Example 7 - Run different services at different times of the day and week

user requirements

I want to modify my switchboard I set up in Example 5 to just run between 9am and 5:30pm Monday to Friday. All other times I just want to take a message from the caller.

step-by-step set-up instructions

This example is based on the Callagenix Time of Day service. It modifies the switchboard service set up in Example 5 to be called only at certain times of the day and creates an answerphone service to run at all other times.

It uses mailboxes to store voice messages.

  1. From the Services menu, create a service of type Answerphone- call it something like Out of Hours answerphone (see Example 3 if you are unsure how to set up and answerphone service). Modify this service to say the correct prompts and send voice messages to the relevant locations.
  2. From the Services menu, create a service of type Time of Day - call it something like Timed Switchboard.
  3. In the Edit screen for the Time of Day service you will notice that there is a default service and 7 time slots. The default service is the service that will be run if no services are defined for a particular time and day. The default service in our example will be the Out of Hours answerphone service so select this against the Default service and Save Changes.
  4. Now select Time Slot 1 and select the service ABC Engineering Switchboard (created in Example 5). Since we want this to run Monday to Friday from 9am to 5:30pm we should enter these details for this time slot. To do this tick on the boxes for Mon, Tues, Wed, Thu, Fri in the Days of the week settings and enter 09:00 in the Start field and 17:30 in the End field of the Time of Day settings. One note to bear in mind here is that the times and days are set according to GMT so you need to adjust your time and day settings accordingly if you are not within the GMT time band. To help you in this the server date and time is displayed in the top right hand corner of the screen of the administration page which you can refresh by clicking on the Home menu. With reference to this figure simply add or subtract your time difference and use these as you settings.
  5. Click on Save changes and the service setup is completed and you can test in the usual manner.
  6. Although the set-up of the service is complete, if you got a telephone number and attached it to the ABC Engineering switchboard you will need go to the Numbers menu, view your numbers list and swap this live number onto the Timed Switchboard service. Without this callers will still only run the ABC Engineering Switchboard.

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