Auto Attendant is your virtual receptionist or IVR, that can greet all inbound calls and direct the caller to the department they requirer. Example: “Welcome to Our Company if you would like to speak to our customer service team press one, accounts press two….”

With Auto Attendant you can:

• Use time schedules to set when your auto attendant in be active.
• Set a time for response time, before the Auto Attend message replays.
• Choose how many times to replay Auto Attend message, before the calls get directed to the number Auto Attend is set up on.
• Create a greeting only. Limit the Auto Attendant to a greeting message then use the call forward to route the call once the greeting message completes (see simple Quick Guide – Greeting Only).

QUICK GUIDE

SETTING UP AUTO ATTENDANT WITH CALL FOWARDING

1. Log in to Be Connect web portal select the number you wish to set up Auto Attendant.
2. Select Inbound Calls > Auto Attendant.
3. Either record your Auto Attendant message or upload your recording in Media.
4. Set your time you want your Auto Attendant play.
5. Select the numbers you want to use for in your Auto Attendant. Note: If you are planning on using extension think about creating cohesion with your extension dialling numbers.
6. Click Save settings to update your settings (see Quick Guide – Simple Queue below)

SETTING UP AUTO ATTENDANT – GREETING ONLY

1. Log in to Be Connect web portal then select the number you wish to set up Auto Attendant.
2. Select Cloud PBX > Inbound Calls > Auto Attendant.
3. Set your Target numbers and time schedules.
4. Set Seconds to Wait: 2 Times to play: 1
5. DO NOT set forwarding numbers within the AutoAttendant.
6. Set Call Forward: Use Forwarding and trunking to route the call to the required function (eg Queue or SimRing)
7. Click Save settings to update your settings.

Use Simultaneous Ring to call up to five other phones simultaneously (SimRing) or specify a delay and stagger call flow using Hunt mode.

QUICK GUIDE

1. Log into Be Connect web portal.
2. Select CloudPBX > Phone number you require SimRing on.
3. Select Inbound Calls > Simultaneous Ring.
4. Set your target numbers.
5. Specify your time schedule.
6. Set the delay before ringing (0=immediately)
7. Click Save settings to update.

Long wait times mean abandoned calls, lowered customer satisfaction and ultimately lost business. Call Queuing is perfect for busy front office or receptionist functions where incoming calls are directed to a pilot number. Using the CloudPBX you can set the position in the queue announcement frequencies, maximum number of callers in queue and a variety of time out values.

Go one step further and link CloudPBX Auto Attendant to the your advertised number to easily direct calls to sales, support or the finance group for example; providing a feature to your callers normally only available to large call centers.

If for what ever reason your agents are unable to answer the calls, you can redirect to a call forwarding, simultaneous ring or even just prompt to leave a voicemail message.

QUICK GUIDE

1. Log into Be Connect web portal select the number you want to use Call Queuing with.
2. Select Cloud PBX > Inbound Calls > Call Queing
3. Click Call Queuing to Enabled.
4. Select agents to be connected to call.
5. Click Save settings to update.

SETTINGS

• Maximum Queue Length: Maximum number of callers allowed in the queue at any time (0 means unlimited).
• Agent Timeout: How many seconds to let the agent phone ring before it is considered a timeout.
• Retry timer: How many seconds to wait before retrying an agent again.
• Wrap-up Time: How many seconds after a successful call to wait before allowing an incoming call to that agent.
• Queue Position Announcement: How often in seconds to announce queue position and/or estimated hold-time to caller (Specify 0 to turn these announcements off).
• Periodic Announcement Frequency: How often to play the ‘Thank you for holding’ message (Specify 0 to turn these announcements off).
• Queue Timeout: How many seconds can a caller be left in the queue (0 for no time limit). After the queue times out the call will fail over in the following order – Call Forward, Simultaneous Ring and finally VoiceMail ensuring the Queue is always responded to if not by an Agent directly.
• Queue Identifier: Text displayed in front of the Caller ID information when the call is delivered to an agent via this queue.
• Estimated hold time: YES/NO advise caller the estimated hold time in queue.
• Hold-time agent advice: YES/NO advise agent the hold-time of the caller to the agent before connecting the call.

