Vodia PBX Features list

The Vodia apps are taking full advantage of WebRTC. This includes the OPUS codec for excellent audio quality and DTLS security context negotiation.

Finding a user is one of the most important tasks that the PBX has to fulfill. A missed call is wasted time for the caller, a waste of productive time and must be avoided as much as possible. The PBX supports several ways to find a user, where ever the user is. The user can program various redirection options. A simple "Do not disturb" (DND) redirects calls either to coworkers, offers callbacks after DND is disabled or just sends calls to the users mailbox. Redirection on busy, timeout or just always allows explicit programming of the redirection target.

User portal provides easy call control, like making, ending, transferring, holding etc. for multiple calls both through WebRTC or desktop phone associated with portal. Also gives live status of other users' phones.

Because trunks are essential resources in the PBX and sometimes Internet connections can be challenging, the PBX can send emails when the registration status changes on a SIP registration trunk. This is very useful when troubleshooting random behavior with SIP termination. As with the extensions, SIP trunks can also trigger the recording of the calls that are handled by the SIP trunk. This feature is very useful to troubleshoot problems with SIP trunk providers and is welcome material to the support staff.

When the calls hits the auto attendant, you can have the system play a customized message to greet your callers. The system will establish a simple dialog with the caller, using prerecorded and your own recordings. The caller can also select the language from the auto attendant. The announcement for the language selection is made in the to-be selected language, so that the caller can actually understand it.

In environments where guests, patients or residents need to be able to call emergency numbers, it is valuable and sometimes legally required that frontend staff gets a notification about the call and its location. The PBX can send emails, SMS and initiate overhead paging in such a case and streamline the handling of emergencies.

Ringback tones can be set per hunt group; for example, to mix ringback tones with announcements which provide additional information to callers.

While other calls may be recorded or not, emergency calls are special. Because of their special nature, emergency calls can explicitly be recorded or explicitly not be recorded.

The agents and selected management accounts can use their web browser to monitor the calls that are waiting and connected. A brief summary shows how much time agents have spent on the phone and idle; the web page also contains information about the number of processed calls, the average and total call duration and how long callers had to wait on average before the call got connected to an agent.

Trunks may have rates that define how much a call to a specific destination will cost. Those rates depend on the starting pattern of the destination. Inbound calls can also be billed depending on the number that was dialed, making it possible to show the cost for toll-free numbers. VoIP phones that support advice of charge (AoC) can show the cost on the display while the call is progressing. The cost for the calls can be fed into a monthly bill using a cloud-based billing platform. Rates can then include semi-flat rates, where users get a budget of monthly included minutes.

The maximum number of calls for the queue can be defined to ensure that limited trunk resources are not overloaded. When that number has been reached, the ACD can send a busy signal to the caller, so that the trunk line gets cleared up. This feature is important when other trunks lines need to be kept open for other high-priority queues or for other services.

Similar to the automatic provisioning of VoIP phones, the PBX can also automatically set up PSTN gateways with a reasonable configuration. For this the administrator needs to provide the IP address of the device (typically a statically assigned IP address) and make sure that the device is using its default username and password. After the initial configuration, the PBX will set up a dial plan for the new trunk. The administrator can use this plan as a template to build onto with more elaborate rules for dialing out.

There is a number of prerecorded announcements available that you can use to send calls to the accounting department, sales, support, the front desk, medical services and many other destinations. Those can be mixed with your own recordings. If you like, you can have the PBX mix the prompts with music on hold-sources.

Vodia maintains a list of known SIP trunk providers. Those providers can usually be configured by just providing the username and the password. After setting up the trunk, the PBX will register to the right destination and set up the SIP headers the way the SIP provider wants it. There is no further tweaking of the SIP settings necessary, which makes it easy to use SIP trunks.

Each extension has it own address books. Extensions also share the domain address book, which is available for the whole domain. The PBX address book stores information in the PBX itself. Users can edit the address book through the web interface. The address book entry may also tell the PBX to reject calls from the contact

When agents place outbound calls, the PBX can associate the caller-ID of the ACD with the call and log the call in the statistics for the ACD. Each ACD keeps a list of numbers that should be called. This list can be uploaded through the web interface. The agent can pick the next number from the list by dialing a star code. If the call connects successfully, the agent can use the "pound" key to take the number off the list; if the call was not successfully connected, the agent may put the number to the back of the list, so that the agent or someone else can try to call this number later. This feature is also available from the users cell phone, enabling mobile outbound calling. Because of the simple next-function for outbound calling, it is easy to use this function from regular cell phones.

Callers hear music on hold mixed with announcements that can be either uploaded (studio recordings) or recorded from an extension. The recordings are mixed with the background music on a lower volume, giving a caller a sophisticated call impression, even when announcements are recorded in-house. The first announcement is played back even if the caller would otherwise immediately ring at least one agent. Other announcements are randomly selected.

Staff members can be notified by email or text when a emergency calls is being started. The email contains the extension number that started the call and the time.

