Call Answering Rules | Planning for Unified Messaging

Call Answering Rules or Personal Auto Attendants allow your users to create and customize rules to enhance the experience that callers have when their calls are answered. For example, the call answering rules can include features such as special greetings by contact or time of the day. Using call answering rules, the caller can for example decide to:

• Leave a voice message for the UM-enabled user.
  
  
• Transfer to an alternate contact of the UM-enabled user.
  
  
• Transfer to an alternate contact's voice mail.
  
  
• Transfer to other phone numbers that the UM-enabled user configures.
  
  
• Use the Find-Me feature or locate the UM-enabled user via a supervised transfer.

Your UM-enabled users can configure up to eight call answering rules in OWA Options or ECP, as shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Configuring Call Answering rules

Call answering rules consist of conditions, a greeting and menu, and actions. You can configure call answering rules in Outlook Web App Options.

Condition

The following conditions for call answering rules are available:

• If the caller is: calling from a phone number, this specific contact, or in my contacts folder.
• If it is during this period: working hours or nonworking hours to a specific time defined.
• If the user's schedule shows a status of: free, tentative, busy, or away.
• If you turn on automatic replies, such as when you turn on an automatic Out of Office message.

Greeting and Menu

Greeting and Menu is the area where the caller can take specific actions that users predefine. For example, after hearing a greeting that you previously recorded, you can provide a prompt so that the caller can dial you at home.

Note

When the users create their greetings, they have to take care of the entire caller menu—the auto attendant will no longer prompt the caller.

Actions

Actions define the tasks that occur when callers choose specific menu selections. You can select the following actions:

• Find Me At The Following Numbers Defines a recording text, the number key to press to transfer, and enables you to call two phone numbers for a specific time.
  
  
• Transfer The Call To Defines a recording text, the number key to press to transfer, and either a phone number or a contact—or indicates that the call should transfer directly to voice mail.
  
  
• Leave A Voice Message Directly transfers the caller to voice mail.