Typical System/environment

[Guest znelson]

I've been looking for a software solution for days, thankfully I stumbled onto VoiceGuide, looks great! I've been going through the forum picking up tidbits of information here and there but I have some questions relating to the big picture.

 

How does VG and a PBX and a Dialogic board fit into this picture:

 

We'll have 2 incoming lines. I'd like them to ring to an extension on the PBX for a few seconds before going into the VG auto-attendant scripts. If it's a fax I'd like it to transfer to the fax hardware (already found a VG solution for this). After hours I'd like it to direct all incoming calls directly to the VG scripts without trying a round-robin of PBX extensions.

 

I guess my real confusion is how the hardware and software interact. When looking at the D/4 board it would seem that the 4 inputs would interface to 4 internal PBX extensions so that the PBX feeds the D/4 and ultimately VG. We would then feed 2 incoming lines into the PBX.

 

Or is that wrong? Would we bring the 2 incoming lines into the D/4 and let VG handle the transfers to local extensions? But then the PBX would be out of the loop. Isn't there a consolidated hardware solution for all this, very confusing.

 

Where does the PBX sit physically? In front of the D/4 board?

 

Thanks in advance!

[SupportTeam]

When looking at the D/4 board it would seem that the 4 inputs would interface to 4 internal PBX extensions so that the PBX feeds the D/4 and ultimately VG. We would then feed 2 incoming lines into the PBX.

Correct. When using a PBX in almost all cases Dialogic/VoiceGuide is attached to internal PBX extensions.

Would we bring the 2 incoming lines into the D/4 and let VG handle the transfers to local extensions?

Not done very often - you would have to transfer the calls through the telephone company's PBX (if it is supported at all).

Where does the PBX sit physically? In front of the D/4 board?

Yes.

[Guest znelson]

Thanks for the prompt response, I have a much clearer picture now.

 

Not done very often - you would have to transfer the calls through the telephone company's PBX (if it is supported at all).

 

So when we talk about transferring a call using VG, I assume you would accomplish that through forwarding the call to another physical line as if it was a new call coming in from the outside world? I say that because it seems that VG has no concept of the PBX that it sits behind so it has no way to transfer a call to one of the internal extensions. Correct?

 

Could you clarify how forwarding/transferring through VG is accomplished and what it means technically?

 

Thanks again!

[Guest znelson]

Sorry for the confusion, I re-read my original post and yes, by bringing 2 lines into the D/4 without a PBX would require transferring to be performed at the phone co's PBX. But with a PBX sitting in front of the D/4 then blind/announced transfers can happen by sending the correct flash sequence.

 

So let's assume we have a PBX and someone answers the phone, could that person send the caller into VG by transferring them to the PBX extension that the D/4 is sitting on? The same functionality would dump the person into VG after-hours by telling the PBX to route all calls to the VG extension.

 

If I'm correct, this is great stuff!

[SupportTeam]

VoiceGuide's "Transfer Call" module can either transfer a call by doing a 'hookflash transfer' (just like what you would do when transferring a call from one PBX extension to another) or by dialing out on another line and connecting the original call to the outgoing call on another line ('Dial and Conference' transfer).

 

The 'Dial and Conference' transfer uses two lines for the entire length of the call, whereas after doing the hookflash transfer the line becomes free to take another call (just like the telephone handset becomes free after you transfer the call to another extension).

 

All PBXs support hookflash transfers, and some phone companies support hookflash transfers as well - so you can transfer calls to another phone number when the telephone company lines are controlled by VoiceGuide. You will need to check with your phone company to see if it supports hookflash transfers on it’s lines.