Wouldn’t it be convenient to get a text message whenever a voice mail was left for you at work?

One of our sales guys was out of the office but on the phone a lot, and he couldn’t get his email notifications of voice messages at the office. Normally he would just check his email on a smartphone, but he doesn’t have a data package! Here’s a way around that situation.

Your BC200 emails you whenever you get a voicemail – mine goes to my Gmail account. I set up a filter that says “If the subject contains ‘voicemail,’ forward it to ‘myphonenumber@mycellcarrier.com.’ It’s pretty simple – here’s the whole process:

1. Someone leaves a voicemail on the BC200.
2. The BC200 emails my Gmail account, saying I have a voicemail.
3. Gmail forwards that email to my cellphone carrier.
4. My cellphone carrier sends an SMS message to my phone.

Data packages cost money, but most cell companies offer free incoming SMS messages.

I hope this little tip helps you make the most of your BC200. Until next time,

- Dave.

There have been some stories recently about power outages and brownouts affecting local businesses, and I go to thinking about the importance of keeping communications up and available. Of course, we have a UPS on each of our servers and essential desktops, but we hadn’t protected our phone system. One brainstorming session later and we have the fix.

I went down to the local tech shop and bought another UPS. The higher the capacity of the UPS, the longer we can keep our communications up for. This is for the Business Central 200 and our internet gateway. I found out recently that most Polycom phones can be powered by the BC200 over their Ethernet cable. If I just don’t plug in the phone’s power adapter, it will automatically switch to receiving power over Ethernet (PoE). Now our UPS will keep our gateway, BC200, and phones up in an outage.

All Polycom phones made in the last two years are compatible with PoE. Some older models will be as well, but there’s no easy way to tell by looking at them. Just leave the phone connected to the BC200, disconnect the power adapter and see if it remains on. Most Polycom phones are cheaper to buy without the power adapter, too.

Using PoE while connecting your gateway and BC200 to a dedicated UPS will keep your communications up during a power outage. That’s it for this topic, so I’m going to go and take some unneeded wall power adapters to the recyclers.

-Dave.

First things first. I bought a Grandstream HandyTone-286 VoIP-Analog phone adapter. I needed a length of Ethernet cable, another of telephone cable, and an available power outlet. I put the phone in the lobby and connected it with the telephone cable to the HandyTone. I then connected the HandyTone to the Business Central with Ethernet cable, and the power adapter to the wall outlet.

Connecting a HandyTone 286 to Business Central

I went to my computer and opened Sutus Business Central Manager. Systems Administrator access is needed for the setup, so make sure you have your password handy. Business Central will recognise that there’s a new phone on the network and assign it to the default workspace – usually Reception. Business Central won’t know the manufacturer or model of this phone, though; it will come up as ‘Grandstream HandyTone-286.’ I created a new shared workspace called Lobby, assigned the phone, disabled voicemail, enabled Call Restrictions and clicked on ‘Save Changes.’

You have to reboot the HandyTone after setting it up with the Business Central 200. Just unplug it from the power, count to 5, and plug it back in again. When the green light on the Ethernet port is glowing steadily, it’s ready.

I picked up the phone to see if there was a dial tone. There was, so I knew that it could call out. I tested the setup by clicking on the ‘Ring Phone’ button in Business Central Manager. After adjusting the ringer volume on my phone, it was ready to go. I celebrated by calling home to say that I was done early.

The whole project took 10 minutes, and cost me just under $55. The Grandstream HandyTone-286 is about $35, $20 for a phone from the department store, the Ethernet cable came from my parts bin, and the telephone cable came free with the phone.

-Dave.

Well, now you can! If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, the SipPhone on iPhone  ($6.99) from VNetCorp allows you to make and receive office calls from any wireless hotspot, anywhere in the world, without using your regular cellular phone service. Your iPhone becomes an extra office phone that rings when your desk phone does, for free! Think of it as a cordless phone that works while you are in the office and also from any wireless hotspot.

To set up your iPhone as a wireless phone for Business Central

1. First, create a new softphone for your workspace in Business Central Manager

• be sure to write down the SIP user/account (it will look something like ‘10007’)

• also write down the LAN IP address of the your Business Central which can be found under ‘Local Area Network Settings’

**note you will need to be logged in as a Systems Administrator to do steps 1 and 2

2. Download the SipPhone iPhone application through the App Store (search for “SipPhone on iPhone”) and configure it.

1. Open SipPhone, Tap Accounts, then Tap Edit.

2. Tap ‘+’ and you should see the following:

3. Tap Domain and enter the LAN IP address that you wrote down earlier.

4. Tap Username and enter the SIP user/account name that you wrote down earlier (for example, 10007.)

5. Tap Password and enter anything as a password; Business Central does not require a password, but SipPhone requires you to enter one.

6. Tap Save, Tap Done, then Tap the on/off toggle button to turn SipPhone on.

3. Now all you have to do is connect your iPhone to your Business Central network. There are three ways to connect:

1. In the office through the Business Central wireless network. See your iPhone instructions for information about setting up the connection.

2. At home, a coffee shop, a hotel, or elsewhere through a wireless hotspot. Connect your iPhone to the wireless hotspot first, then connect to your Business Central through a VPN connection. See your iPhone instructions for information about setting up PPTP VPN connections.

3. At a remote office through an IPsec VPN router. Simply connect a wireless access point to the VPN router and then connect wirelessly from your iPhone, just like you were in the office.

That’s it! You can now make and receive your Business Central calls through your iPhone or iPod Touch.

NOTE: To use SipPhone on an iPod Touch, you will also need a microphone or a headset with a microphone.

NOTE: If you do not have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can use a Polycom SpectraLink 8002 wireless phone in the office. To receive calls outside the office, you can also forward your calls to any external phone through your workspace’s incoming call flow.

For those of you looking for an easy to use webmail option to go along with your Sutus Business Central, try out ‘Mail2Web‘ from SoftCom Technology Consulting, Inc.

Super simple to use, Mail2Web fits nicely with our vision for uncomplicating technology. Just go to the website ‘http://mail2web.com‘, enter in your Business Central username and password and Voila! you have webmail access to your Sutus email! (a nice bonus is that it also works with any other IMAP mail service you have). 

Their ‘free’ product is full featured, but supported by advertising.

(As always, this is a 3rd party service, we don’t have any relationship with it, and you use any such service at your own risk – make sure you read and agree to their terms of service)