A guide on how to create new answering rules, setup time based routing, and allow/block numbers.
Answering rules are the rules on a user that determine what happens when you call that user's extension. By default when you create a new user it will create a default rule that that rings all devices attached to the user for 25 seconds, after which the call will either go to voicemail or hang up (depending on whether the voicemail inbox is enabled or not).
In order to configure answering rules you first need to navigate to the user you want to change the answering rules on. You can navigate to a user on the domain in the domain view, or you can edit your own answering rules in the profile view.
To edit the default answering, click the "Edit" button to the right hand side of the rule, and a configuration page will show up.
1 - Enabled: Turn the rule on or off.
2 - Do Not Disturb: Enabling this, sends all calls to voicemail (or just a busy tone if voicemail is disabled).
3 - Call Screening: Will prompt the inbound caller to record their name before the call is answered, the receiver is then played the recording and given the option to accept or reject the call. Rejected calls go to voicemail.
Call Forwarding
The below rules set where and when the calls route to, it's important to note that you can forward calls to an entire user, or individual devices if you wanted to. For example, if you have a user with 3 devices setup which consist of a Desk Phone, a Mobile Softphone, and a Desktop Based Softphone, you could specifically forward the call to only that user's Mobile Softphone.
4 - Always: Will forward the call to the specified destination no matter what.
5 - On Active: Will forward the call to the specified destination only if ANY of the user's devices are currently on a call already.
6 - When Busy: Similar to on active, only available if "Just ring the user's extension" is ticked.
7 - When Unanswered: Forwards the call if the call isn't answered within a specified amount of time (default is 25 seconds, can be changed on the answering rules front page).
8 - When Offline: Forwards calls when a user is set to offline. Mainly used for disaster recovery, "offline" is referring to when all devices are offline, and a piece of Hardware is considered offline if it unregisters from the platform (such as due to a power/internet outage).
Simultaneous Ring
Simultaneous ring lets you configure multiple devices to ring at once. Select "Include User's Extension" to only ring the user's primary phone extension (see How do I configure a new SIP device/phone? for more information). Select "Ring all user's phones" to ring every device associated with the user.
Underneath is a box where you can enter any other device even if it's not associated with the user, press the green "+" icon to add more devices.
You can even enter phone numbers external from the platform here, such a mobile number. You can click the button with clock icon to the right in order to set a custom call timeout for said device.
The tick box titled "Answer confirmation for offnet numbers" is useful to combat a potential issue with adding external phone numbers. Lets say you added a mobile number to the simultaneous ring that's set to go to voicemail after 10 seconds, if the call isn't answered within 10 seconds then that mobile's voicemail inbox will intercept the call sending the call to the mobile's voicemail. Instead if you tick this box, when you answer the call it plays a message prompting the receiver to "press 1" in order to take the call, if they don't press 1 then nothing happens which stops the voicemail from taking the call.
Time Based Routing
It's also possible to create additional rules that only work at certain times of the day, or on certain days of the year. To do this you first need to create a Time Frame (see How do I configure Time Frames?), the time frame contains the data that determines when the rule will work.
Once you have a time frame select the "Add Rule" button from the "Answering Rules" tab.
From here, set the timeframe you want the rule to use, as well as what routing you want the rule to use.
You will now notice the new answering rule you've just created added to the list of rules. Note the blue "Active" tag next to one of the rules, this dictates the rule that is currently in place. The work hours rule was created to only active between the hours of 9am and 5pm, however this screenshot was taken at 6pm which means it is not active, therefore the default rule has the "Active" tag.
Priority
You will notice that the rules can be rearranged, this is because the rules are evaluated from top to bottom, therefore if you have a 2 rules that are set to run at the same time, it will prioritise the highest rule in the list.
Take the below example:
You can see here we have 2 rules, one is set as "Always", and the other is set as "Work Hours". The "Always" time frame is configured to cover every hour of every day.
Because the "Always" time frame is at the top, the "Work Hours" time frame will never be evaluated by the platform as the highest rule takes priority.
Allow/Block
You can also configure numbers to be allowed or blocked by the user, to see this click the "Allow/Block" button.
From here you will see a window allowing you to add Allowed and Blocked numbers. Enter a number into the desired box and click the "+" icon to add it to the list. You can also tick the "Block Anonymous or Unknown" calls button to blanket ban those types of calls from the user.
A blocked number will just hang up and not ring.
An allowed number is a little more specific, this works with the Do Not Disturb and Call Screening functions of the Answering Rules. Any numbers you specify as "Allowed Numbers" will completely bypass the Do Not Disturb and Call Screening functions of the answering rule and ring through to the user's phones.
If you have a large list of numbers you want to allow/block, click the important button to download a CSV template you can use to upload a batch into the system.
