Hosted PBX Auto Attendant Tutorial Print

Introduction

Your new Hosted PBX Automated Attendant gives you the capability to help your callers reach the people or information they require quickly and easily, 24 hours per day. Hosted PBX Automated Attendant greets your callers with a set of options that correspond to keys on the telephone keypad. Based on the options you present to your callers, Hosted PBX Automated Attendant can route calls to specific people, groups of people in order or at the same time, provide outgoing information and much more. Your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant number can even become your fax number. 

This tutorial will guide you through the process of setting up your new Hosted PBX Automated Attendant to meet your specific business needs.

As you use this tutorial to learn about the various features of your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant and how to configure them, you will need to develop an idea of how you want the system to answer your calls and which options you want to provide to callers. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind when setting up your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant:

• How will your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant route calls?
• Which people within your company do you want to be reachable through this Hosted PBX Automated Attendant?
• What outgoing information do you want to provide to callers?
• Do you want callers to be able to Dial by Name or Dial by Extension to reach employees?
• Will you want different options played to callers after hours?
• Will it be necessary to create a Weekly Schedule that automatically activates different Menus based on time of day and day of week?

Login

In order to setup and manage your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant, you must login. Once logged in, you will be able to setup and modify your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant, listen to voicemail, view faxes, and manage other aspects of your service such as changing your PIN, and viewing your billing and call history. Additionally, you may access several features of your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant such as voicemail and faxes through any touch tone phone.

Web Interface
Go to CONTROL PANEL> Services > Voice Services > Numbers&Extensions > Auto Attendant

Phone Interface

1. Dial your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant Phone number
2. Enter your PIN over the initial ring or the greeting (either the temporary, system- generated greeting or a greeting you have previously recorded).
3. Once you have entered your PIN, you are in command mode where you may listen to voicemail, access Faxes and record greetings.

Menu

Your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant can direct your callers to any phone number, outgoing message, additional Menu, or group of phone numbers.

You set up a Menu of choices, and the caller selects the appropriate choice, for example:

Bulletin

Your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant has the capability to provide your callers with outgoing information (Bulletins). You create and record these Bulletins, which are then played to callers in association with specific Menu choices that voice the recordings. 

Hunt Group

Hunt Groups are ideal for delivering calls to a group of phone number either at the same time, or in a specific order.

In an Ordered Hunt Group, a caller is placed on hold with music while the system rings the numbers for phones that are in a list one at a time, in a specified order. The first person to answer a ringing phone is connected with the caller.

A simultaneous Hunt Group places the caller on hold with music and rings all the phones in a specified list of numbers at the same time. The first person to answer any of the phones is connected with the caller.

Call Queue

Call Queues can be accessed at Hunting/Queing Tab > Call Queue

A Call Queue has the following parameters that can be edited in the Auto Attendant:

1.Name

2.Members
Members are the DPS phones that are assigned to a Call Queue.

3.Hunt Type

• Simultaneous Ring
• Ascending
• Least Recently Used
• Round Robin

4.Wrap-Up Time

• When hanging up a call, this member will stay unavailable until this timer expires.
• The minimum is 1, maximum 300, default 30 seconds.

5.Unanswered Member Idle Time

• If a call rings to an available member and is unanswered, that member will be made unavailable until this timer expires.
• Minimum 0, maximum 600, default is 120 seconds.

6.Max No-Answer Ring Time

• The minimum is 1, maximum 60, default 24 seconds.
• The length of time that members will ring according to their hunt type, before sending the caller to the queue holding pattern

7.Repeating Queue Interval

• The minimum is 0, maximum 120, default 60 seconds.
• The length of time the system waits before playing the Repeating Queue Interval recording again.

8.Queue Timeout

• The minimum is 1, maximum 60, default 5 minutes.
• The maximum amount of time that a caller may hold in the queue. After the Queue Timeout expires, the caller will hear the Queue Timeout recording, and then will be directed to the queue’s timeout action.

9.Max Callers.
The maximum number of callers that may be holding in the queue at once.

10.Call Connecting Recordings. 
All recordings may be set to “No Recording”, “System Recording”, or “Custom Recording”.

11.Call Queue Keypad Options. 
Call queues can be programmed with options that the caller may press to perform different actions, essentially allowing them to “escape” from the queue and be routed somewhere else.

12.Timeout Settings.
This determines where a call will be directed if the caller has already held the line for the defined Queue Timeout time.

