trunk group, or the duration of a call exceeds the administrated long holding time limit for the trunk group, the system:

1. Makes an entry on the ACA measurement report.

2. Places a referral call to a designated attendant console or display-equipped voice terminal.

You can generate ACA Parameters report and ACA Measurements report for the automatic circuit assurance (ACA) feature.

• To determine if the ACA feature is enabled, use the display system-parameters feature command.

• Use the ACA feature either on a single system or in a Distributed Communications System (DCS) network. Administration of the ACA Referral Calls field (also displayed on the System Parameters screen) determines where referral calls terminate. For DCS networks, one switch (the primary) is administered to receive ACA referral calls from remote nodes in the network for all switches within the network. Additionally, administer the ACA Remote PBX Identification field with the PBX ID of the node that is designated as primary.

  For non-DCS arrangements, the switch is administered as local.

• The switch that displays the ACA measurements must have a valid number administered in the ACA Referral Destination field.

  A valid ACA referral destination can be any of the following:

  • An individual attendant

  • The attendant group

  • A designated station that is equipped with an alphanumeric display

• The systems equipped with a speech synthesizer media module also provides a voice-synthesized audio report of the referral calls.