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Creating a time-of-day routing plan

Do you wish you could extend your customer service hours but don't have the staff at one location to do it? You can make that happen by splitting your call traffic between locations. For example, send your inbound, toll-free traffic to your New York office in the morning and your Los Angeles office in the afternoon. Use the time-of-day feature to start and stop when calls ring at your offices.

To create a time-of-day routing plan:

  1. Click Inventory, then click Inventory.

    Control Center displays a list of all services assigned to the accounts under your enterprise ID. If you have more than 10 services, you can view the rest of your services by clicking one of the blue linked Show numbers at the top of the list or you can click the blue down arrow at the bottom of the list to add 10 services at a time to the view.
Inventory
  1. Search for the service in one of these ways:

    • Sort your services using the Sort by… list (e.g., Service Type). You can toggle between descending and ascending order using the arrow to the right of the Sort by… list.

    • Filter your services by selecting an option from the View All (Default) list.

    • Search for a specific service (by service type, account, etc.) using the Search by… field and search box. (To search using multiple search criteria, click Advanced Search, then fill in your search criteria and click Apply Search Filters. When you're done, click Close Advanced Search.)
  1. When you find the service you want to work with, click the blue arrow on the right of the line for the service.

    Control Center displays details for the toll-free service you selected.
Inventory (showing toll-free service detail and global default)
  1. From the Call Plan More Actions list, select Edit Call Plan.
product service id details toll free edit call plan
  1. On the right of the global default (dark gray) bar, click the down arrow, then click Add New Feature.
product service id details toll free add new feature
  1. In the pop-up window, from the Select Feature list, select Time of Day, then click Submit.
  1. If the Confirm Feature Add/Delete window appears, click Accept.
product service id details toll free time of day feature details
  1. In the Default Routing Type section, select the radio button for the routing type you want to use for the feature.
  1. From the Time Zone list, select a time zone for the routing plan.
  1. Click Add Rule.

    From here, you're creating a rule to tell the system what to do when someone calls a specific phone number. For instance, when customers call your toll-free number between 6:00 am and noon, they get routed to a particular phone number.
product service id details toll free geographic routing rule details
  1. Depending on what kind of number you want to route, in the Terminating Route Type section, do one of the following:

    • To add a dedicated trunk:

      1. Select the DED radio button.

      2. From the Primary Trunk list, select the trunk.

    • To add a switched ANI:

      1. Select the  SWI radio button.

      2. From the ANI list, select the terminating route.

        If you don't see the trunk/ANI you need, click the ADD ANI TO THE LIST button, fill in the fields, click Add, then select the number from the list.

Note: If you give the ANI a description, describe it so you and your colleagues will remember it. If you leave the description blank, the phone number will show in the list.

  1. Scroll down Terminating Route Type section, in the Start Time field, type the time the routing plan starts, use the 24-hour clock.
  1. In the End Time field, type the time the routing plan ends. use the 24-hour clock.
  1. Click Update.
product service id details toll free time of day feature details with rules added
  1. Click Save Changes (at the bottom of the Details section).

    Control Center prompts you to schedule when you want the new routing to activate.
product service id details toll free time of day feature details with rules added
  1. Enter a Date and Time, select a Time Zone, then click Submit.

Important: We recommend you schedule your call plan an hour before the activation time. After it has been scheduled, you are unable to edit the plan. If you want to make changes after the plan has been scheduled, you need to wait until the changes go into effect and then you can change it.