PC/ PBX Terms

ACD - Automatic Call Distribution. Process of distributing numerous calls to the appropriate extension or agent. ACD systems are designed to place callers in a hold queue until the next agent is available. It enables and organization to process many more callers than there are agents. ACD queues can distribute calls in several ways:

• simultaneously - all stations ring at once
• round robin - stations ring consecutively, if an agent is busy, it passes over that station
• top-down - stations ring in order, giving the first station the most calls

Automated Assistant - Also called Auto Attendant. An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) that augments or replaces human telephone operators. An auto attendant directs a caller to the appropriate extension using touch-tone or voice commands. For example, "Press 1 for Sales..."

Central Office - CO. Telephone company facility where subscribers' phone lines are connected to switching equipment.

Conference Call Call that involves three or more callers.

DID Direct Inward Dial, which allows up to 50 different numbers on a single analog line. When answering calls, DID information is used to determine which number the caller dialed and then to deliver the call to that number. TeleVantage uses DID to assign each user a unique 7-digit phone number, so callers can dial it to reach a user directly without having to go through an auto attendant.

Digital PBX A newer type of Private Branch Exchange that keeps calls digital throughout the entire routing process.

Dual Tone Multi-Frequency - DTMF Touch-tone signaling fomat used by home or business touch-tone phones.

Extension Telephone stations within the Private Branch Exchange that each have their own designated number, such as 111, which is added on to the end of a phone number to access that particular workstation. This allows much greater flexibility because each station does not need its own expensive trunk, rather, stations can share trunks.

Flash Quickly pressing and releasing the flash hook (hang up) button on a telephone handset cradle or pressing the flash button. Signals a PBX or Centrex system that special instructions will follow, such as placing a call on hold or transferring a call to another extension.

H.323 Standard that defines how real-time voice and video are transmitted over IP networks.

Hunt Group Group of related trunks set up by the phone company. Incoming calls to the first trunk, or main number, "hunt" through the group until they find an available trunk. A busy signal is returned only if every trunk in the group is busy.

Interactive Voice Response Application that users can interact with using a remote touch-tone phone. An IVR program typically uses recorded or synthetic speech to provide information and present the user with options. The user selects an option by entering a number on the touch-tone phone. Some IVR programs can use voice recognition to interpret the user's spoken responses.

Least Call Routing System of routing a long distance call via the least expensive carrier for that call.

PBX - Private Branch Exchange Privately-owned, customer premise-based version of the phone company's central switching office that processes and directs phone calls.

PC/PBX Personal Computer based Private Branch Exchange. Much more flexible than traditional Private Branch Exchanges because of the modular design of Personal Computers. To add functionality, simply upgrade the software on the server, to add trunks or extensions, add new hardware.

Plain Old Telephone Service - POTS Basic telephone service that allows a person to place and take calls.

Public Switched Telephone Network - PSTN The world wide phone network, including all carriers, switches, CO's, and local and long distance lines.

Queue Two or more telephone stations that are listed as a member of a certain queue. Calls coming into that queue are then routed to one of these telephone stations. There are different methods of choosing telephone stations, in order or randomly. For example, to create a customer service queue, just add workstations to a list that denotes the queue. When a caller gets directed to the customer service queue, one of the stations will pick up and handle the call. If another call is recieved, it goes to another available customer service representative.

Switch PBX, CO, or any mechanical, electric, or electronic device that manages communications circuits.

Telephone User Interface - TUI Verbal interface made up of system prompts and telephone commands that allows users to access PC/PBX features using only their phone. For example, the system prompt, "Press 1 to accept the call, or hang up to send the call to voice mail," guides the user on how to answer an incoming call.

Telephony Science of transmitting and managing voice, fax, and other data over the PSTN.

Toll Bypass Avoiding the long-distance carrier network (and associated tolls) when connecting to another subscriber outside of the local area, by means of the internet, a private network, tie lines, etc.

Trunk A line coming into the Private Branch Exchange system. Each line has its own identifying telephone number.