Add Shared Line Appearance Keys

With 8x8 Shared Line Appearance (SLA) keys, you can share a phone line with another team member or your boss. Receive calls intended for another user and place calls on their behalf using their phone number, but from the convenience of your device. Whether you are covering for your boss or a team member who is away from their desk, you can simply use the SLA key on your desk phone to receive as well as make calls on their behalf.

For example, Lisa who is an executive assistant for Rob needs to handle his calls when he is away from his desk or is busy. On Lisa's device, you can set up a shared line appearance key which allows Lisa to push a button and not only answer incoming calls for Rob but place calls on his behalf. She can handle Rob's calls from the convenience of her desk.

Note: You can only have one SLA key for each selected user. If you are part of a group that takes calls for a store, this prevents you from managing concurrent calls via multiple shared lines per person.

SLAs must be added from the 8x8 Admin Console and pushed to the phone device.

Features

With SLA keys, you can collaborate better with your colleagues and engage better with your clients. You can:

• Monitor the call status of team members: As a team manager, John can observe the SLA keys on his desk phone to see when Rob, Lisa, and Sarah in his team make and answer business calls on the lines they share with him.
• Make important calls on behalf of a manager: As John's assistant, Rob can make calls using his shared line with John to speak with business contacts on John's behalf when John is busy or unavailable.
• Answer calls for absent colleagues: Sarah is on sick leave, but she's been working closely with Lisa, who can speak for both of them about their recent project. Until Sarah returns, Lisa answers calls for her.
• Place calls on hold on one shared device, and pick up from another: Lisa has received a call that only her teammate Rob can answer. Lisa places the call on hold on their shared line, and asks Rob to pick it from his phone to continue the call.

Note: Sidecars do not support Shared Line Appearance keys.

Limitations

• Sidecars do not support SLA keys.
• You can only have one SLA key for each selected user. For example, you can have one SLA key with Lisa and a second key with Rob, but you cannot have two SLA keys with Lisa.
  If you are part of a group that takes calls for a store, this would prevent you from managing large numbers of concurrent calls via multiple shared lines per person.
• When you drag and drop to assign a place for SLA keys:
  • You must place SLA keys before Busy Lamp Field (BLF) and Speed Dial keys.
  • At this time, you cannot remove the current user’s line from position 1 on the phone.
• When you answer a call via the 8x8 Work for Desktop or 8x8 Work for Mobile, your shared line with other users does not show up as busy on a call.

Set Up Shared Line Keys

You can add a device that supports SLA keys, activate the device, and set up the SLA keys via the Users page.

To set up SLA keys:

1. Go to Home > Users.
2. Edit or create a user. See how to Add VO Users.

3. Under Voice Basic Settings > Device model, select a device that supports Line Keys, and activate it. The Line key configuration link appears next to the device.

   Note: The link only appears for devices that support Line Keys, such as VVX 300. Please refer to the list of 8x8 supported phones for Line Keys.

4. Click Line Key configuration.
   You find access to three types of keys: BLF key, Speed dial key, and Line appearance.
5. Click + Line appearance.
6. Select Line appearance - Shared line as the type. For devices that support both LAK and SLA, upon exceeding the limit for line appearance keys, SLA is the only option available to you.
7. Select a user to appear on the line key appearance. You can search by first name, last name, and email.
8. Click Save.
   The SLA key appears on the list with a green bar indicator. Hover over next to each key to drag and drop and rearrange the keys.
   
9. Click to Save the Shared Line Appearance key.
   
10. Click to Save the user.
    You see the new SLA key on your phone once you save the changes in the application. The phone reboots automatically to show the updates. Your SLA keys appear on the phone display, and give you the ability to handle calls for the selected devices.
    

Edit Shared Line Keys

You can add, edit or delete SLA keys from the Users or Devices pages.

To edit SLA keys from the Users page:

1. Go to Home > Users.
2. While editing a user, go to Voice Basic Settings > Device model > Line key configuration.
3. Make the required changes and click Save.

To edit SLA keys from the Devices page:

1. For a quick and easy access to the Line Key configuration page, go to Home > Devices.
2. Find an activated device that supports Line Keys and is assigned to one. Click View device report.
3. Click next to the device that is configured with Line Keys.
4. Make the required changes and click Save.

FAQ

Refer to the following frequently-asked questions for more information: