Testing Overview

After telephone lines have been installed, and after you create and configure mailboxes for a Pager application, test pager operation using the procedures in this section.

Note: It is very important to test a pager immediately after it is added to a mailbox, since a seemingly minor error in configuration can cause every page to fail. Furthermore, the server can tie up pager ports for a long time dialing invalid paging codes.

Successful vs Unsuccessful Outdialing

The server applies specific criteria to call processing and treats an outdial as successful or unsuccessful accordingly.

Successful Outdialing

If the server encounters speech, other than a lengthy greeting, after outdialing, it considers the call successful.

Successful pages are retried a specified number of minutes apart (the pager interval), for a maximum number of times (the pager frequency). Paging is discontinued when any of the following occurs:

The frequency number is reached
The user listens to all unplayed messages in the mailbox and logs out
The user disables paging

Unsuccessful Outdialing

If the server encounters a Busy or Reorder tone, or a Ring No Answer condition after outdialing, the call is considered unsuccessful. Other examples of unsuccessful calls are if no dial tone is detected, or no tone or voice “greets” the server after the page is made. The server retries the page according to the busy frequency and busy interval.

When the server detects that an “illegal” dial string (that is, a string that does not conform to configuration rules) has been outdialed, it considers the page successful. This prevents the server from continually retrying the page. However, if a dial string is configured incorrectly (that is, it cannot activate the pager), but conforms to pager configuration rules, the server continually retries the page. This is why it is critical to test every pager immediately after configuring is completed.

Note: If you are using answer supervision (the L code) in any of your outdial strings, your outdial is considered a failure unless the server detects a ringing on the line.

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