A nested attendant is an attendant that is invoked by another attendant. The nested attendant can also be a main attendant. That is, the extension can be reached directly by internal and external callers who dial the extension number directly.
For example, callers who dial the accounting department's extension directly can hear voice options from a main attendant for that department, as can callers who transfer to the accounting department by pressing 4 at the main menu in the previous example. The accounting department's attendant is said to be nestedbeneath the company's main menu.
Additional menus can be nested beneath the accounting department's attendant, such as for transferring to the payroll or accounts receivable desk.
To administer an automated attendant system that contains nested attendants, you must start from the bottom, or deepest, layer and work your way backwards to the main or higher-layer attendant that will contain it. For instance, to administer the menu system described in the example below, you must define and administer the accounting department automated attendant before defining and administering the main automated attendant.
A good approach to setting up nested automated attendants is to diagram the complete system on paper, including telephone keypad options and their corresponding menu or call treatment. You might also want to write the scripts for the menu greetings at this time. Once you are satisfied with the structure of your menu tree, start administering the tree from the last layer, and continue backwards until you reach and administer the main automated attendant.
A simple example of this application is shown below. In this example, pressing 2 at the main menu transfers the caller to the accounting department's attendant, and pressing 3 at that attendant transfers the call to the payroll department's extension.
| Attendant | Button | Extension | Treatment | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| main | 2 | 52200 | call-answer | go to accounting attendant |
| accounting | 3 | 52205 | transfer | transfer to payroll extension |
To the caller, this nesting is transparent because the nested attendant is invoked immediately by the system without transferring the caller through the switch. The caller in this example hears the main attendant options, presses 2 to transfer to accounting, hears the accounting department attendant options, and presses 3 to transfer to the payroll extension without the delay that is associated with transferring back through the switch.