Benefits of the Voicemail Service

The Voicemail Service gives you a voicemail service, not a telephone service.  That means there is no ringing telephone.  Your caller never reaches a live person, however, you can receive alerts with the messages and immediately return a call, if needed.  The benefits of this service are:

• No more passing a cell phone back and forth between volunteers
• No more dependence on one person to answer calls and send a text or email to the appropriate volunteer
• Access to the messages by selected or all volunteers
• Alerts to the appropriate volunteer or volunteers when a message is left and the alert can include a recording of the message
• Local or toll-free number included free of charge
• Capability of transferring your organization's existing telephone number (with some exceptions)
• Unlimited minutes and use
• Ability to purchase your own vanity number and attach it to the voicemail service
• Includes 9 voicemail boxes
• Long messages (up to 2 minutes) for both answering message and recorded message by the caller
• Web access or dial-in access to messages
• Ability to set greeting only or ability to receive and save messages from callers

Considerations before setting up your service

Before you begin to set up your voicemail service, consider the following:

• How many menu options (mailboxes) do you want?
• Which mailboxes will have a voice mailbox?  Some options may have a greeting only, and others will also accept voice mail messages.
• Who (if anyone) will receive email alerts when a message is left in a mailbox?

We recommend you write out (or type into a document) the main greeting and each of the mailbox greetings.  In the future, if you need to update any of the greetings you can simply update your documents and rerecord.

Creating a voice mailbox

A mailbox (without voice mail) is created for you. A default password is set for you -- you may change that password at any time.

If you plan to allow your callers to leave a message in this mailbox, change the Allow Messages to Yes and click Save Mailbox. Then enter information for the following fields (if applicable):

• Mailbox Number:* Select the mailbox number to use from the drop-down list of available mailboxes.

• Allow Messages:*  Select if you would like your callers to be able to leave a message in this mailbox.

• Mailbox Name:* Your internal name for the mailbox, like "Adoptions."

• Email Address: Address to send an email alert when someone leaves a message (supports only one email address)

• Pager Address: Text pager address to send an email alert when someone leaves a message (supports only one email address)

• Attach Recording:* Should an audio file of the message be attached to the email alert?

• Delete Recording:* Should the server delete the message after the recording is emailed to you?  If you do not have the system delete the message you will need to login and delete messages on a regular basis.  Each mailbox will hold up to 100 voice mail messages.

• Say Envelope:* Do you want to hear the date and time of the message in the recording?

• Say Caller ID:* Do you want to hear the caller's phone number in the recording?

• Password:*  Enter the password you would like to use for the mailbox.

Setting your master password

The Master Password is used to record all of your greetings, including the main greeting and all mailbox greetings.

Enter your new master password and click the Save Master Password button.

Logging in to a voice mailbox with your web browser