Voicemail

Voicemail

You can create one or more voice mailboxes, all free with any of our plans. 

Setup

In your portal, click "My Services" in the left-side menu.

Then click "Add new voicemail" tab below.

You can then choose a name for the voicemail (so that you can differentiate them if you have more than one when creating routes from your DIDs), a numerical code you will enter if you choose to access voicemail via *98 rather than *97 which skips it, a password that should be different than 1234 (which is pointless), your email so that you can get the voice messages or transcriptions in your email box, and a few other options. Once you choose everything, click Save voicemail.

Once your voice mailbox is created, you need to route the DID (phone number) to it. In your portal, click on My Services (in the left-hand sidebar), then Edit DID tab (the very last tab). In Details, you can pick the Voice Mail you created above using the name you had given it, then click on the Routing sub-tab to make sure the routing is what you expect. In general, most people prefer the Routing and "Routing if Destination Busy" should both point to your subaccount, so that you get a call waiting beep if someone calls you while you are already in a conversation. You can then set "Unavailable" and "No Answer" to your voicemail. You can even set each one to a different mailbox if you wish.

(Warning: it bears repeating that the Caller ID Name Prefix is not there for the Caller ID Name portion of your outgoing caller ID - you set that from your softphone. The Prefix gets added to all incoming calls from a specific DID so that you can differentiate between calls to several DIDs if you have more than one set to come on the same subaccount.)

Use

You access it by dialing *97 from your VOIP phone. You may have multiple voice mailboxes usually free of charge. To access multiple voice mailboxes, dial *98 and have your mailbox ID and PIN ready.

Menus

You may set it up by pressing 0 after dialing in. This will list the following menu (press * to return to the main menu):

1. Change your unavailable message - this is the message most callers will hear when you cannot answer the phone.

2. Busy Message - played if you are already on the phone and did not set up Call Waiting or you ignored the call waiting beep.

3. Name - if you leave the default messages, this is what callers will hear after the unavailable message. If left unset, the Voicemail ID # will be read instead.

4. Temporary Greeting - enable it for holidays etc. when you do not want to erase your main greeting and will be returning to it later.

5. Change Password

While listening to messages, you may use the following commands:

1. first message

2. (restart) rewind

3. advanced options: 1 reply, 2 hear envelope, * main menu

4. skip to the end of queue

5. timestamp (first message)

6. next message

7. delete

8. send to extension - no exit

9. save to different folder (archive)

You may use the following predefined folders to archive your messages:

2 change folders

3 advanced options (currently not in use)

0 mailbox messages (1 unavailable, 2 busy, 3 name, 4 temporary, * back)

* help

# exit

Remote Message Retrieval (by phone)

Your messages are sent by email to you so that you can listen to them wherever you can access your email. Sometimes however you don't have access to email but you have access to a phone.

If you don't have access to our VoIP network and would like to check your Voicemail (that is, from any other phone), you can simply dial your number. Once the Voicemail system answers your call, press the asterisk key (*). When logged in to your voicemail, press 0 for options. You can record your greeting and temporary greeting from there. To login remotely, you will need to know your voicemail ID (sent in your welcome email) and your PIN number. To program it into your cell phone you might want to enter the following sequence under "VoIP voicemail":

<your-VoIP-number>,*,,,<Voicemail ID>#,<PIN>#,1

If you have more than one voice mailbox, you can access it by entering in your VoIP phone memory the following, for instance under "Voicemail #2" and dial via your VoIP account:

*98,,,<Voicemail ID>#,<PIN>#,1

In the examples above we used "," for a 0.5s pause; your phone may use a different symbol, such as the letter p and it may have a different duration, in which case you might need to change the number of "," or "p" in the above sequences. Consult your phone instruction manual to see how you can enter a pause in a dial sequence.

Security and Privacy

In the wake of the recent "hacking incidents" with News of the World in UK, you might wonder how secure your Voicemail really is. Our system is indeed more secure than that of most cell phone companies but our default setup is designed to be easy to use rather than secure. For a secure setup, ask us to setup you voicemail to always prompt for a password (or PIN), even when calling from your line, because your Caller ID number could potentially be spoofed, allowing unfettered access to all your messages. You could also ask us to set up your voicemail to forward all your messages by email to your account then either have the system delete them automatically after forwarding or delete them yourself after listening to them. This way, if an attacker gains access to your voicemail by spoofing your Caller ID, they will not find much except your very latest messages.

Remember that security is usually in opposition to convenience. You can set up an exceptionally secure system but it will then be less usable. If you have set up your VoIP number to show the Caller ID of your cell phone for example and you have only given your VoIP number to a handful of friends and family, the chances of an attacker finding out your VoIP number are low and you would not need to worry much about such spoofing attacks.

Multiple Recipients

We set up your voicemail to automatically email you messages left by others via email, in a .wav file attachment you can play on any computer. If you need this email to be sent to more than one email address, you could set up a filter if allowed by your email provider. For instance, with Google Mail, you will click the "Filter Messages like This" option, as follows:

You may further customize the filter to act only for messages from specific phone numbers by using the "Has the words" option, then click Next:

Choose the email address you want to forward to and click its checkbox:

If you want to forward older messages that meet the criteria check off "Also apply the filter to.." in the lower right corner.

If this is the first time you would be forwarding an email automatically, you will have to click "Manage your forwarding addresses" right next to it. You will need the cooperation of that email account owner, who will have to click a special link to allow emails to be forwarded to him or her automatically.

When done, click Create Filter to start using it.

If you want a voicemail with more features and options than the default, consider setting up an IVR menu.

Go back to our main Features list.