Call Forwarding Schedules
Call Forwarding Schedules define how your incoming calls will be forwarded to you during working hours, after hours, on week-ends and on special events like business trips and holidays. For each period (timeframe), you can specify the phones where you want to be reached. You can specify one or many phone numbers to be dialed simultaneously or sequentially. You may also have your calls go directly to your voice mail during certain timeframes. These schedules become your everyday call forwarding rules when your status is available.
Configuring Your Call Forwarding Schedules
There are two types of call forwarding schedules:
- Weekly Schedule defines your recurring call forwarding rules for weekdays. You specify the phone numbers where you want to be reached for each day of the week.
- Special Events define your call forwarding rules during specific periods of the year such as holidays and vacation time. Special Events take precedence over the Weekly Schedule.
How Does Call Forwarding Work?
How-to-Control-your-Call-Forwarding
You can configure your Call Forwarding Schedules to let your assistant know where and when you want to be reached. Here is how:
- set weekly and special events schedules to specify how you want your calls handled on different planned occasions
- forward all your calls to a specific phone number or to voice mail. Note: This action turns off your automatic call forwarding.
- change your status and define where all calls are forwarded to. Note: This action turns off your automatic call forwarding.
Call Forwarding Priorities
Your assistant forwards your calls using the following order of priorities:
- Your status and your instant call forwarding as set by phone, Web or Calendar
- Your Active Yearly Call Forwarding Schedule
- Your Active Weekly Call Forwarding Schedule, and within the weekly schedule, the Lunch Schedule has priority over the Working Hours schedule.
What will Callers Hear?
- I Cannot Take Calls. I am Not Available.
The caller hears a message that you are not available before being forwarded to your voicemail. - I Cannot Take Calls. I am In-Meeting.
While you are In-Meeting, the caller hears a message that you are In-Meeting before going through your Call Filtering instructions to determine if the call gets forwarded to you or to your voicemail. - I Cannot Take Calls. I am Out-Of-Office.
While you are Out-Of-Office, the caller hears a message that you are Out-Of-Office before going through your Call Filtering instructions to determine if the call gets forwarded to you or to your voicemail. - Forward my Calls to a specific number.
The caller hears a message that he/she is being transferred to you before being directed to the telephone number you specified. - Use my Call Forwarding Schedules - Timeframe defined.
During an active schedule, the caller hears a message that the call is being transferred to you. The caller then hears rings until you answer. But if you don’t answer after the set number of rings, the caller may hear "I will try multiple locations. This may take some time" if you specified more than one call forwarding phone in the active schedule. If you don’t answer on any of the specified phones in your call forwarding schedule, the caller is forwarded to your voice mail. - Use my Call Forwarding Schedules - No timeframe defined.
When no schedule is defined, the call is treated as if you had set your call forwarding to “I Cannot Take Calls. I am Not Available”.
Example of Call Forwarding Scenario
Here is an example of a weekly Call Forwarding Schedule programmed by John Smith from Mobile Salesforce Inc.:
“During weekdays, from 9:00am to 5:00pm, forward my calls simultaneously to my office and my mobile. If I don’t answer after 4 rings, forward the call to my home office phone. If I still don’t answer after 3 rings this time, take a voice message.”
Here is what people hear if they call John Smith on Tuesday at 3:00 pm: « Welcome to Mobile Salesforce. I will transfer you to John Smith ». If after 4 rings on John's office line and mobile there is no answer, the assistant says: « I will try multiple locations. This may take some time ». The caller hears rings again while John Smith’s home office phone is ringing. If the call is not answered after 3 rings, the caller hears either John's voicemail greeting or «The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message at the beep. ». Any recorded message will be sent as an e-mail to John Smith’s Inbox.
Personalize your Weekly Call Forwarding Schedules
To edit a Weekly schedule, click on its name. You can configure the following:
- Days of the Week when the schedule applies
- Time Range when the schedule applies during each selected day of the week
- Call Sequence to specify the phones (telephone numbers) where the assistant will try to reach you when this schedule is active:
- Click on Forward to add a new phone where you want to be reached. A “Select Phone Number” dialog box appears.
- Select the telephone number from the list of Phones numbers.
- Number of Rings defines the number of times that the group of phones will ring until the next phone is dialed or going to voice mail.
- Call Sequence to specify the sequence in which the number is dialed. To use Simultaneous Ringing, set the same Call Sequence for the phones to ring at the same time
Example of call forwarding sequence:
Call Sequence: 1, phone: Office, rings: 4
Call Sequence: 1, phone: Mobile, rings: 4
Call Sequence: 2, phone: Home, rings: 3
In the example above, incoming calls will ring at the Office and Mobile phones 4 times. If nobody answers, the assistant will try the next sequence and dial the Home number 3 times before going to voice mail.
Create your Special Events
Click New Schedule to create a new special event as follows:
- Event Name such as "Mobile Conference 2010" or "Summer vacation".
- Select the Start date and the End date.
- Select where you want your assistant to forward your incoming calls during this event:
- "All calls to voice mail"
- "Only important calls to" a specific phone
- "All calls to" a specific phone
Modify your Special Events
- Click on the special event that you want to modify.
A window showing the event details appears. - Make the desired changes then click Apply to confirm.
Test your Call Forwarding
- Go to the Call Forwarding then click Test Call Forwarding.
- Enter the date and time at which you want your Call Forwarding to be tested.
- Click on the Test button to view the name of the active schedule during that timeframe as well as the call sequence that will be used to reach you.
Call Forwarding FAQs
What Happens if I Have not Entered the Phone Numbers where I Can Be Reached?
What Happens If my Cell Phone is Turned Off?
What Happens to Calls I Get When my Weekly and Special Events Call Forwarding Schedules are Both Active?