Recording auto attendant messages

[ahennis@voicespring.net]

I have many customers complain that it is very cumbersome to record prompts for the auto attendants.

 

It is easy to dial *98xxxx to record the first prompt but recording the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th prompts is painful. There is no way to listen to the message or rerecord it. The only way to listen is to activate the message. All this requires involvement from our support team because the customers don't have access to the PBX.

 

It would be nice if recording the messages would allow you to review the message and rerecorded it. Can't it work like recording your first VM message where you can listen to the recording, rerecord and then save the message when you are satisfied with the recording?

 

It would be even better if anywhere you can record audio prompts such as Agent Group, Auto Attendant, Voice Mail, etc. you could record, review and save the recording.

[Support]

Hi,

 

Which version you are on? I am on 57.0 and everything looks fine to me. I have 5 separate recording with star codes and i can listen to all the audio recordings by pressing the "Play" button besides it. It also gives an option to delete (by pressing "*") on the go, or on the GUI itself.

[Vodia PBX]

Lets say your auto attendant has number 123, then you can record specific prompts with *98123*1, *98123*2 .. *98123*5.

[ahennis@voicespring.net]

Hi,

 

Which version you are on? I am on 57.0 and everything looks fine to me. I have 5 separate recording with star codes and i can listen to all the audio recordings by pressing the "Play" button besides it. It also gives an option to delete (by pressing "*") on the go, or on the GUI itself.

I understand that I can listen to the voice mail greetings from the domain admin web GUI. We do not normally give our customers access to the domain admin web GUI. We are a full service hosted provider, most of our customers want nothing to do with maintaining their system. The customers we do give domain access to have a habit of logging in and messing things up which generates a call to our support team.

 

I am referring to recording any of the greetings for voice mail, auto attendants and agent groups from a phone. Let's look at a few examples of how this is currently done.

 

Voice Mail

 

This is on version 57.

 

I can press the message button on my Snom D725 phone and access the voice mail system main menu. Option 4 lets me record my personal welcome message

 

One suggestion here, the phrase --- and maybe this sounds a little nitpicky --- "record your personal welcome message" is often times confusing for the end user. I realize this sounds a little silly but users actually ask me "What is a personal welcome message?" Perhaps something like "To record your voice mail greeting" would be a little more intuitive. But I digress.

 

When I press option 4 on the voice mail main the system says "Please start recording you greeting after the tone. When finished press the pound sign." Beep, I record my greeting and press #. The system says "To listen to your recording press 1. To use your recording press 2. To record again press 3. To delete your recording and return to the previous menu press 4." This is easy to use. The system explains exactly how to record your greeting.

 

I can also record my greetings by pressing *98*1 or *98*2 or *3 or *4 or *5. The system says "Please record you message after the tone. To delete press *." Beep, I record my greeting. What do I do next? How do I stop recording? How do I listen to it? How do I save it? The system gives no instructions on how to proceed. To stop recording you basically hang up. How do I easily listen to greeting *2 or *3 or *4 or *5. The only way to listen to them from the phone is to get back into the voice mail menus and select option 9 to choose which greeting you want to use. Then I have to listen to each greeting in order. If I want to listen to greeting 5 I have to listen to every greeting! This is very cumbersome and frustrating to the user.

 

What can't I for example dial *98*5 from my phone and use the same prompting to record my greeting as I use when I press the message button to access the voice mail main menu? It would be so much easier and more intuitive to the user to hear "To listen to your recording press 1. To use your recording press 2. To record again press 3. To delete your recording and return to the previous menu press 4."

 

It would also be nice to change option 4 of the voice mail menus to be able to select which of the 5 greetings you would like to record. Additionally it would be nice to be able to dial *98<extension-number>*1, or *2 or *3 or *4 or *5 to change the greetings for any extension. For security purposes you would be required to enter the PIN of the extension. This would also be useful for recording greetings for virtual/shared voice mail boxes that that have no physical phone.

 

Auto Attendants and Agent Groups

 

Let's say I have an auto attendant 1234 which has a default message and 5 custom messages I can activate with service flags. Currently I can record the default message by dialing *981234. The system says "Please record you message after the tone. To delete press *." The system gives no instructions on how to proceed. To stop recording you basically hang up. I can listen to the default message by dialing the auto attendant i.e. 1234. To record any of the 5 optional messages I dial *981234*1 or *2, etc. How do I listen to any of the alternate messages. I can activate the service flag that will play that alternate message. If it is a manual service flag the customer can activate it. If it is an automatic service flag the customer has no easy way to activate the service flag. Additionally the customer may not want to activate the service flag for the alternate message because he is in business hours receiving calls and does not want to test changes or disrupt his business operation.

 

It would be nice to have the same type a menu system used for the voice mail menus to record the messages for the auto attendants. It would also be nice o be able to dial 1234*1 to listen to the message.

 

Agent group messages should be recorded the same way.

 

These are the types of enhancements that make the system easier for the customer to use.

 

One other nifty enhancement would be to allow the message to be recorded from any phone remotely. Here is how this could work. From the domain admin login I can tell the system to call a phone so the user can record a message. I addition to be able to upload a file for the menu I would be able to enter an extension and press a button to record from extension. the system would call the extension, the customer would answer, record the message and have the same prompts to review, record again, save or discard the changes.

 

These are just a few changes that would make the system easier to use and easier to program. I would hope you can consider them for future version. Thank you.

