Plan requirement
| Subscription | UC-Essential or higher, x-bees Basic or higher |
Deciding what happens to a call before it reaches you, based on who is calling and what your status is.
Two questions the system asks
When a call arrives, two things decide what happens to it: who is calling and what your status is. Set a rule for each combination and the phone behaves differently for a colleague at lunchtime than for an unknown number during a meeting.
Who is calling
Every call is sorted into a class:
- Internal. A colleague on the same system.
- External. Anyone from outside.
- Whitelist. Numbers you have marked as always welcome.
- Blacklist. Numbers you would rather not hear from.
A class you have not switched on follows the internal rules. That is worth knowing before you conclude a setting is being ignored: nothing is broken, the class simply is not active.
What your status is
Rules are set on tabs: Default for every status, and Away and Busy where you want those to differ. Leave the other two alone and Default applies throughout.
Most people only ever need Default. The other two earn their place when being away should genuinely change something, such as sending external calls to a colleague while internal ones still ring.
What you can set
- Call waiting. Whether a second call reaches you while you are on one. Switch it off and callers meet your busy rule instead.
- Call forward busy. Where a call goes when you are already talking.
- Call forward no answer. Where it goes when nobody picks up.
- Call forward all. Everything, immediately, somewhere else.
- Call reject. Turn the call away without ringing.
- Call timeout. Stop ringing after a set time.
- Mobility. Ring your mobile over the cellular network.
Where forward all catches people out
It applies to everything in that class, including calls you were waiting for. Someone who sets it and forgets appears unreachable while their phone sits silent, and they only find out when a colleague asks why nobody answers.
If you only want cover while you are busy or away, use the busy and no-answer rules instead.
Send it somewhere that answers
Forwarding to a colleague who also forwards produces a chain nobody planned. Voicemail is a better destination than a number you have not checked, because voicemail always picks up.
Where to find it
In the settings of Collaboration, under the call features. x-bees users reach the same settings the same way.
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