Create an IVR

An IVR (Interactive Voice Response or Auto Attendants) allows you to play a recording and prompt callers to key options, such as “press 1 for sales, "press 2 for the company directory." This effectively routes traffic to the correct destination. IVR's can be as complex or as simple as you would like. It all depends on your goal of how you want to route your traffic. Below are the basic settings to accomplish this. For more complex routing, you may need to reach out to the support team for assistance.

1. In the Voice Portal navigate to Applications > IVR

   

    

2. Click the button:

3. This next step will discuss the settings needed to creating a new IVR. We will skip over some settings or leave them to their default, each one of these settings has a tooltip that will go into greater detail if you need it.

   • Name (Required) and Description (Optional): Are used for your reference so you know the purpose of this IVR.

     

   • Announcement: The recording that will play to the consumer calling in. We go over what this is and how to create one in this guide.

   • Enable Direct Dial: Set this to Yes - This gives the caller the option to direct dial an extension.

   • Force Strict Dial Timeout: Set this to Yes - This is required for direct dial to function properly.

   • Invalid Destination: If the caller inputs an invalid destination in 3 times, it will direct them to this failover destination. You could send them back to the IVR, to an extension, ring group, voicemail, etc.

   • Timeout Retries: Change this to 1 - How many times the caller is allowed to timeout without pressing any options on their keypad.

   • Timeout Retry Recording: Change this to none - It will just forward them directly to the timeout destination without playing anything.

   • Timeout Destination: If the caller times out 1 time, it will direct them to this failover destination. You could send them back to the IVR, to an extension, ring group, voicemail, etc.

     

      

4. We will go over IVR Entries here, our goal is to match up the options in our message to what will happen when they enter particular key inputs.

   • For example, if your message is something like the following: “Thank you for calling Arbeit. If you know your party's extension, you may dial it at any time. Otherwise, press 1 for sales, 2 for support, 3 for billing.”

     

      

5. Once you’ve finished mapping out your IVR Entries to match your message, you can click the “Submit” button in the bottom right of the screen

   

    

6. Next Click the “Apply Config” button in the top right of the screen

   

Optional Settings

• If you want to be able to reach an extension's voicemail from an outside line, you will need to add another entry to your IVR. Set the digits pressed to a value that a consumer will most likely not dial and set the destination to Feature Code Admin, Dial voicemail <*98>. You can follow the voice prompts, but you will need to know the extension number and voicemail password.
  Important: This should not be included in the message. It's a hidden option as it opens up your voicemail to the world. You may want to change the default voicemail passwords to something more secure as well.