I’ve got a garage full of AT&T / Lucent / Avaya “Partner” office phone gear that I got as a donation and I need to find out how to make it all work.
I looked around, but I can’t seem to find any straightforward “plug this into that” installation info, nor anything about how to configure it. Everything seems to be more along the lines of “Ask your telecommunication specialist to do it.”
I’m doing this for a non-profit group, so it’s not immediately economically feasible to call “Bob’s House o’ Phones and Fancy Ring-a-Dings” and ask them to come out and sort out the bits. What I’d like to get running initially is three incoming lines and five phones. In the future, once wire gets run to the rest of the building, probably eight or ten phones.
What I’ve been able to sort out so far is that I’ve got fifteen phones and enough expansion blades for at least eight incoming lines and 28 phones.
Is it possible for a mere mortal to assemble one of these things?
You might try contacting the Communications Workers of America union. They have locals in both San Francisco & Oakland. These are the professionals who install these kinds of systems. For a non-profit, you might find someone there who would donate a few hours of advice to you on how to set up this system.
Giving this one bump…
CWA has been less than helpful - the person I spoke with made it sound like I should just grap a phone book and call telecom installers until I find a friendly one.
I’m about ready to just order a Partner ACS manual and have a go at it.
I’m just surprised at how an office phone system can be so popular, but instructions on even the basic stuff like how to use it and how to set the time are so scarce. It’s almost like Lucent / Avaya stepped back in time 50 years to the age when Ma Bell was omnipotent and shared nothing with anyone.
You might find what you need here:
https://support.avaya.com/japple/css/japple?PAGE=Product&temp.productID=107628
Specifically under the “Administration and System Programming” heading. I have never supported the partner system, but I have worked on it’s more advanced siblings, the Definity line. I know that for the Definity PBX line the documentation available on the support.avaya.com site is pretty good.
Perfect! It took some wading, but I now have what I need.
I just to break myself of calling the things “blades” and a “chassis” rather than “modules” and a “5-slot carrier.” 
Last night I set up the ACS processor and a 308EC, plugged in a couple phones and gave it a successful “smoke test” - the magic smoke remained inside the equipment, so it passed. 