Parking a call places an active call on hold in a user-defined parking spot. You can park an active call using any desktop phone. The call can be retrieved by the same user or by any other user who knows the parking spot.

Users can choose any number for a parking spot (1, 101, etc). It is always a good idea to use one- to four-digit numbers to make it easier for the other party to retrieve the call. A company can have up to five parked calls at once.

Many companies create their own best-practice conventions when it comes to choosing a parking spot number so calls can be easily answered by the appropriate person or department. For example, the following rules may be used to select a parking spot number:

  • Assign a number or a range of numbers to specific departments to make it easy for anyone from that department to retrieve a call:
    • Smaller companies may only need to use single digits for each department such as 1 for sales, 2 for accounting, and 3 for customer service.
    • Larger companies may wish to assign parking spot range of 10 through 19 to calls for sales, 20 through 29 to calls for accounting, and 30 through 39 to calls for customer service.
  • If the call is meant for a specific person, use that person’s extension number (1001, 1003, etc.) as the parking spot.

Keep in mind that if a call is parked for longer than four minutes it will ring back the device that was used to park it. While the call is parked, the remote party will hear a ring back tone.

Follow the instructions below to park a call.

Call Park from an IP phone that supports programmable buttons

  1. Either press the programmable button assigned to the parking spot you wish to use or follow the instructions for an IP phone below to park a call in a custom parking spot.

Call Park from an IP phone without programmable buttons

  1. Press the Transfer button.
  2. Press *41, followed by the parking spot number (the number that will be used to retrieve the call) and the # key. For example, to park a call for extension 1002 you will need to dial the following sequence: *411002#.
  3. If you are using a Cisco IP phone, press Transfer again. Otherwise, Hang up the phone.

You can retrieve a parked call by following the instructions here.