Answering machine during vacation time
The ETH telephone device allows us to record two different messages: a standard message and a special message specifically for holidays or other absences.
Summer has arrived in full force, the sun is shining and many of us are preparing to leave on vacation. In the office, preparation includes activating the out-of-office email reply. Now we can do the same on our answering machine.
Exchange Unified Messaging (UM), the new automated voice mail system activated in January 2015, allows us to record two different voice messages and alternately activate one or the other depending on our needs.
The holiday period is one of those situations where we can make good use of this function: instead of erasing our standard recording and creating a new message specifically for this period, we can record an additional message intended for prolonged absences. A sort of “Out of Office voice message“. The standard voice mail recording remains unaltered on our phone.
After recording this second message, you can comfortably activate or deactivate it through Outlook Web Access (OWA): activate it whenever you leave and deactivate it when you are back. Detailed instructions on how to do this can be found below.
Links
- ITS Website Voice-Mail / Answering Machine
- Sep-by-step: Out of office greeting (PDF)
Best-Practice Tip
For security reasons it is not prudent to provide detailed information (dates, destination) about our absence in such messages since this can be used for dubious purposes.
For “out-of-office” messages, the motto applies: “Less is more”.
Have a wonderful vacation!
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Not only during vacation time: UM (Exchange Unified Messaging https://www1.ethz.ch/id/services/list/voice/voice_mail/index_EN) allows the recording of 5 different messages and to assign a time profile. You need an IP-enabled phone (Siemens OpenStage) for this, but it doesn’t have to be your own. Many ETH groups have one IP phone in their office for this and record their additional messages using OWA https://www1.ethz.ch/id/services/list/voice/voice_mail/UMConfig.