When all agents are logged out or are no longer registered, calls can be automatically redirected to a programmable destination. This is useful for after hours or when only few agents are assigned to a queue.

Ring groups can include up to three stages of numbers (extensions or external numbers), plus a final stage that connects the call when there nobody else picked up the call. Each stage rings for a programmable duration.

Calls to the ring group can be forked to the extension's cell phone, enabling mobile groups to be part of the group. And of course users that use the Vodia app can receive calls on their mobile devices just like regular phone calls.

Agents can receive their calls on any of the devices that are associated with their extension. This is ideal for distributed groups that work from office, home or any other location with an Internet connection or phone line. The group management can choose the best device for the agents. A special feature was added for cell phones. Calls to the extension's cell phone can be enabled at a group (ring group or queue) and an extension level, providing maximum flexibility on where to serve incoming calls. When receiving the call, the agent can be required to confirm the call by pressing a digit on the phone, so that the call does not get lost in the agents mailbox when the agent is not available. For example, this makes it possible to include real estate agents or taxi drivers in agent groups while they are on the road, tremendously reducing the required staff to operate the queue. The feature is not limited to cell phones, it can also be used with regular telephone lines, for example in areas with limited cell phone reception but existing telephone lines.

The administrator of a queue can program what is considered a missed call. Instead of showing the missed call on the phone, the PBX can also send out an email to a group of people that can take care of the missed call. This helps avoid having multiple people call the original caller back.

In many organizations there are users with different time zones and languages working together. The PBX can handle a mix of those, and present messages in their local time zone.

When the caller calls into the queue, the system checks if the agent is available and prefers to connect the caller to that agent again. This makes it possible to keep the customer context and saves time for callers having to explain the case again.

IP phones with large displays can just display the caller-ID of the caller and in a separate line the caller-ID of the ACD.

In many office environments calls land on a single phone number. In the USA and Canada, this is typically the company "DID", in other countries that is typically the number of the company without a specific purpose. Most of the calls can be routed to the right destination without human involvement, just by the caller entering on their phone pad who they want to talk to. This saves time for the office staff and gets callers connected to the right location around the clock. The auto attendant in the Vodia PBX performs that function.

Instant messaging available for Web, Desktop and Mobile Apps for internal users even if there is no SMS provider set up for the system.

Ring groups are useful to ring multiple extensions in order to find someone who can take a call. This is useful in groups with a low call volume, where multiple people can answer the call and help the caller. Incoming calls are sent immediately to the extensions, even if it causes call waiting for the called extensions.  Ring groups can include up to three stages of numbers (extensions or external numbers), plus a final stage that connects the call when nobody has picked up the call. Each stage rings for a programmable duration.

The ring melody can be changed for ring groups and queues to indicate which ring group the call was sent to. In addition to showing the group name on the display, this helps agents to identify what number has been called.

The user can use his/her gmail account to login as a user, provided the same email is set up in his/her Vodia user account.

Faxes can be delivered to your Email inbox as a pdf attachment

Callers can use DTMF to leave the queue and move to other destinations, for example to leave a voicemail message and a callback number. The event will be logged in the statistics for the group.

When extensions can only be reached through an auto attendant (no DID), the PBX can present a special identifier. Each extension is assigned an EPID (EndPoint Identifier). On SIP trunks that support this, the EPID is sent on emergency calls. This enables the emergency call center to call the extension back directly when the call gets disconnected, without having to know the extension number. As a backup, an emergency ANI can be configured to ring the receptionist and can serve as a backup callback number.

Some extensions overlap with emergency numbers, which can make sense for inbound calls. The PBX makes sure that emergency calls always end up on trunks and not on internal extensions. By default, the PBX will call the emergency number just like any other number.

At the end of the day, the system can send emails to select email addresses that contains information about the activity of a call queue on that day. Like the web interface live reporting, it contains information about the calls and their durations and the agent activity. The email may also contain a detailed view of call data records.

The hunt group can send a daily email that includes a summary of the calls that came into the hunt group that day.

The domain address book can be used to remember callers. This can be used to automatically fetch client matter codes or customer ID for callers. Those codes will be reported in the CDR, which simplifies the billing process for professionals like lawyers that bill telephone calls. The address book entry may also contain the last agent that was talking to the contact. When the caller calls into the ACD, the ACD checks if the agent is available and prefers to connect the caller to that agent again. This makes it possible to keep the customer context and save time for callers to explain the case.

Each DID can be tagged with a special name, a descriptive text and a recording for the number. This is suitable for virtual offices where agents are taking care of a large number of clients. The name typically contains the clients company name, a description can be used with pop-up tools for PC or in the web browser. If there is recording available, the PBX will read out that recording after the agent has answered the call, but not yet connect the call to the caller. This is a great way to provide a "script" for the agent on what to say as the welcome message for the specific office

If the caller already knows the extension number, she can call that number from the auto attendant. When callers are looking for a specific person, they can use the dial by name feature of the auto attendant. In this case the user can use the dial pad to enter the letters of the name. When there are enough digits, the PBX can match a specific extension and offer to dial the extension. If the extension has recorded her name, it will announce the name before dialing the number. You may specify which extensions are not available for outside callers and which have to go through a screening process.

