2 Issues: Voice Mail & Cisco 7940 question

Ok, the voice mail… is it possible to access your voicemail by dialing in from the outside?

And on the cisco phone, when I press a line button it there a way to prefix it with a 9 for outside line so you can pick the line and dial the outside number straight away.?

You can access your voicemail from outside by dialing the voicemail extn at your ivr message.

I am on a shared asterisk server and my calls go straight to my phone, what is the best thing to do in this senario as we do not want a attendant