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Introduction
The Auto Attendant is used to route calls to various destinations, employees within your company, specific groups of employees, voicemail, or other outside numbers – without the assistance of an operator or receptionist. They also provide callers with your company greeting and dialing menu options.
1.
Configuring Auto Attendant Settings
The Auto Attendant has the following modes. Each mode allows you to set up options one through nine, pound (#), and star (*) to present callers with different choices from which to select:
- Business Hours
- After Hours
- Holiday Hours
If calls need to be routed based on the time of day, a preconfigured time schedule will be created by the Consolidated Hosted Voice team. Prior to going live on the Hosted Voice system, this schedule will have been discussed between your system administrator and the Consolidated project manager.
Note: If you need to make a permanent change to your Business Hours’ time schedule, it is recommended to contact the Consolidated Hosted Voice Customer Care team to have those changes made.
You can also configure a company Holiday Schedule to identify the dates of Holidays your company recognizes. On designated Holidays, the Holiday Hours Greeting and menu dialing options are played to callers.
If you require a unique message, greetings can be uploaded to the Consolidated Admin Portal as a .wav file or can be recorded from the Voice Portal.
To configure Auto Attendant settings, follow these steps:
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- Go to the Dashboard and scroll down to Auto Attendants.
- Then select the Settings icon to expand the menu of options.
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- The three modes (Business Hours, After Hours and Holiday Hours) are displayed on three tabs.
2.
Record Custom Greeting (Prior to Install)
Greetings are the dialing options callers hear when they reach your Auto Attendant. For example, “Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Customer Service.” There are two options to use a custom greeting:
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- Record a greeting from the Voice Portal
- After recording the greeting in the Voice Portal, you can log in to the Consolidated Admin Portal to verify that it has been applied.
- From the Dashboard, select Settings next to the Auto Attendant.
- Record a greeting from the Voice Portal
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- From here you can view the current recording and change the greeting.
- Upload a .wav file to the Voice Portal
- To record the greeting for upload, create a new recording by leaving yourself a voicemail and have voice message emailed to you, then save it to your desktop.
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Note: If you have After Hours and Holiday Hours Auto Attendants, you can verify those recordings by selecting on either the After Hours or Holiday Hours tabs.
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- Once you have saved your file on your computer, select Choose File and find the file on your computer.
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- Select Open to upload the file. The new file name will be displayed.
- Select Save to apply your changes. Follow the same procedure to make changes to your After Hours or Holiday Hours Greetings.
- You can also change your greeting with a pre-recorded .wav file.
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Note: Custom pre-recorded greeting files must be saved in C.C.I.T.T u-law settings with 8 kilohertz, 8bit-mono attributes as a .wav file. To save a recording in this format, you may need to use a basic sound recorder.
3.
Editing Dialing Menu Options
The dialing Menu determines which action the Auto Attendant will take when an incoming caller chooses a particular number or symbol on the keypad. For example: “Press 1 for Sales. Press 2 for Customer Service.” As an administrator, you can change your Auto Attendant dialing menu options any time it is necessary. To modify your Dialing Menu, follow these steps:
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- From the Dashboard, select the Settings icon associated with the Auto Attendant to modify. The greeting and the menu dialing options for the Business Hours Auto Attendant is displayed. Select the After Hours tab or Holiday Hours tab to modify those greetings and/or dialing menu options, if necessary.
- To add a menu option, select the Enable first-level extension dialing to allow callers to dial the extension of the party they wish to reach without selecting a menu item first.
Note: If this option is enabled, your greeting should instruct callers that if they know the extension for the party they are trying to reach, they may dial it at any time.
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- The Key Description numbers that can be configured are displayed here. They include numbers zero through nine, Star (*), and Pound (#). Enter the description on the row of the number. For example: Sales.
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- Next, select the action from the drop-down menu. Options include:
- Transfer With Prompt – Callers are sent to a pre-configured User Extension or outside number. As soon as the caller chooses this option, a prompt will play a message before the transfer is placed. If transferring to an extension, it will include the user’s name as recorded in the voicemail box.
- Transfer Without Prompt – Callers are sent to a pre-configured User Extension or outside number. This option will route the caller as soon as it is selected.
- Transfer To Operator – This will redirect callers to a configured operator, who will either receive calls when that option is selected or receive all calls that “time out” when a caller does not choose an option from the Auto Attendant.
- Transfer To Submenu – This selection takes users to another menu for more specific choices. For example, if you have an option in the Auto Attendant for “Sales,” the submenu may contain options for “New Sales” and “Used Sales.” Note: This option is available only for Standard Auto Attendants when Standard Auto Attendant support is enabled.
- Extension Dialing – This action lets callers dial by recipient extension, using the numbers on the keypad.
- Name Dialing – This action permits callers to dial by recipient name, using the letters on the keypad.
- Repeat Menu – If selected, this action will repeat the Greeting and Menu options.
- Exit – This action allows callers to exit the menu system. This will terminate the call.
- Next, select the action from the drop-down menu. Options include:
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- In the Details column, enter the destination to which the call should be transferred. Note: This does not apply if the Name Dialing, Extension Dialing, Repeat Menu, or Exit options are selected.
- Repeat these steps for each keypad number you wish to configure for the Auto Attendant Business Hours Menu.
- Once complete, select Save to save your changes.