Out of Office voicemail

[tnshurtm]

I am being told that there is no way for a user to forward their calls AND voicemail while out of the office.

When you set your out of office, it forwards the call, but when there is no answer it reverts back to the original ext. voicemail.

Isn't this kind of weird? should you be able to just hand off the call to whomever you are forwarding to and have it go to their voicemail?

As it is, if someone is gone, we have to get their voicemail password so we can log on as them to check their voicemails.

I guess you could always forward the call and then change the notification form their own email address to whomever is getting the forwards. But that is multiple steps that would have to be taken every time you go out of the office.

Perfect scenario:

when always forward is on, forward everything including voicemail. With a check box that says also retain copy of voicemail.

Am I missing something?

[jeremy]

I just tested it on our system and it does go into the voicemail of the person it is forwarded to. Does the extension on the other end have a mail box? I used the always forward to another extension and it worked for me.

See image below

[tnshurtm]

That is exactly how I have mine set up (except I am on 6.1)

And when I call the extension, it rings the to the forwarded destination, but when voicemail picks up, it is the originally called persons.

[luckycharms]

I had a customer call about this last week. I tested this on their system (v6.1) and our system (v7.0) and the call will always be sent back to the extension that the call was forwarded from if the the person does not answer the forwarded call.

I even spoke to ShoreTel about this and they designed it in this way so that users did not lose the functionality of their voicemail. If you think about it, it makes sense that the calls returns to the forwarding extension, if their is no one answers the forwarded call, then the caller can leave a voicemail in the correct mailbox.

I have yet to test this, but what about building a route point and then forwarding the call to the route point and then to the extension that is answering the calls.

[VJ]

Very simple answer.

The solution is easy. Have the cell phone (or home phone) forward on no answer to that VM on busy. Set the number of rings to forward to cell phone VM on no answer at less than the number rings that it is pulled back to ShoreTel.

[tnshurtm]

So basically, there is no feasible way for my users to be out of the office and have vms transfered to someone in the office.

The route point would be too much administration if I had to do it everytime an employee set their out of office.

[luckycharms]

In terms of forwarding to another phone and being able to leave a voicemail in that mailbox is not possible.

I suggested that the administrator configure the voicemail email notification for the forwarding ext. to email a person so that when a voicemail is left, the notified user can go check the voicemail.

[Artcom_Albert]

There is in fact a way to have the calls go to the voicemail of the person that it gets forwarded to, even if they don't answer. It's not very practical, and it would be a pain to have to do this for each and every single person who wants it, but here are the steps:

* Make a new Work Group and a new Auto-Attendant, and name them whatever you want. Write down the extensions for each.
* Set the Work Group up with the extension getting the calls as the only agent (don't forget to log them in), and set no answer/busy destination to the auto attendant you created, with however many rings you want.
* In the new auto attendant, set timeout to 0 milliseconds and set the timeout destination to "Take a message" and set the extension to the same extension receiving the calls. Also record 1 second of silence to the auto attendant so the default does not play.

And Voila! Set the extension you want to have calls forwarded into another mode other than "Standard", such as "Out of Office". Set the "Always" destination for it to the work group made, and it follows the path of :"Ext > Work Group (rings ext receiving forwarded calls) > Auto Attendant > Voicemail (Goes to extension receiving calls to their voicemail now too!).