A main attendant is an attendant that can be reached directly by callers who dial through your switch. This attendant can answer your company's main telephone, or an individual department's main telephone. It must be associated with an extension that is administered on the switch.
The Edit Local Subsciber page; Automated Attendant section example shows the administrative entries for setting up this type of main automated attendant.
For this example, the automated attendant is set up to answer the company's main telephone. It offers callers the option of leaving a message for the sales department; transferring to the accounting, personnel, or payroll departments by pressing a number; dialing any internal extension that begins with 3; or transferring to a receptionist. If the caller does not respond within 5 seconds (perhaps because the caller has a rotary telephone), the call is transferred automatically to the receptionist.
If the caller chooses to transfer to accounting or personnel, the caller immediately hears the call answer greeting active for the mailbox associated with extension 37200 or 37300. The caller is not transferred through the switch because of the call answer treatment. Finally, to repeat this menu, callers can press 9.
Switch administration determines when calls are routed to the main attendant's extension. For example, the switch can be administered to route all incoming calls to this extension instead of to a receptionist, or to only route calls to this extension after normal business hours or during busy periods.