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Announcements are played to callers waiting to be answered. This includes callers being presented to hunt group members, ie. ringing, and callers queued for presentation.
The system supports announcements using Voicemail Pro or Embedded Voicemail.
If no voicemail channel is available for an announcement, the announcement is not played.
In conjunction with Voicemail Pro, the system allows a number of voicemail channels to be reserved for announcements. See System | Voicemail.
With Voicemail Pro, the announcement can be replaced by the action specified in a Queued (1st announcement) or Still Queued (2nd announcement) start point call flow. Refer to the Voicemail Pro Installation and Maintenance documentation for details.
Calls can be answered during the announcement. If it is a mandatory requirement that announcements should be heard before a call is answered, then a Voicemail Pro call flow should be used before the call is presented.
![]() | Note |
Call Billing and Logging A call becomes connected when the first announcement is played to it. That connected state is signaled to the call provider who may start billing at that point. The call will also be recorded as answered within the SMDR output once the first announcement is played. |
If a call is rerouted, for example forwarded, the announcement plan of the original user is still applied until the call is answered. The exception is calls rerouted to a hunt group at which point the hunt group announcement settings are applied.
For announcements to be used effectively, either the user's no answer time must be extended beyond the default 15 seconds or Voicemail On should be deselected.
Voicemail Pro:
There is no mechanism within the telephony user interfaces (TUI) to record user announcements. To provide custom announcements, user queued and still queued start points must be configured with Voicemail Pro with the required prompts played by a generic action.
Embedded Voicemail:
Embedded Voicemail does not include any default announcement or method for recording an announcement. The Record Message short code feature is provided to allow the recording of announcements. The telephone number field of short codes using this feature requires the extension number followed by either ".1" for announcement 1 or ".2" for announcement 2. For example, for extension number 300, the short codes *91N# | Record Message | N".1" and *92N# | Record Message | N".2" could be used to allow recording of the announcements by dialing *91300# and *92300#.
These settings are mergeable. Changes to these settings do not require a reboot of the system.
Field | Description |
---|---|
Announcements On |
Default = Off.
This setting enables or disables announcements. |
Wait before 1st announcement: |
Default = 10 seconds. Range = 0 to 255 seconds.
This setting sets the time delay from the calls presentation, after which the first announcement should be played to the caller. |
Flag call as answered |
Default = Off.
This setting is used by the CCC and CBC applications. By default they do not regarded a call as answered until it has been answered by a person or by a Voicemail Pro action with Flag call as answered selected. This setting allows calls to be marked as answered once the caller has heard the first announcement. This setting is not used by the Customer Call Reporter application. |
Post announcement tone |
Default = Music on hold.
Following the first announcement, you can select whether the caller should hear Music on Hold, Ringing or Silence until answered or played another announcement. |
2nd Announcement |
Default = On.
If selected, a second announcement can be played to the caller if they have still not been answered. |
Wait before 2nd announcement |
Default = 20 seconds. Range = 0 to 255 seconds.
This setting sets the wait between the 1st and the 2nd announcement. |
Repeat last announcement |
Default = On.
If selected, the last announcement played to the caller is repeated until they are answered or hang-up. |
Wait before repeat |
Default = 20 seconds. Range = 0 to 255 seconds.
If Repeat last announcement is selected, this setting sets is applied between each repeat of the last announcement. |