Shared Line service enables you to have up to 6 devices or phones registered against a single Be Connect Be Connect number at the same time. When someone rings the Be Connect Be Connect number all phones/devices will ring at the same time. A great example of this is if you have Be Connect App (Softphone) and a VoIP hand dual-model mode cellphone.

Instead of having a Be Connect Be Connect number for your handset/cellphone and another Be Connect Be Connect number for your softphone – simply use the same number on both and no matter where you are people will be able to reach you. Be Connect Be Connect Shared Line is also useful in a small office situation where you have Shared Line and want it to ring all the office phones at once. Of course if you’re away from an area with internet access you can still use the Simultaneous Ring service to have your cellphone or landline ring as well.

Shared Line is enabled by default on Be Connect Service.

The maximum number of devices you can register against one Be Connect Be Connect number is 6 including your primary device

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:

You should choose one device as your primary device. In the SIP settings for your primary device enter your Be Connect Be Connect number and password as usual. For each additional device you will need to add a suffix to your Be Connect Be Connect number/login. The suffix will need to take the format of a dash followed by the number 1-5. Each device will need a different number/suffix or else the service won’t work. The password is the same for each device.

Here’s a sample/example configuration: 

• Primary Device – VoIP handset – Login as ‘092314567’
• 2nd Device – Be Connect Desktop App (Softphone) – Login as ‘0923145671-1’
• 3rd Device – Be Connect Smartphone App – Login as ‘0923145671-2’ etc.

Control your incoming call flow when you’re away or busy with a permanent call forward. Use time schedules to give you more flexibility, for example, have your calls forwarded straight to your mobile during the day with an after hours forward to your after hours voicemail box.

TERMS:

• Call Forward Busy: Enables Subscribers to redirect calls to another number when an incoming call receives a busy response.
• Call Forward No Answer: Enables Subscribers to redirect calls to another number when an incoming call is not answered within a specified time frame. Configurable via feature code, voice IVR and within the CloudPBX.
• Call Forward Always: Enables a user to redirect all incoming calls to another phone number. Configurable via feature code, voice IVR and within the CloudPBX.
• Auto scheduling: Automatic such as recurring meeting or for after hours support.
• Emergency Diverts: If for what ever reason your VoIP data link is taken offline, use Call Forwarding to quickly divert all incoming phone calls to alternate land-line or mobile contacts.

QUICK GUIDE

STEP 1: CALL FORWARDING

1.  Log into Be Connect web portal.
2. Cloud PBX >> Select number.
3. Select Inbound Calls > Forwarding or trunking
4. Set your Call Forwarding preferences including numbers and time schedules
5. Click Save to update your settings.

STEP 2: AFTER HOURS VOICEMAIL

1.  Log into Be Connect web portal.
2. Cloud PBX >> Select number.
3. Select Inbound Calls > Forwarding or trunking
4. Set Forward my calls when I am unavailable to: (set number)
5. Set Forward these calls: Outside Available hours
6. Call Diversion time: set to 2

Setting up an after hours voicemail will require the purchase of an additional number, which you will set your call forward to.

Inbound Calls | Voicemail

• Goto nominated After Hours VoiceMail number (Inbound calls | Voicemail Service)
• Record Voicemail UNAVAILABLE message
• Call Diversion Timer: Set to 2

INBOUND TRUNKING OPTIONS

NB – see also Outbound Trunking

By default inbound calls are delivered to a phone which has logged in against that same number. However, some customers prefer to have multiple inbound numbers terminate on a single logged-in device. This setting allows you to send inbound calls for this phone number to the registration or login of a different number on your account. By using this option you can create one or more inbound trunks for your incoming calls. If you enter a number here which is not on your account – then this setting will simply be ignored and removed. The number format should be the same as the registration ID. e.g. 442034567890

STEP 2: INBOUND TRUNKING

1. Log into Be Connect web portal.
2. CloudPBX | Inbound Calls > Call forwarding or trunking
3. Select Inbound trunk number
4. Log into each restricted line and use Inbound trunking to pointing each required line to your terminated trunk DID.

