Parking Lots

Parking Lots

Call parking holds a live caller in a numbered slot that anyone in the office can pick up from any phone — a hand-off without a formal transfer. The classic flow:

1. Reception answers a call for “John in accounting”.
2. Reception transfers the call to the lot’s park extension (e.g. 710).
3. The system answers back with the slot: “…parked at 711”.
4. Reception announces it — over a paging group, or by walking over: “John, pick up 711”.
5. John dials *85711 (*85 + slot) from any phone and is connected to the caller.

Nova PBX → Collaboration → Parking Lots lists every lot with its park extension, slot range, timeout, and hold-music class.

Video

Watch on YouTube ↗

Screenshot

Related pages: Feature Codes · Paging Groups · Music on Hold

Park and Retrieve Reference

Action	How	Example
Park the active call	Transfer (blind transfer is fine) to the lot’s park extension	Transfer → 710
Retrieve a parked call	Dial *85 + the slot number from any phone	*85711

While parked, the caller hears the lot’s hold music. An empty slot dialed via *85 plays a “no call parked” message.

Creating a Lot

The platform usually starts with one default lot; add more only to give teams separate slot namespaces.

1. Click Add lot (top-right).
2. Configure:
   • Name — e.g. “Main Lot”.
   • Park extension — where staff transfer calls to park them (e.g. 710). Cannot be changed after creation.
   • Slot start / Slot end — the retrieval slot numbers (e.g. 711–714 = up to 4 simultaneously parked calls).
   • Slot assignment — Next available (cycles through the range) or First slot (always fills from the lowest free slot).
   • Timeout — 30–3600 seconds a call may wait before the fallback fires. 60–180s suits most teams.
   • On timeout — Return to parker (rings the phone that parked the call — the usual choice) or Hang up.
   • Music on hold class — what parked callers hear.
3. Click Create lot, then push live with Apply Changes.

Slot Ranges and Overlap Rules

Slot numbers are a shared namespace per tenant, so Switchboard validates lots against each other and rejects conflicts with a clear error:

• Slot ranges may not overlap between lots (711–714 and 713–720 is rejected).
• No two lots may share a park extension.
• A park extension may not fall inside any lot’s slot range (and vice versa) — the park number and the retrieval numbers must stay distinct.
• Within one lot, slot start must be less than slot end.

A clean multi-lot layout keeps each lot’s park extension adjacent to its range:

Lot	Park Ext	Slots
Main Lot	710	711–714
Sales Lot	715	716–718

Separate lots keep announcements unambiguous (“sales, pick up 716”) and let each team have its own timeout and hold music.

Timeout Behavior

If nobody retrieves the call before the timeout, the fallback fires — by default the call rings back the person who parked it, so parked callers are never silently stranded. Keep timeouts modest: a caller parked for five minutes usually hangs up first.

Troubleshooting

• Transfer to the park extension fails — confirm the park extension is right (transfer to 710, not to a slot number — slots only retrieve), the lot is Active, and changes were Applied.
• *85 + slot plays “no call parked” — the caller hung up while parked, the timeout already returned the call, or someone else grabbed it first.
• “Slot range overlaps…” when saving — another lot already owns part of that range; pick a free block (the error names the conflicting lot).