sundance-communications.com Forums Telephony Discussion Phone & VoIP Systems Panasonic Telephones & Systems Feature Questions

We are looking for a system that has the following features.

Ability to setup extensions where the system will forward to our cell phones. Prior to transferring the call the system will prompt the user to say their name at the tone. The system will then try us on our cell and if we answer the system will playback the recorded name of the caller allowing us to either accept or reject the call.

When checking our voicemail remotely from our cell phones we would like to be able to hit a key combination that (assuming the callerid information was present) call back the sender of the message. This is an important convenience since we are frequently in the car and thus can’t easily jot down the number, hang-up, dial, etc. Instead we would like to hit a key, have the system connect us, and then return back to voicemail when we hang up after returning the call.

We would also like the ability to have the voicemail contact us on our cells when we have a message.

Call recording is very nice and (assuming the call was connected to our cells) it would be very nice to be able to initiate the system to record the call remotely.

We have been looking at the Talkswitch, NEC DS2000, and various Panasonic Systems. I am also wondering what systems you would recommend. If the system doesn’t have all the features I would be interested in what features it does have? I am also wondering if you sell systems, and/or whether you know where I can preview any of these systems. We are located in the Chicago area.

We are frequently out of the office which is why remote functionality is critical for us.

I greatly appreciate your help!

I was thinking that CallerID Call Back might be one of the features we are looking for however I am having difficulty determining whether (1) this is truly one of the features we are looking for and (2) whether this feature can be used remotely from our cell phones when checking voicemails remotely.

well, that's asking quite a lot from ANY system.
1:The biggest downside I see from setting this up through a proprietary system is if the system is forwarding to your cellphone it's eating up 2 lines on your system and the voice or volume quility tends to suffer some.
2: It's not going to pass the CID from the caller to your cell, it's just going to show your office calling.
3: Almost any voicemail can give you external message notification. Most can also play the CID #. Even the ones that have an option to call back, (with one touch) the voicemail is assuming that your on a "system phone"
4: To forward to your cellphone and have the system pull the call back to go into the proprietary voicemail before your cell phone voice mail grabs it could be very tricky and with all the timers set right it usually isn't very dependable.
5: How large of a system are we talking about?
What kind of CO lines,5 or 6 pots, T-1, primes, DIDs, Etc.?
Most of the professional offices I have worked with use an external sorce, I'll e mail you a link, they issue you the numbers, when you call that number it answers with your custom message and provides a menu; IE; what would you like me to do? take a message, find him etc.
If you answer "find him" it trys 2 or 3 numbers, that you provide, at the same time, if no answer then it takes the message and attempts to notify you by your instructions.
This in the long run could save you money by allowing you to simply have a small system in the office without a proprietary voicemail system.
I'm sure we'll get many other thoughts on this.
Gem.