Add ShoreTel Extension Lists to your Automated Attendant
April 29th, 2009

Extension Lists are a unique solution for a variety of challenges in the Call Flow War! Does your Automated Attendant have a “spell by name” directory? Does the CEO want to be listed in the spell by name directory? In ShoreTel it is easy enough to disable a name from appearing in the directory, but what about that nasty ability to take action on the famous “if you know your parties four digit extension number, dial it at any time during this greeting….”. Think about it, anybody can bounce around the company telephone system after they hear that announcement! Sooner or later they may even find the CEO! So what is to be done about this possibility? In ShoreTel, you can create Extension Lists.These lists can be used for setting up paging groups, but they can also be used in the Automated Attendant.When setting up the Automated Attendant you have a drop down list of each of the digits and the ability to define what should happen when someone pushes that digit(i.e. send to a menu, transfer to an extension, take a message).There is a special entry list that includes what to do if the caller “Time Out”; or “invalid entry” or hits “multiple digits”.Typically, this last option: “multiple digits”, is set through the drop down menu to “Transfer to Extension” echoing the digits the caller entered.If look at the right of that drop down list, similar to the other menu items, you can click and select an Extension List!How wonderful!You can actually create a list of extensions that the caller can dial and limit the digits that the Automated Attendant accepts to only the extensions on that list!This assures that the caller will not accidentally hit the extension that activates the overhead paging system or ring the CEO’s office!

ShoreTel AA drop down list!