[Support]

I understand that I can listen to the voice mail greetings from the domain admin web GUI. We do not normally give our customers access to the domain admin web GUI. We are a full service hosted provider, most of our customers want nothing to do with maintaining their system. The customers we do give domain access to have a habit of logging in and messing things up which generates a call to our support team.

 

I am referring to recording any of the greetings for voice mail, auto attendants and agent groups from a phone. Let's look at a few examples of how this is currently done.

 

Alright, a valid point

 

Voice Mail

 

This is on version 57.

 

I can press the message button on my Snom D725 phone and access the voice mail system main menu. Option 4 lets me record my personal welcome message

 

One suggestion here, the phrase --- and maybe this sounds a little nitpicky --- "record your personal welcome message" is often times confusing for the end user. I realize this sounds a little silly but users actually ask me "What is a personal welcome message?" Perhaps something like "To record your voice mail greeting" would be a little more intuitive. But I digress.

 

No worries, you are helping us make our PBX more suitable. Criticism is always appreciated. We are currently focusing on making our GUI more appealing for you guys, but will keep this on the bucket list for upcoming versions.

 

When I press option 4 on the voice mail main the system says "Please start recording you greeting after the tone. When finished press the pound sign." Beep, I record my greeting and press #. The system says "To listen to your recording press 1. To use your recording press 2. To record again press 3. To delete your recording and return to the previous menu press 4." This is easy to use. The system explains exactly how to record your greeting.

 

I can also record my greetings by pressing *98*1 or *98*2 or *3 or *4 or *5. The system says "Please record you message after the tone. To delete press *." Beep, I record my greeting. What do I do next? How do I stop recording? How do I listen to it? How do I save it? The system gives no instructions on how to proceed. To stop recording you basically hang up. How do I easily listen to greeting *2 or *3 or *4 or *5. The only way to listen to them from the phone is to get back into the voice mail menus and select option 9 to choose which greeting you want to use. Then I have to listen to each greeting in order. If I want to listen to greeting 5 I have to listen to every greeting! This is very cumbersome and frustrating to the user.

 

If you are referring to the User level Voicemail greeting setup then each user can do it from their WebRTC (user level login) setup under Advanced > Settings > Voicemail Greetings. They can hear, delete, upload audio files and set whichever greeting they want from their own WebRTC GUI. You previously mentioned about Auto attendant greetings and that can be heard and set from GUI as mentioned earlier.

 

What can't I for example dial *98*5 from my phone and use the same prompting to record my greeting as I use when I press the message button to access the voice mail main menu? It would be so much easier and more intuitive to the user to hear "To listen to your recording press 1. To use your recording press 2. To record again press 3. To delete your recording and return to the previous menu press 4."

 

If you are referring to picking up an extension and dialing *98*1 or 2 or 3 etc and recording a message then yes i could do it. And if you are referring to the options after recording which you mentioned, then yes, we can put that on the list too.

 

It would also be nice to change option 4 of the voice mail menus to be able to select which of the 5 greetings you would like to record. Additionally it would be nice to be able to dial *98<extension-number>*1, or *2 or *3 or *4 or *5 to change the greetings for any extension. For security purposes you would be required to enter the PIN of the extension. This would also be useful for recording greetings for virtual/shared voice mail boxes that that have no physical phone.

 

You are trying to dial the *98<ext number> from which phone in this case? Because, if you are the user, you are dialing for your own voicemail greeting, in which case, the above point sets back in.

 

Auto Attendants and Agent Groups

 

Let's say I have an auto attendant 1234 which has a default message and 5 custom messages I can activate with service flags. Currently I can record the default message by dialing *981234. The system says "Please record you message after the tone. To delete press *." The system gives no instructions on how to proceed. To stop recording you basically hang up. I can listen to the default message by dialing the auto attendant i.e. 1234. To record any of the 5 optional messages I dial *981234*1 or *2, etc. How do I listen to any of the alternate messages. I can activate the service flag that will play that alternate message. If it is a manual service flag the customer can activate it. If it is an automatic service flag the customer has no easy way to activate the service flag. Additionally the customer may not want to activate the service flag for the alternate message because he is in business hours receiving calls and does not want to test changes or disrupt his business operation.

 

It would be nice to have the same type a menu system used for the voice mail menus to record the messages for the auto attendants. It would also be nice o be able to dial 1234*1 to listen to the message.

 

Agent group messages should be recorded the same way.

 

These are the types of enhancements that make the system easier for the customer to use.

 

One other nifty enhancement would be to allow the message to be recorded from any phone remotely. Here is how this could work. From the domain admin login I can tell the system to call a phone so the user can record a message. I addition to be able to upload a file for the menu I would be able to enter an extension and press a button to record from extension. the system would call the extension, the customer would answer, record the message and have the same prompts to review, record again, save or discard the changes.

 

These are just a few changes that would make the system easier to use and easier to program. I would hope you can consider them for future version. Thank you.

 

Alright, some of the points from the previous topics have rolled over here, and we will put that on our bucket list. The system has to be highly smart than what it is now. Thank you for your help in getting us work harder.

[J Jones]

Can someone easily tell me if it is possible to pre=record multiple auto attendant greetings in advance and then toggle as needed without having to re-record every time?

[Support]

Unfortunately, there is no way for that to be done.

You can only record it, the application of it still has to be done from the web interface.

[Vodia PBX]

You can use service flags to control which WAV is being played. Maybe that helps?