When a call is on hold you do not want the caller to listen to silence. Unfortunately, with VoIP systems it can sometimes be confusing where the hold music is generated and how to make it available to the device or program managing the call. Axon supports on-hold music in a couple different ways, depending on how your system is configured. You will first need to make some modifications to guarantee that on-hold music is played when an individual is put on hold.

In general, Axon will play on-hold music to the other end of a call when the call is ringing on (or being transferred to) a group extension or a call is put in the Call Park queue. When a softphone or IP phone is placed on hold, it will generally handle playing on-hold music itself.

Axon can play an on-hold music file (chimes) or it can work with IMS On-Hold Messages Player to provide a mix of music and messages to the other half of a call.

For each group in Axon you can set up different on-hold music. This will allow calls to a sales line to hear different hold music/messages from a customer service line. For information on setting up hold music see the Group Extensions section of Extensions & Groups. Calls placed in the Call Park queue will use the default IMS player if it can be discovered. Otherwise it will play the default on-hold music (chimes).

The LinkSys SPA9XX series of phones (along with many other IP phones) uses the concept of an on-hold extension to play on-hold messages. Basically, when a call is placed on hold the phone will place a call to the on-hold extension and play the incoming audio to the other side of the call that is on hold. IMS supports running as an on-hold extension, and should register itself with Axon automatically if they are running on the same computer.

Before you begin setting up your on hold extension you will need to gather the following:

• The IP address of the computer running Axon
• The port number that Axon runs SIP on (e.g. 5060)
• The extension number that IMS is registered to (this will generally be 197 if using Axon and IMS together)

1. Obtain the phone's IP address:
   

   To find the phone's IP address, press the settings button on the phone (look for an icon of a paper with a folded corner). Using the arrow buttons, scroll through the settings menu to the Network option and press Select. Write down the Current IP address.

2. Set up the On-Hold extension:
   
   • In your browser's address bar, enter the phone's IP address. This will bring up the Linksys Telephone Configuration screen.
   • Click the 'Admin Login' link from the upper right corner. Enter your password if prompted for one. If this is your first time logging into the administration screen, no password should be required.
   • Click the 'Advanced' link in the upper right corner.
   • Click the tab for the line that will connect to an on-hold extension in Axon. (e.g. "Ext 1" for the first line) You will have to repeat the following steps for each extension tab you want to enable hold music on.
   • Locate the 'Call Feature Settings' section and change the 'MOH Server' setting to match your extension. This will be in a format like 'extension@axonserver:port'.
     Example: For extension 197, connecting to Axon at 1.2.3.4 over the standard SIP port (5060) the value for this field would be '197@1.2.3.4:5060'.
   • Click the 'Submit All Changes' button.

Setting up Express Talk for use with IMS is very similar to configuring it in Axon. Refer to the help documentation for Express Talk for more specific information.