You can use your extension to record your company's greeting message. This is easy and very flexible. You can use this feature to rapidly change your announcements, for example on snow days. If you prefer a professional impression, you can upload recordings through the web interface into the system. You can have multiple recordings for different situations and then enable them through service flags. This way you can have different announcements during office hours, holidays and weekends.

Central Office-lines were used to subdivide physical trunk lines into single call appearances, especially when using T1-lines. This feature is useful to manage the trunk resources. The functionality can be emulated using the Vodia PBX CO-lines. CO lines are "seized" when placing outbound calls or receiving inbound calls. This is useful when users likes to emulate PBX using shared lines from the old days when lines were analog. Vodia CO-lines can be limited to handle only inbound or outbound calls. This makes it possible to keep a certain number of inbound or outbound calls available in busy offices.

Especially in environments when US and international numbers are mixed, it is useful to tell each trunk on how to interpret and present numbers. The PBX will put the numbers into a global format that abstracts from the local representation.

With geographically distributed teams, not every extension should call the same number. Emergency call centers can be called by regular phone numbers. The extension may also present a different caller-ID that is only visible on emergency calls.

The caller-ID of the caller can be extended with the group name, so that IP phones that have only limited space for displaying incoming calls can include the group name along with the number of the caller.  IP phones with large displays can display the caller-ID of the caller and in a separate line the caller-ID of the queue.

There are several ways for redirecting calls. When the user has used the redirection features of the extension, the auto attendant will use those settings for redirecting the call. If a user is busy, the auto attendant may offer the caller a callback when the user becomes available again. This saves precious time for trying again and again to reach the extension. Redirections can also be programmed to central numbers when the call hits a mailbox. This avoids requiring that every extension has to set this up on their own. After a timeout of inactivity, the PBX disconnects the call. This solves problems with analog gateways that are not able to detect caller hang-up and with robocalls. The administrator can specify what action should be taken when someone enters an extension number. Instead of calling the extension, which is the default action, the attendant can also call the mailbox, log into the hot desking account or start the call review for recorded calls.

Calls can be redirected based on time or user-initiated events to other destinations. The events can be defined for waiting callers or ringing calls.

Automatically detect phones in the LAN in order to be able to easily provision them.

Extensions can require callers to first leave their name before the calls gets put through to their extension. This can be required for anonymous calls that don't present a caller-ID or for all external calls. The extension can then decide whether to take the call or reject it. Callers that have a caller-ID can also be put on the rejection list in the address book of the extension. This is a effective way to fend off robocalls and other calls from unwelcome callers.

Anonymous calls can be redirected to another destination, reducing the number of unwanted calls.

Agents that are logging into several queues need to know which queue they are answering when a call comes in. The system provides several ways to achieve this, which can be mixed and matched.

Scoreboards are essential tools for measuring and motivating office staff to processing calls efficiently. The Vodia PBX provides real-time and offline information that helps to manage call queues.

Agents can be part of multiple call queues. This is useful when there are several groups that have a skill overlap, or agents that have skills for several tasks. For example an agent with technical skills may be able to service support calls and at the same time help out with marketing. When none of the logged in agents answers a ringing call, the system can include additional overflow agents in the group of available agents. For example, managers that are usually not working for the group may then be included in this situation. Agents can log in and log out using star codes from any phone or the web interface of the PBX. The manager can set threshold for minimum staff, disabling the logout code when the number of available agents is below a defined threshold. This can be useful in environments where geographically dsitributed teams are working together where it is hard to see how many agents are available. Queue managers can also statically log their agents in. Between calls, the administrator can give agents a certain amount of time. This is called the wrap-up time that the agent can use to take notes of the call, for example update the customer information in the CRM system. Agents can be automatically logged out for missed calls. This makes it easy for small groups to manage availability, especially when agents forget to log out.  When all agents are logged out or are no longer registered, calls can be automatically redirected to a programmable destination.

Each call queue can be programmed to propose a specific ring melody. This way agents can tell the difference between a regular incoming call and a call coming into a queue.

Call queues are used to automatically distribute calls to a group of extensions. The system connects calls one after another to a group of agents. If there are too many calls for the agents, the system puts the caller into a waiting list and pulls the first one out as agents become available. There are several algorithms available for connecting the calls. In the most simple case, the administrator can explicitly specify the preference for agents. Alternatively, the system can pick the agent that was the longest time idle, establishing a fair scheduling for the agent group. The system can also just roll the dice to select the next available agent (random selection). Each queue can have a priority. This makes it possible to give callers priority access to agents that are logged in to several queues. This is typically used for premium customer lines in busy call centers.