Voicemail Down or being upgraded?

[NY Tel Guy]

How is voicemail working for everyone now since the switch?

Ok since no one else has responded, I'll chime in.

All seems well with:

1. The e-mail time stamp is current
2. The Vpanel time stamp entry is current
3. The 832 838-7000 number works
4. Pressing * when dialing yourself breaks through the outgoing message allowing you to retrieve messages that way.

Still to be resolved:

1. The voice time stamp on the voice mail system is still 4 hours ahead of EDT
2. The "press 5 to return this call" still gets you to a different menu tree.

But overall,it is a much improved system over Aunt Bea....
Anyone else have any additional observations?

[GTOJim]

My greeting was lost in the move to the new system and I can not record a new greeting.

Pressing 5 for advanced options, then pressing 1 to record a greeting gives a message to choose greeting press 1-9.

Pressing 2 gives the exact same message, choose greeting press 1-9.

Pressing 1 does not allow me record a greeting.

Thanks

[varaonaid]

My greeting was lost in the move to the new system and I can not record a new greeting.

Pressing 5 for advanced options, then pressing 1 to record a greeting gives a message to choose greeting press 1-9.

Pressing 2 gives the exact same message, choose greeting press 1-9.

Pressing 1 does not allow me record a greeting.

Thanks

Very strange. I had no problems recording my greeting and I chose "1" when they told me to choose 1-9.

[GTOJim]

Very strange. I had no problems recording my greeting and I chose "1" when they told me to choose 1-9.

After reading your post I was able to record a greeting.

I thought I had to make a choice of picking a greeting 1-9, per the recorded message. You are correct, pressing 1 again allowed me to record a greeting. I stopped when I heard the message to pick 1-9. I did not try to see what was behind door number 1 so to speak.

Instead I tried it again pressing 5 advanced options, then pressing 2 which gives the exact same recorded message as pressing 1.

Thanks
Jim

[NY Tel Guy]

After reading your post I was able to record a greeting.

I thought I had to make a choice of picking a greeting 1-9, per the recorded message. You are correct, pressing 1 again allowed me to record a greeting. I stopped when I heard the message to pick 1-9. I did not try to see what was behind door number 1 so to speak.

Instead I tried it again pressing 5 advanced options, then pressing 2 which gives the exact same recorded message as pressing 1.

Thanks
Jim

That's called Voice Mail jumble. Push a button and get a surprise....

[GTOJim]

That's called Voice Mail jumble. Push a button and get a surprise....

Thank you for the great advice. Next time I will be more adventurous.

[varaonaid]

After reading your post I was able to record a greeting.

I thought I had to make a choice of picking a greeting 1-9, per the recorded message. You are correct, pressing 1 again allowed me to record a greeting. I stopped when I heard the message to pick 1-9. I did not try to see what was behind door number 1 so to speak.

Instead I tried it again pressing 5 advanced options, then pressing 2 which gives the exact same recorded message as pressing 1.

Thanks
Jim

Interesting. I had kinda hoped by the inference of choosing 1-9 that we could save up to 9 greetings and rotate them by choosing the number, though I hadn't had time to try it out. Guess that's not the case.

And I only found out about pressing one of the numbers to record the greeting by trial and error. It's not very clear from the prompts but it does work.

Glad you got it working!

[NY Tel Guy]

Interesting. I had kinda hoped by the inference of choosing 1-9 that we could save up to 9 greetings and rotate them by choosing the number, though I hadn't had time to try it out. Guess that's not the case.

And I only found out about pressing one of the numbers to record the greeting by trial and error. It's not very clear from the prompts but it does work.

Glad you got it working!

I have 2 messages recorded designated as 1 and 2
I have successfully switched back and forth between the two messages.
I think that if you only record one greeting, no matter which numeric value you pick, you will hear that lone recording.
I could be wrong though.
I was wrong only once in my life.....It was when I thought I had made a mistake.

The VM prompts do need some cleanup because the use of the words "press 2 to save the message" is confusing because she really should be saying Press 2 to SEND this message.

Experiment with recording and saving a few recordings under different numbers, then activate each one and call yourself.
From my days in the Bell System we would always put a message number at the end of each distinct recording so we could identify routing issues when they cropped up.
1 - Hi this is Bob, leave a message.....blah, blah.....Recording 1
2. Hi this Bob, leave a message....blah...blah....Recording 2
and so on and so forth.
Only way to truly test without driving yourself crazy.

[VOIPoRay]

Interesting. I had kinda hoped by the inference of choosing 1-9 that we could save up to 9 greetings and rotate them by choosing the number, though I hadn't had time to try it out. Guess that's not the case.

That actually is the case.

From the main menu 5->1 will let you record any messages 1-9.

If you already have messages recorded for later use, 5->2 will let you select your pre-recorded messages 1-9 for immediate use without the need of recording them over. This option could be used in a number of ways.

Record messages as follows (option 5 from the main menu then option 1):

1. You've reached <your name here>, I'm not able to come to the phone, please leave a message.
2. You've reached <your name here>, I'm out to lunch. Please leave a message and i'll call you back as soon as i return
3. You've reached <your name here>, I'm on vacation. In the event of an emergency, contact <some other guy> at <some phone number>
4. You've reached <your name here>, I'm currently playing super parent by being a chaperone on my child's field trip, leave me a message and i'll call you back.... if i can

Then later, you can easily select between them by choosing option 5 from the main menu then option 2 and select 1-4 respectively.

NOTE: if you don't have greeting 5 recorded, but you try to choose greeting 5, you'll get an "invalid entry" error message


I'd be interested in hearing what issues people are running into with this and other features of the VM. Or is it just the lack of documentation on it?

[varaonaid]

That actually is the case.

From the main menu 5->1 will let you record any messages 1-9.

If you already have messages recorded for later use, 5->2 will let you select your pre-recorded messages 1-9 for immediate use without the need of recording them over. This option could be used in a number of ways.

Record messages as follows (option 5 from the main menu then option 1):

1. You've reached <your name here>, I'm not able to come to the phone, please leave a message.
2. You've reached <your name here>, I'm out to lunch. Please leave a message and i'll call you back as soon as i return
3. You've reached <your name here>, I'm on vacation. In the event of an emergency, contact <some other guy> at <some phone number>
4. You've reached <your name here>, I'm currently playing super parent by being a chaperone on my child's field trip, leave me a message and i'll call you back.... if i can

Then later, you can easily select between them by choosing option 5 from the main menu then option 2 and select 1-4 respectively.

NOTE: if you don't have greeting 5 recorded, but you try to choose greeting 5, you'll get an "invalid entry" error message


I'd be interested in hearing what issues people are running into with this and other features of the VM. Or is it just the lack of documentation on it?

Thanks for explaining. That's very cool. I'll have to have some fun now recording messages!

And yes, it's the lack of documentation. Just some of the basics would help to have in the knowledgebase such as the shortcuts, how to dial in to check VM remotely, and the info you posted above. I know we pretty much know the basics at this point, but I'm thinking for new signups, it will be rather important to have.