I want my customers to get a hold of my people easily. Isn’t it frustrating to have to remember two or three business phone numbers just to talk to one person? Get a competitive edge and make your people easy to contact by optimizing your Call Flow.

Case 1 – The Mobile Employee

Jim, our service tech, usually works offsite, but in town. He starts and ends his day at the office, so he needs to be contactable, but he doesn’t want to give out his cell numbers to clients. When somebody calls Jim’s extension, the BC200 will ring his desk phone first, in case he is in the office, and then forward the call to his cell phone using an external line.

Case 2 – He’s Overseas

Daniel, our traveling sales agent, is often out of the country, and he’d like to have an ‘office phone’ while overseas. Calling his extension here will ring his desk phone and his softphone (communications software that acts like a telephone) at the same time. If he doesn’t answer, the caller will be directed to the Auto-Attendant. The caller will think he is in the office down the street, but he’ll really be in Germany, connected to our BC200 with a VPN! As a bonus, the VPN allows him secure access to his email, the internet connection in the office, shared documents, and even the office printer.

Case 3 – Her desk is here, but she works over there…

Renata is a designer, but she spends a lot of time collaborating with Jean in the production department. She needs to be available wherever she is. Here, the BC200 will direct the incoming call to Renata’s desk phone, then ring Jean’s phone in the engineering department, and then terminate the call back at Renata’s voicemail.

Case 4 – Like a Pager

Dr. Beesie doesn’t want to take non-emergency calls while in the clinic, but she wants to get messages. In this case, the BC200 doesn’t ring a phone – it just terminates the call at her voicemail. The good doctor can then return her calls as time permits. (Using the last tip, we could forward the notification emails to her cell phone… just to give you a few ideas!)

Case 5 – Anyone Will Do

Our tech support department has many workers – Bill, Steve, and Eric, to name just three – and they can all help our clients. Someone calling Bill will ring his desk phone, then to all the phones in the Tech Support shared workspace, and then to the voicemail for the tech support shared workspace.

Set It Up.

Here’s how to do it. Call flows are editable under the Edit Workspace tab – just double click the workspace name, select Phone Service, and choose Incoming Call Flow. We can have up to three sequential destinations for an incoming call. Each destination can be a physical phone, a softphone, a forwarding number, a voice mailbox, or the Auto-Attendant. Just start at the top of the page and work down, and that’s the order the BC200 will follow when it receives a call.

So, what’s the secret? There really isn’t one. We need to remember that the BC200 frees us from the old idea that ‘each phone has one extension number, and that’s that.’ Just give your clients one extension, and let the BC200 and your Call Flow keep you in touch wherever you are! Have any questions? Just call me at the office, and I’ll be there… or will I?

-Dave.

Commonly found in retail environments as well as those with an outdoor area, overhead paging offers the ability to make a public announcement over a speaker by using the phone on your desk. Think of situations like grocery stores or markets that need to call out for an additional teller to be added from somewhere in the back, or a car dealership or a lumberyard where they need to let someone outside know that there is a call waiting for them inside; they all need overhead paging systems.

Business Central has a couple of ways to deliver overhead paging, both of them a snap to setup. If you need a quick and easy paging system, simply find a pair of regular old amplified speakers that you would normally use with your computer and plug them in to the audio out port on your Business Central 200.

Once they’re plugged in, dial ‘**’ from any Polycom phone and enjoy the sweet sound of your first paging message!

For a more robust and flexible paging system, plug just about any analog overhead paging system into the audio out port and the same dialing ‘**’ from any phone will trigger the overhead paging – does it get any easier?

You will need a 3.5mm stereo or mono audio cable to make this work and each paging system is different and will require its own specific configuration, but getting it to work with the ‘audio-out’ port on the BC200 will not be a challenge.

Let us know if you are using overhead paging and how it is working for you!