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Mobile staff members |
The ultimate office Brief They have a general office area, a workshop and an auditorium. Some staff spend long periods out of the office on sales or contract negotiations whilst other staff are out of the office to set-up and operate major outdoor audio-visual displays. Being a technically-oriented company, who are used to programming control-systems to perform a specified task, they knew exactly what they wanted to do and were able to clearly define those needs to the Hytel technician. It still took a few system re-programs to fine-tune the basic concept, but the customer now has a system that allows them to handle their telephone communications the way they want to. None of this is difficult to implement. It's just an example of how one particular company has thought-through their communications requirements and has implemented a system that delivers those requirements. Solution / Operation The Digimail is used as a voicemail system for every extension and as an auto-attendant if the system is night switched. The auto attendant message is changed to suit current major projects they are conducting for clients. Most staff have a company supplied mobile phone. The Digimail is programmed to send a "message waiting" call to selected mobile telephones between 0800 and 2200 Monday to Saturday and from 0900 to 2000 on Sunday. Exchange lines are normally answered by reception with System Call-forward paths set-up to handle any unanswered calls. A night-switch key is used to change the Ringing Position in non-business hours to direct callers to the Digimail auto-attendant menu. By selecting the appropriate menu choice, messages are left in a voicemail box and the nominated mobile telephone is advised that there is a message waiting. The customer deletes (so no messages are sent) or changes the mobile notification number to suit staff-rosters or to particular staff who are handling an event they are organising for a client. The Type-A tone ringer is usually normally switched off, being switched on (with the switch on the front panel of the ringer) only if a few staff members are present, if it is within "normal" business hours, if there is no receptionist present and those staff members are not based at a particular desk (working anywhere between the general office, auditorium and workshop). Call pickup is used to answer an incoming exchange call from any keyset. There are no exchange line keys on any keyset with users dialling "9" to access an exchange line. There is therefore no annoying paging for "Bob, call for you on line 4!". Calls are always transferred to an extension, with call-forwarding directing the caller to a voicemail box. Feature keys are used for system features, call-parking, paging etc. As well as the "all page" paging groups, there are separate paging groups for the general office, workshop area and auditorium . Premises messaging is extensively used because staff cannot see one another from their own office. The messaging lets the calling party know if the called person is in the workshop, auditorium, out of the office etc. DND is used to block calls during meetings. Abbreviated numbers are extensively used for suppliers, venues, part-time contract staff etc. Some extensions have DSS units attached to give them one-touch abbreviated number access. The key labels on the DSS units are colour-coded to organise numbers into defined groups. Directory dialling is used by all staff to locate abbreviated numbers. Toll barring (in conjunction with COS settings) is used to limit outgoing access from keysets in public areas such as the foyer, auditorium etc. The technical support person's extension has been included in a one-member UCD group so that as an "agent" he receives a periodic "call-waiting" message on his LCD panel (and a single ring) indicating the number of waiting calls in the UCD group. Reception transfers calls to the UCD group rather than to his extension number. This is a useful feature to alert him of queued calls waiting for technical support advice. A non-display "hotline" keyset is provided in reception so that visitors can advise of their presence if the receptionist is temporarily away from her desk.
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