Call parking allows a person to put a call on hold at one phone and then retrieve the call from another phone.

You can use the feature to transfer a call from a noisy to private location, or from reception to a warehouse. 

FEATURES

• Park up to 100 calls simultaneously
• Pick up calls from any phones in your calling group
• Configurable parking timeouts
• Included on all Be Connect Cloud PBX lines

SETTING UP CALL PARKING

• Log into Be Connect web portal. and select the Call Parking feature under the Advanced Menu
• Tick ‘Enable call parking’ and configure the parking settings as required
• Call parking and retrieval can only be used by phones that are on the same account AND in the same group. You can configure groups in the Lines Manager page
• If you enable call parking on an extension then call parking will become automatically available to all other phones in that group without having to enable the feature on every line.

PARKING A CALL

To park a call transfer the call to star code: *07 
  (To park a call to a specific parking extension you can also dial *07xx. e.g. *0705 will park the call on slot 705)

• The user will next hear a parking extension read back to them (e.g. 700)
• The caller will be put on hold and hear music on hold until the call is retrieved
• If the parking times out because nobody has retrieved the call then the parked call will be returned to the person who originally parked the call – or it can also be forwarded to another number if preferred

RETRIEVE A PARKED CALL

To retrieve a parked call from an extension dial: *1xxx – where xxx is the extension you wish to retrieve 
  (For example to retrieve a call from extensions 705 you would dial *1705. You may also dial *17 and enter the extension after the prompt)

Busy Lamp Field (BLF) is supported on some (but not all) VOIP phones and tells you whether another line or extension within your account and group is busy or not. BLF has to be configured on the phone and usually occupies one of the spare lines on the phone or you can sometimes purchase an additional reception console extension to give you visibility of many other phones in your group. BLF is most useful for receptionists to give them a view of the current ‘state’ of some or all of the lines in the company so they can make a decision whether to transfer the call or not to the end-user. BLF works through using SIP SUBSCRIBE and NOTIFY messages, where the phone is the subscriber and Be Digital is the notifier.

How does it work?

When a phone is setup for BLF it sends a SUBSCRIBE SIP message which is authenticated by Be Digital. Then Be Digital will automatically send a SIP NOTIFY message back to the subscriber to tell them when an extension is Busy (i.e. on a call), Ringing or Available. Most handsets will show a green light when a user is available, red when they are busy and flashing red when their phone is ringing.  If you see an Orange light then this usually means there is a problem with the BLF configuration and you need to look at your configuration to check the phone is setup correctly.

It is important to understand that with Be Digital’s Be Connect Cloud PBX service a user may only subscribe to an extension or line that is both on the same account and within the same group as the subscriber. Group Identifiers are usually set as DEFAULT for all lines on an account unless they are changed in the Line Manager page.  Another restriction is that the phones must be behind the same Internet connection.  Also, presence and BLF are turned OFF by default in Be Digital Live so you will need to go into the Advanced section and click on ‘Presence & BLF’ and enable presence for the lines you wish to turn this service on for, or you can also enable presence for the whole account as well.

An example configuration

BLF is supported on many handsets including Cisco, Polycom, Yealink and others.

Below is an example of how you would setup BLF on a Cisco 504G handset. Assuming that the subscriber’s number is 099749000 (on Ext 1) and the number being monitored for BLF events is 099748000 (on Ext 2):

