VirtualPBX.Com Usage Scenarios provide examples of various ways in which businesses can make use of the VirtualPBX to expand their business phone system, serve their customers better, and have the latest and most advanced features with no installed equipment or equipment purchases.

Need for a Totally Silent Messaging System

Certain individuals, physicians, surgeons, dentists, nurses, emergency service employees, satellite controllers and engineers, police and fire captains, etc. are often on call and must stay constantly in touch. For many of these people life or death or large sums of money may literally depend on their being available. They may, however, have opera or symphony tickets purchased months ahead; or they may simply want to see a particular movie on that evening.

The opera and symphony very correctly do not want cell phones ringing during a performance or people talking. Their attitude is that no matter how important the person is, if he is likely to or must be called during a performance he should either stay away or turn off his cell phone.

Many people also feel that it is discourteous to have a cell phone ring or to talk during a film, and I have seen fights almost break out in a movie theater because someone kept getting calls or talking on a cell phone. Often crowded or closely-packed seats make it very difficult for someone to go outside if he receives a call.

Solution Using the VirtualPBX and an Advanced Cell Phone

Using the VirtualPBX and a cell phone with both silent and vibrate modes, it is possible to stay completely in touch during an opera or symphony performance and not make a sound or even have anyone notice that a cell phone is being used. The vibrate mode means that the phone vibrates in someone's pocket rather than ringing, and the silent mode means that pressing a key does not result in a beep. Some cell phones are now so small that they can be hidden in someone's palm and placed against the ear without anyone noticing that someone is listening to a cell phone.

Not all cell phones have these features, but at least one does. The Motorola StarTac Model ST7760 can be easily switched between "Ring Only", "Vibrate", or "Vibrate and Silent" by the marked shortcut keys. On the face of the phone the function (FCN) and vibrate (vib) keys are clearly marked in yellow. If one presses the FCN key and then the vib key, the phone switches to vibrate; and if one presses the FCN key and holds down the vib key for a few seconds, the phone switches to the vibrate AND silent mode. The StarTac is now available as a CDMA digital phone (see the VirtualPBX.Com tutorial Choosing a Cell Phone).

VirtualPBX.Com has no commercial interest in Motorola, CDMA service providers, or any of their sales outlets. The StarTac ST7760 simply happens to be the phone that I have, and it provides an example which I can use in this tutorial and be absolutely sure that the information that I give is correct.

Identifying the Caller from His Number Alone

When a call comes to a VirtualPBX.Com user and is answered, the VirtualPBX plays the following message: "[Company Name] call for [Name of Extension Owner] from [Telephone Number of Calling Party]. To accept this call press #; to send the caller to Voice Mail press *." For example suppose someone with the phone number 1-415-221-6600 calls XYZ Medical which uses the VirtualPBX for its business phone system and dials the extension of Dr. John Smith. When Dr. Smith answers his phone he hears the message: "XYZ Medical call for Dr. Smith from 1-415-221-6600. To accept this call press #; to send the caller to Voice Mail press *."

Identifying the Caller from His Name and/or a Short Message

Often knowing the calling phone number is enough to identify the person, but the VirtualPBX has a Call-Screening feature. If Call Screening is turned on (2231 = on, 2232 = off, or see the VirtualPBX.Com tutorial Extension Availability and Privacy). If Call Screening is turned on, the following message is played when the call is answered: "[Company Name] call for [Name of Extension Owner] from [Name of Calling Party and/or a Short Message from Calling Party] from [Telephone Number of Calling Party]. To accept this call press #; to send the caller to Voice Mail press *."

Using the above specific example suppose that Call Screening is turned on and that the person calling Dr. Smith speaks a message instead of his name: "John: Bill here, we have a patient with a broken ilium losing blood so rapidly that we can't replace it fast enough. We need you to close the break." This message can be spoken in about 7 seconds. (The current limit on the length is 20 seconds.) In this case when Dr. Smith answers his extension, he would hear: "XYZ Medical call for Dr. Smith from 'John: Bill here, we have a patient with a broken ilium losing blood so rapidly that we can't replace it fast enough. We need you to close the break.' from 1-415-221-6600. To accept this call press #; to send the caller to Voice Mail press *."

