IO Phone - Getting Started | IO Phone

This guide is for setting up your IO Phone for the first time. The highlighted areas are the essentials, but we also wanted to help you understand additional options you have available to you. There are two ways you can start using IO Phone.

The most common way is to port your business phone number to IO Phone. To do this, contact our support team via support@inflatableoffice.com. They will take you through the process. Once our team enters your number into IO Phone, you can continue with this setup guide. It may take a few days for the number porting to complete, but you can make sure all your settings are ready during that time.
Search for a new number to use for your business. Go to Settings -> IO Phone -> Numbers and click to add a number. From there, you can search by area code, postal code, or city/state to find a number you would like to use. Once you've chosen a number, you should immediately be able to start using it.

Numbers

The Numbers section of IO Phone will allow you to add multiple numbers to your InflatableOffice/EventOffice account. You can set a number of preferences:

Name your number so you can easily identify it. Most will only have one number, so you can name it something like "Main."
You can determine if you want the number listed as an outbound number. This will put it in the menu for calling out from the software.
Greeting audio is what you want played to the caller when they call in. You do not have to fill in this field. We will play a normal ringing sound if you do not. However, you can put music or a message or both music and a message to customers if you want. You set these up in Recordings, which we will cover later. If you are putting music and/or a message, you can choose to loop the audio after it completes. It's probably best to leave this empty when you are first setting up your IO Phone.
Hold music can be set and will play after greeting audio if you are not looping it and when you have the caller on hold. It is not necessary to use this, but it does help you customize your caller's experience.
Lastly, you can restrict what worker has access to make outbound calls with a number if you want. If you leave this blank, the number will be available to all workers that have access to the phone.

Below is a video showing additional information about IO Phone Numbers.

Ring Schedules

The first thing you want to do after you have your number setup is to make at least one ring schedule. Ring schedules tell us how to forward calls that are coming in to your number. When a call comes in, we check to see what phones you want us to ring. So, at minimum, you will want to add a ring schedule that lists your number. When a ring schedule rules are meant, we consider it active, and it will cause the personal phones on the ring schedule to ring. Let's look at all the options when adding a ring schedule.

You may indicate any IO Phone number that you want to use the ring schedule. By default, all your Numbers will use all ring schedules.
Naming your ring schedule. You will likely want to name your ring schedule so you know at a glance what it is doing. For a simple setup, you might name a ring schedule "Bill's Cell" and simply have Bill's cell phone set to ring.
The active checkbox allows you to turn ring schedules off without having to delete them and lose settings. This is convenient when you are going on vacation and want to prevent business calls from ringing your phone.
The delay field allows you to enter a delay in seconds before the ring schedule is active. This is useful if you have a greeting you want the caller to listen to or if you are trying to send most calls to one worker and only send calls to another worker if the first worker doesn't answer. In that case, the first worker would have a zero or small delay and the second worker would have a longer delay. In the event this ring schedule is not supposed to ring unless the caller explicitly presses an extension, delays are not used and you should check the Extension Only box.
You can choose per ring schedule whether you want us to display the IO Phone number that the caller dialed or the caller's number when we are ringing the phone numbers on the ring schedule. Remember there is a prompt to accept the call, so you don't have to worry that you will not recognize a work related number.
Set a worker or group to ring. Workers can have up to 3 numbers, so when searching for the worker, make sure you choose the correct number. Groups will be covered later and are how you collectively ring multiple numbers with one ring schedule. Most of the time you will want a ring schedule for each worker number. This way you can turn them on or off and set other rules to make sure you have the correct number ringing exactly when you want.
Setting up a weekly schedule is very useful. Because IO Phone rings your personal phone, you may want to use a schedule so your phone is not ringing outside of business hours. Leaving it empty will allow calls to ring through at anytime of the day. Please note that if you have a multi-location account with different time zones that we are showing you the time zone you should be entering your times in.
Filters are the last setting for ring schedules and probably one of the most powerful. By using filters, you can setup calls for events in progress to go immediately to your event manager. You can also make sure new customers ring through to your sales team while existing customers go to a different group.

Below is a video discussing ring schedules that may be helpful to you.

Voicemail Boxes

Voicemail boxes are the next thing you need to be sure to complete. Voicemail boxes obviously catch all callers that you miss and allow them to leave a message for you. You should at minimum always setup a company voicemail box. Without a company voicemail box, the caller will just continue hearing the ring tone or your greeting if no ring schedule rules are met or if no one on your ring schedules answers. Voicemail boxes are very similar to ring schedules, so we will only go over the differences below.

Voicemail boxes are always active. If you want to turn it off, you would delete it. If you want to save it for later use, you can simply edit it. For instance, changing the schedule or setting a filter that would never trigger the voicemail would effectively be the same as setting it inactive. In the case of a special holiday greeting for you voicemail, simply pick that holiday greeting and revert back to the other greeting after the holidays.
Voicemail boxes cannot be accessed via extensions. Instead, you would set a worker/group to the voicemail box and an extension to the ring schedule that dials that worker/group.
For setting up your company voicemail box, you should not enter a worker/group. Leave this field blank. If you would like to setup personal voicemail boxes for a worker or group, record them and then enter them in the Worker/Group field.
Always set a recording for your voicemail box. Recordings are used to tell us what message you want played to the caller before allowing them to leave a message.

For additional information, view the video below.

Recordings

Recordings are fairly simple. They are where you manage and create any recording you want to use for IO Phone. That may be a greeting, a voicemail box, or part of your phone tree. This is where you will want to record your voicemail box messages. Recordings can be made from your browser, or you can upload them. MP3 files are the preferred format. You can name recordings so you know what they are, and you can designate what phone numbers should be able to use them.

With the completion of the recordings section, you should be ready to use the basic features of IO Phone. However, the videos below will discuss some additional features if you want to continue learning.

Recordings, Extensions, and Groups

Custom Rules

Call and Text Logs