• Configure Line 1 as normal as the primary line for the user in the ‘Ext 1’ tab
• Under ‘Share Line Appearance’ in ‘Ext 1’ tab set the ‘Share Ext:’ to ‘shared’
• Change ‘Subscription Expires:’ to 300 seconds
• In the ‘Ext 2’ tab (or whichever you want to configure for BLF) set ‘Line Enable’ to ‘no’ and ‘Share Ext’ to ‘shared’ and ‘Subscription Expires:’ to 300 seconds
• In the ‘Phone’ tab next to ‘Line Key 2’ (or whichever you want to configure for BLF) set ‘Extension:’ to ‘Disabled’, ‘Share Call Appearance:’ to ‘shared’ and set the ‘Short Name’ to be whatever you want to display on the handset next to that line key. Next in the ‘Extended Function:’ setting:

fnc=blf+sd+cp;sub=099748000@phone.bedigital.co.nz;nme=099748000
(replace 099748000 with your own monitored number)

• In the ‘Auto Attendant’ page set the ‘Server Type’ to ‘Asterisk’, ‘Subscribe Expires:’ to 600 and ‘Subscribe Retry Interval:’ to 30. You also need to set the ‘Attendant Console Call Pickup Code:’ to *88 so you can do a call pickup of the last ringing phone in your call group.

Be Connect Faxmail works by delivering copies of faxes sent to your number as an email attachment to your Be Connect registered email address. You can also send faxes out to normal fax machines anywhere in the world by sending an email with a recognised attachment to the Be Connect faxmail service. 

Receiving a fax using Be Connect’s faxmail service

1. Log into the Be Connect web portal and select the fax line in the Cloud PBX module and then the fax settings option from the left In this screen, you can choose which email addresses will receive inbound fax attachments and the format you prefer the faxes to be delivered as. By default faxes will be sent to your primary email address that you used to sign up with Be Connect and attachments will be in PDF format. NOTE: Unless you are going to connect a physical fax machine up to Be Connect you do not need to worry about the diversion timers etc. as all of your inbound fax will immediately be delivered to faxmail. In the settings, you can also blacklist anonymous fax callers or individual numbers or temporarily make your fax number unavailable.

Sending a fax using Be Connect’s faxmail service

1. In the Faxmail Sending Options page, you can specify which email addresses are allowed to send faxes via this number. You can enter multiple email addresses here. If you do not enter the email address(es) correctly then faxes will not be allowed to be sent from these email addresses.
2. You can also specify how many times Be Connect should retry sending a fax and the number of minutes to wait between retries. If you wish you can also request that all fax messages should include a fax verification passphrase in the Subject line for added security. This can be any phrase and the system will check that this phrase exists anywhere in the Subject header when accepting a faxmail.
3. Now the system has been instructed to allow faxes from your email address(es) you simply attach your document to an email. Documents can be in PDF, Postscript (.PS) or TIFF formats. Most computers should allow you to print your document to a Postscript file by ticking the ‘Print to File’ box when printing your document. This will create a .ps (Postscript) file which you can then attach to an email and send to the Be Connect faxmail service.
4. Once you have attached your PDF, PS or TIFF file, your email should be sent to the phone number@fax.bedigital.co.nz. For example, if you wanted to fax the document to ‘099749000′ you would send the email to ‘099749000@fax.bedigital.co.nz‘. You can fax the document to multiple fax numbers by simply adding multiple recipients to your email.
5. Once you are ready, then hit Send and your attachment should be sent to the phone numbers specified as recipients. Our Be Connect faxmail service will send you an email when the fax has been sent confirming the delivery and details. You will also receive an email with the relevant details if the fax fails to be sent for some reason.

If you are having problems sending or receiving fax then please ensure that the other fax machine you are sending/receiving from is switched on and working correctly. Failing this please contact support@bedigital.co.nz for assistance.

Most organisations shape the way they handle incoming calls to match their hours of operations. In Be Connect web portal. you can define time schedules for; Simultaneous Ring, Call Forwarding, Hunt Groups, Auto Attendant, Call Screening and Call Queuing by customising one the following time schedule types:

• Work hours
• Available Hours
• User Defined Hours

QUICK GUIDE

1. Log into Be Connect web portal.
2. Select Settings > Preferences > Time Schedules.
3. Select days and fill in hours for; Work hours, Available hours and User Defined Hours.
4. Click Save settings to update.

Note: Chosen times need to be in 24 hour format.