Example Uses of These Features

Now assume that Dr. Smith is sitting in the opera in the middle of the second act with with his cell phone in his pocket set on the Vibrate and Silent modes. When it vibrates, he opens it and hiding it in his palm, he holds it up to his ear. When he hears the above announcement, he presses * to send the caller to voice mail, closes the phone an puts it back in his pocket. In a minute or two the page will come with the detailed voice message from his caller, but he knows this can't wait and gets up and walks out of the performance. On the way to the medical center he listens to his voice message so that he arrives knowing what he has to do.

Now let us assume that the situation is not quite as urgent as above. Suppose the message he hears when he answers the phone is: "XYZ Medical call for Dr. Smith from Alice from 1-415-221-6600. To accept this call press #; to send the caller to Voice Mail press *." He recognizes Alice as one of the nurses on his station, and he presses * to send her to Voice Mail. When the page announcing a new voice message comes, the cell phone vibrates again; and he calls in to XYZ's VirtualPBX and listens to the message. (To see how to turn on the paging feature see the VirtualPBX.Com tutorial New-Message Paging.) Suppose the message is simply a question about a dose of medication which must be given in an hour. In this case, he waits until the intermission, and then calls Alice back. Using Voice-Mail's Automatic Callback feature it is not even necessary for Dr. Smith to write down the number. He can simply choose the menu item for a callback using the calling number. (See the VirtualPBX.Com tutorial Managing Voice Mail.)

Notice that during neither one of these scenarios has he made even the slightest sound; and since the cell phone is small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, no one even noticed that he was using a cell phone.

Why the Extension Should Not Be Marked Unavailable

The VirtualPBX has the option of marking an extension as Available or as Unavailable. If the extension is marked Available, the extension owner receives calls as described above. If the extension is marked Unavailable, all calls are automatically sent to Voice Mail and the extension owner is paged if he has New-Message Paging set up.

If the extension is marked Unavailable, the extension owner would get pages indicating Voice or Fax Mail without knowing who left the mail. The only way to find out would be to call in to the system and listen to the mail message. That is a lot of calling and fiddling to do in the opera or symphony. Using method described above with the extension marked as Available means that the user only has to listen to know the source of the call and whether or not it is important.

Weaknesses of Just Using the Cell-Phone Voice Mail Alone

Some of the features described in this tutorial are available without having a VirtualPBX at all but by simply using the cell-phone service provider's Voice Mail and the Caller-ID features. For example, the user can turn off the cell phone's Open-to-Answer feature and turn on the Vibrate and Silent modes. When a call comes in and he feels the vibration, he can open the phone without it answering and look at the Caller ID to get the number of the calling party. If he does not answer, the call will eventually go to the service providers's voice mail, and he can call in later an listen to his message.

There are a number of weaknesses in this approach which are not present when the VirtualPBX is used.

• The calling party may have Caller ID blocked so that the user won't even have the information of knowing the caller's phone number. On the other hand, all calls to 800/888/877 numbers include the number of the calling party since they are collect calls, and thus the VirtualPBX can give the number of the calling party whether Caller ID is blocked or not.
• The cell-phone service provider does not have the call screening feature which requires the caller to speak his name or allows him to give a short message before the call is answered. Thus the user must rely entirely on the calling number, if available, to identify the calling party.
• The Open-to-Answer option of a cell phone is a very convenient feature which most people will wish to have turned on. In order to use Caller ID, Open-to-Answer must be turned off otherwise the call is answered when the phone is opened. This forces the user to either do without Open-to-Answer or switch back and forth when he goes someplace like the symphony. If he accidentally forgets, the call will be answered; and he will be in the awkward position of hanging up on the caller or talking during a performance. Furthermore, the Open-to-Answer feature does not have an easy shortcut as do the Vibrate and Silent modes. Thus the user must go into the menus and scroll until he finds the right menu to switch modes.
• The cell-phone service provider does not have the Automatic-Callback feature in the VirtualPBX Voice Mail. This requires that when he listens to his message he must have pen and paper to write down the callback number or a good memory.