Overview

• Advanced call handling increases efficiency during periods of heavy incoming call traffic.
• All the power of VIP PROFESSIONAL - and so much more
• Familiar Windows format — Intuitive, requiring less training.
• Drag-and-drop functionality enhances rapid call processing.
• Lets user organize and sort station icons by label color to easily locate employees and determine their availability.

Incoming Calls view

• The Incoming Calls view displays all incoming calls, in the order in which they arrive. For each incoming call, one of three status conditions applies:
  • New incoming calls, indicated in black type.
  • If a call remains unanswered beyond a certain period, it automatically goes into the Attendant Queue (bold blue type and a “Q” icon). The caller hears a system prompt advising him/her of the delay. Also, you can choose to place a call into this Queue (if you know there will be a delay in answering and wish to spare the caller having to wait through several rings).
  • If you’ve already handled a call but it has “returned” to you for some reason, it’s a re-routed call — indicated by bold black type and a “recycling” icon. Among other things, this keeps you from greeting the caller as if this were a newly presented call.
• This provides powerful call handling.
  How can you answer a call in VIP PC Attendant Console?
  • Obviously, you can click the Call Display’s Answer button. This answers all waiting calls in the order of their respective arrival to VIP PC Attendant Console.
  • You can double-click any call in the Incoming Calls view. This lets you decide the order in which you’ll answer calls, especially based on Caller ID information.
  • You can even drag-and-drop. Drag a call from the Incoming Calls view and drop it onto a programmed button in the Virtual Button Window. As with programmable feature keys on your ESI Feature Phone, each button can represent an extension, department, mailbox, or speed-dial number. Let’s say you see a call and know from its Caller ID information that it’s Joe’s wife. If your Virtual Button Window has a button for Joe’s extension, just drag-and-drop the call onto that button to transfer Joe’s wife directly to his extension.

Holding Calls Views

• The Holding Calls view shows up to five calls that are on hold (if more than five are on hold, a scrollbar appears). This view displays both calls that are on system-wide hold and calls that the attendant has placed on exclusive hold. If a call remains on hold beyond a certain time limit (programmed by your ESI Reseller), VIP PC Attendant Console uses bold red text and a “bell” icon to draw attention to this.
• To take a call off-hold, just double-click it. VIP PC Attendant Console lets you decide which call to take off-hold; so you can base it on the Caller ID information, how long the call has been holding, a combination of the two, or any other factor you wish.
• There are three ways you can place a call on hold when using VIP PC Attendant Console:
  • When speaking to a caller, click Hold in the Call Display window.
  • When speaking to a caller, press HOLD on your ESI Feature Phone.
  • While a call is ringing, drag-and-drop the call from the Incoming Calls view into the Holding Calls view.

Virtual Button Window

• Shows the status of up to 400 entries — The buttons in the Virtual Button Window, similar to the programmable feature keys on your ESI Feature Phone or physical Expansion Console, provide single-click access to extensions, mailbxoes, departments, and speed-dial numbers. As in VIP, just drag-and-drop to program these buttons. ESI PC Attendant Console is always fully synchronized with the phone system, which assures that the buttons remain up-to-date and show the accurate status for each of the items they represent.
• Color-coding — Each displayed station button gives color-coded, at-a-glance indication of the station’s button:
   

  When the button is . . .	The associated station is . . .
  Silver gray	Idle
  Red	In use
  Amber	In do-not-disturb mode

   
  And, if your system is equipped with ESI Presence Management, the Virtual Button Window even tells you when users are off-premises (“OUT” indications in the graphic, above).
• Easy on-screen organization — With the Virtual Button Window, you can group buttons within folders, as shown above, to simplify managing them. VIP PC Attendant Console also lets you give buttons color-coded labels for additional ease of keeping track of who is in what department, who performs which function, etc. This is in addition to the buttons’ color-coded status indications mentioned above.
• Even more powerful call-handling — When using the Virtual Button Window, you can transfer a call by any of these three methods:
  • Drag-and-drop it onto a button, from either Incoming Calls or Holding Calls.
  • After answering the call, click Transfer in the Call Display. This pops up a complete listing of extensions, mailboxes, departments, and speed-dial numbers; just click the one you want.
  • As always, press TRANSFER on your ESI Feature Phone.

Text-messaging

• This VIP Professional-based feature is particularly powerful for use in VIP PC Attendant Console. You can send a text message to any user in your ESI phone system who’s equipped with a VIP Professional-compatible application.
• ESI text-messaging is completely non-intrusive. Forget about old-fashioned “whisper paging” and minimize the need for noisy overhead pages: if Joe gets a call but is already on another call, just send him a quiet, instant text message.
• One major advantage ESI text-messaging has over other instant-messaging solutions: it’s safe from viruses, “worms,” and other security threats. That’s because it’s on just your system and doesn’t involve the Internet. This also mimimizes workplace distractions by limiting employees to only intra-business text-messaging.
• You can type a new message each time (in the Type Message field), use the built-in, customizable Quick Responses to save time, or use any combination of the two as you see fit.