Note: call queue members must be logged into the queue in order to receive calls. There are three ways to login or logout:

1. From Auto Attendant control panel, navigate to Queue Members and select Log In or Log Out for the appropriate agent.

   

2. From a queue member's individual control panel, navigate to Queue Availability and select Log In or Log Out.

   

3. From a desk phone, dial *25 to log in or *26 to log out. Wait for the confirmation message to play.

Dial by Extension

Dial by Extension is ideal for helping callers reach specific people within your company, providing the callers know the Extension of the person they wish to reach.

There is another type of extension that can be created in your Auto Attendant - Virtual Extension.
Virtual Extensions can be utilized in the following ways:

Programming a menu option, bulletin option, hunt group option, or timeout in the AA to point to a Virtual Extension
Through the use of the AA's built-in Dial By Extension feature.

Virtual Extensions cannot be utilized any other way, such as:

• Dialing a Virtual Extension directly from a DPS phone 
• Entering a Virtual Extension as a forwarding destination on a DPS phone
• Any other context in which the call is not being processed through the Auto Attendant.
• To exit the Dial By Extension directory and go back to the previous menu, press '#' by itself.

1. Specify a 3-digit number for the Virtual Extension. Valid options are 100-899, excluding 311, 411, 511, 611, 711, and 811.
2. Choose the destination: you can send calls for this extension to either a phone number, or to the Auto Attendant voicemail.
3. Provide a first and last name for this extension ( these fields are used for Dial By Name).

Dial by Name

Dial by Name is ideal for helping callers reach specific people within your company, providing the caller knows the last name of the person they wish to reach.  To exit the Dial By Name directory and go back to the previous menu, press '#' by itself.

Weekly Schedule

The Weekly Schedule allows you to automatically activate specific Menus at predetermined times and days. You may want to present one Menu during business hours, and a different one after hours and on weekends. The Weekly Schedule will automatically activate the Menus you specify at the time and day of the week given for each Menu.

Note: all times in the Weekly Schedule are in your local time zone.

Recording Greetings

Once you have configured your Auto Attendant, you must record greetings for the various Menus and Bulletins you have setup as well as record names for the various extensions (if you intend to use Dial by Name). The following instructions provide you with the steps to record your greetings via the phone and the Web. If you need help with what to say in your greetings, click the Script button associated with each Menu or Bulletin.

You can find the instructions on how to record a greeting at Menu Tab > Menus > Script

Script contains not only the instructions but also the information about the options which your greeting should contain.

Phone Interface
To record a greeting via the phone:

1. Dial your Auto Attendant phone number.
2. Enter your PIN over the initial ring or the greeting 
3. Touch 8 for User Options.
4. Touch 1 to record Greetings.
5. Touch 1 to record a Menu Greeting or Touch 2 to record a Bulletin Greeting.
6. Enter the Menu or Bulletin number.
7. Follow the instructions to record the greeting.
8. Repeat these steps for each greeting you wish to record.

Web Interface
To upload Menu or Bulletin greetings from your computer:

1. Record a Menu or Bulletin greeting using the microphone on your computer. The optimal format is 16-bit, 11,025 Hz, Mono.
2. Save the file as a .wav or .au file.
3. Go to the Menu or Bulletin you wish to upload this greeting for.

        4.Repeat these steps for each Menu or Bulletin.

Note:

• The file name must not contain spaces!
• For the best results on 8-bit mono, the file must be SAVED with a Hz setting of 22,000
• For the best results on 16-bit mono, the file must be SAVED with a Hz setting of 11,000 or 8,000

Call Recording

Two types of Call Recording are available:

• On Demand
• Automatic Call Recording

In order to enable/disable the Call recording login to CONTROL PANEL> Services > Voice Services > Additional Settings:

Once logged in you will be able to :

•Review and accept legal notices regarding the user of call recording
•Enable or disable On-Demand Call Recording globally for all phones
•Enable or disable Automatic call recording for all Attendant Hunt Groups and Call Queues
•Specify custom announcements for start/stop call recording
•Enable or disable Beep Tones for Automatic Call Recording
•Enable or disable to download and forward call recording

Automatic Call Recordings are available under Call Recording tab in your Auto-Attendant. You can search for recordings using several criteria:

• Number
• Group Name
• Time

 You can delete, forward, download the recordings.

 Under the Hunting/Queuing Tab in your Auto Attendant you can check whether call recording is enabled for the Hunt Group/Call Queue:

 and enable/disable it:

Setting Up notifications

To save you time and increase your efficiency, your Hosted PBX Automated Attendant has the ability to notify you of new voicemail and faxes. Notification is available via pager, email, or digital cell phone.

Once logged into the Auto Attendant, click the Personal Info tab > Notification > Enter the email address you want notifications sent to > Choose the format of the notification > Use the test button to send a test notification.

Faxes

Your Auto Attendant has a capability of receiving faxes. If you would like to disable this feature please contact Customer Support.