Paging Groups

Paging Groups

A paging group broadcasts live audio to multiple phones at once, like a PA system: dial *80 + the group’s extension, speak after the beep, and every member phone auto-answers on speakerphone and plays your voice. Hang up and all speakers disconnect.

Nova PBX → Collaboration → Paging Groups lists every group with its extension, member count, page mode, type, and status.

Related pages: Feature Codes · Extensions · Parking Lots

Paging vs Intercom vs Ring Group

Feature	Dial	Behavior
Paging group	*80 + group ext (e.g. *80720)	All member phones auto-answer on speaker; one-way (or two-way in Intercom mode)
Single-phone intercom	*81 + extension (e.g. *811001)	One target phone auto-answers; private two-way conversation
Ring group	the group’s number	Phones ring normally; one person answers

Use paging when the audience shouldn’t have to pick up; use a ring group when exactly one person should take the call.

Creating a Paging Group

1. Click Add group (top-right).
2. Name the group (e.g. “Warehouse”) and pick its Extension — 3 digits recommended (e.g. 720); it cannot be changed after creation.
3. Choose the Page mode and whether the group is Duplex / Intercom (below).
4. Tick the member extensions in the Members panel — these are the phones that will auto-answer.
5. Click Create group, then push live with Apply Changes.

To page it: pick up any phone and dial *80 + the extension (e.g. *80720). There is no ring phase — members’ phones answer immediately after the confirmation beep.

Zones: one group per area

Create a group per physical zone and one umbrella group for everything:

Group	Ext	Members
Warehouse	720	Dock + packing-station phones
Office All-Page	721	Every desk phone
Front Desk	722	Reception only

Front desk pages the warehouse with *80720 without disturbing the office; emergencies go out on *80721.

Page Mode and Type

Mode	Type	Behavior
Available only	One-way	Idle phones auto-answer and play; busy/DND phones are skipped. The day-to-day setting.
Available only	Intercom	Idle members join a small two-way huddle.
All members	One-way	Every member pages — interrupting phones already on calls. Reserve for emergency broadcasts.
All members	Intercom	Everyone in, everyone can talk — effectively an instant open conference.

Caution

All members mode barges into in-progress calls. Use it only for groups whose purpose is critical broadcast (evacuation, fire drill).

Managing Members

Members are plain checkboxes on the group’s edit page — tick to add, untick to remove, Save changes, then Apply Changes. The list shows every extension in the tenant with its display name; the header counts current selections.

Behavior Notes

• Phones answer via SIP auto-answer. Phones provisioned through SIPSTACK are configured for this; manually-configured phones may need their auto-answer/intercom setting enabled in the phone’s own UI.
• One-way pages don’t let members talk back; flip Duplex / Intercom on if they should.
• Pages are not recorded and never go to voicemail.
• The *80 code is internal-only. If you need an external caller to trigger a page, point an inbound route’s destination at the paging group — and treat that DID as carefully as a microphone to your whole floor.

Troubleshooting

• A phone didn’t auto-answer — it’s busy/DND with mode “Available only”, or the phone model needs auto-answer enabled, or the change hasn’t been Applied yet.
• Page is silent on some phones — speakerphone volume on the member device.
• *80… plays “invalid” — wrong group extension, the group is Disabled, or staged changes were never applied.