Posts Tagged 'Phones'

Distinctive Ringtones

Published January 28, 2010 Feature Highlights , New 4 Comments
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Hi everyone,

Something new this week! Sutus has released their newest software update (version 1.7.1 available upon request starting today), and I heard about a few new features that seem promising. I’ll be sending out some articles on these over the next while, but today I’m going to introduce Distinctive Ringtones.

I can hear the groans already. “But we can already choose the ringtones on our phones! Why is this news?” Actually, this is much better than just selecting a distinctive ring for your own phone. It’s more like audible CallerID – any call for a specific workspace will ring with the same ringtone, regardless of which physical phone it is.

It’s simple to use. Let’s go into Business Central Manager and get to work. Once you’ve entered your password, click on the “Manage Workspaces,” then highlight the name of the workspace to modify, click on “Edit Properties,” then “Phone Service,” and lastly “Incoming Call Flow.” You can select the ringtone under the “Ring Type” dropdown menu. The default is to use the ring type selected on the phone, but this can override that selection. Also, I can change my own settings as well as the settings for groups that I’m in.

This works in tandem with the Call Flow feature to ‘announce’ the destination of a call, whether it is for a specific person or a specific department. Sometimes a caller wants to speak to Jill, and sometimes they want to speak to someone in Support. We can ring the same physical phone with a different tone for each of these situations.

Imagine a room used for planning and design. There might be 5 or 6 phones in the room, and lets say that they are in the call flows for personal workspaces as well as shared ones. When a phone rings, everyone needs to check to see if it is their phone, and they also need to see if it is a call that concerns them. Running back and forth to check the call display can really disrupt the creativity of this team! However, if there is a different ring for each of the people or teams present, those not concerned with the call can just ignore it.

As you can see, this makes it pretty easy to find out who the call is for when you are close to, but not looking at, the phone. I should warn you, though, that this only works with Polycom phones, not the Handy-Tone or softphones.

This is available as a limited release, so if you’re interested, just drop a line to the Sutus Support team at support@sutus.com

-Dave.

One Number to Call Them

Published January 14, 2010 Feature Highlights Leave a Comment
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Hi everyone,

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.

Using the Reception Workspace

Published October 20, 2009 Feature Highlights Leave a Comment
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Hi everyone,

I was speaking with the Sutus support team, and they mentioned that there is sometimes confusion about what the default Reception workspace is for, why it is included, and how it can be used effectively.

The Reception workspace, for the most part, is like all other shared workspaces: it allows its members to share access to files, emails and phone calls. Also, all members of Reception can configure the behavior of that shared workspace; what happens when someone calls (the incoming call flow) or when someone emails reception (email forwards/alias). Reception has two other benefits that normal shared workspaces do not have:

  1. It is the default destination for all external incoming calls.
  2. Its members have the added ability to record the Auto-Attendant greeting.

Now that we have an idea of why and how the Reception shared workspace is used by the company, we should look at how shared workspaces help administrators manage their system. The first and foremost benefit is that it allows for role-based configuration. For most companies, it does not matter which employee is currently acting as the receptionist. Calls and emails will normally be handled in the same way by all receptionists.

Imagine, for example, that your receptionist, Bob, is leaving the company and will be replaced by a new employee, whom we will call Jill. By using the Reception shared workspace to handle the role of the receptionist, all you will need to do is:

  1. delete Bob’s workspace, because he has left the company,
  2. create a new personal workspace for Jill, and
  3. add Jill to the Reception shared workspace.

However, if the Reception shared workspace was not being used, the administrator would need to:

  1. create a new personal workspace for Jill,
  2. write down Bob’s configuration, including call flow, email settings, and the like,
  3. forward all of Bob’s non-personal email to Jill,
  4. copy all of Bob’s non-personal files to Jill,
  5. forward all of Bob’s non-personal voice mails to Jill,
  6. delete Bob’s workspace,
  7. edit Jill’s workspace configuration to be the same as Bob’s,
  8. edit the callflow of all GW310 line’s to use Jill’s callflow, and
  9. edit the callflow of your VoIP provider to use Jill’s callflow.

Ouch. That is a lot of work.

In the second example, the role of reception was attached to a personal workspace. Moving this role to a new personal workspace requires a lot of customized configuration. In the first example, the role of the reception is attached to a shared workspace. This means that just the members change, not the workspace configuration! Jill will automatically have access to all of the reception email, files and phone calls that Bob had received during his time as the receptionist.

Using a shared workspace to manage roles applies to other positions in your office such as support, sales or accounting. By creating shared workspaces to handle each role, employees (personal workspaces) can move between roles and even share multiple roles.

The other benefit for installers is that all incoming calls go to a known place by default. This means that there is no configuration required if a new GW310 PSTN gateway or VoIP provider is added to the system. This is because the default behavior is to direct all of the phone lines to Reception’s incoming call flow. This makes new equipment installation easier and faster by reducing the number of configuration steps required.

That’s pretty much it for this week. Shared workspaces, in particular the Reception shared workspace, are pretty powerful tools. They can simplify the administration and day to day usage of your Business Central.

-Dave.

Call Parking Saves Time

Published August 26, 2009 Feature Highlights Leave a Comment
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Talking with receptionists can give a lot of information about how to configure a Business Central 200 for optimum usage. Something that I found to be quite flexible is the Call Park and Retrieve feature. There are two main reasons to use call parking, also called system hold, instead of local hold.

Call Park

When a customer calls the office, the receptionist greets them and asks who they’d like to speak to. They then put the customer on local hold, notify the intended recipient, and connect the call to the recipient. This is the traditional method, and as you can see, it’s quite labour-intensive. It requires the recipient to be at their normal telephone extension and available for the call, it requires the receptionist to shepherd the call through various phone numbers, and only the receptionist can connect the call to the recipient. Local hold can only be cancelled by the phone that initiated it!

However, Sutus has simplified this procedure with their implementation of call parking. The receptionist can park the call while they page the recipient. The recipient can then unpark the call from any convenient phone. They recipient can be near any phone in the company, and the receptionist doesn’t need to make the connection. Paging is easy, too: “Accounting, call in stall one, please!”

There’s another common scenario that really makes call park stand out. Imagine that you’re at your desk when you receive a call. Perhaps this call is private, or involves personal information. You don’t want to have this conversation where your colleagues can listen in, so you move to a private conference room. Park the call and find an empty conference room. Unpark the call when you arrive, and have your conversation in peace. Imagine the past – put the call on hold, find an empty conference room, go back to your desk and transfer the call, run to the conference room and take the call. Two trips to the conference room, plus a longer time on hold for the caller – the Business Central helps us with a win-win solution.

In addition, when the receptionist puts people on hold, there’s no way of seeing a list of the callers, which receptionist put them on hold, or their destinations. With the Call Park feature, any Polycom IP phone can display the list of parked calls, with their source number, destination number, and who the call was parked by as well.

Call Parking is a simple feature, to be sure, but it has strong advantages over the way putting calls on hold used to be done. Efficient, convenient, and effective.

- Dave.