NAR has a very member-focused phone policy. Whenever anyone calls, the phone must be answered by a human. If someone is not at their desk and they receive a call, after about three rings, it’ll ring on the phones of the rest of their dept. The theory is someone else will be around to answer it. At the end of the day, we’re supposed to forward our phone to voice mail and when we get to work in the morning unforward it. Also, we’re to unforward the phones of the others in our dept as well.
You can guess the part I routinely forget to do? Yep, the forwarding and the unforwarding. Most times I just forget to forward it when I leave, but when I do remember to forward it, the next time I come in I sometimes forget to unforward it until 10am. I decided that technology had to be able to help me.
The good news is that the VOIP system that NAR uses has a web interface that you can log into to change some of the settings on your phone, the most important being if the phone is forwarded and where it is forwarded to. I often use it when I work from home to forward my phone there. Its extremely useful for that. So now I have an easy to access electronic means to get the phone forwarded, I just need to automate it now. Continue reading ‘Automating Policy’
