The SBA will answer incoming calls and play a greeting to the caller either by time of day (i.e. good morning, good afternoon or good evening) with a holiday greeting or a general greeting. Multi-level menu allows you to setup different options for callers to choose from. You can have up to 9,999,999 mailboxes with The SBA and each mailbox has the ability to receive messages, send messages to individuals or groups, time date-stamp messages, rewind, pause, fast forward, save, delete, replay and forward messages. A unique option for The SBA (only available with Dialogic or Bicom voice hardware) is the ability to intelligently manage your messages right from your desktop without using the telephone! By having a sound card and speakers you can listen to, record, append to, manage, create and send a message or forward a message to another mailbox! This option is called WinTalk! and it starts at only $195!

How many people can have a voice mailbox on The SBA?

You can set up 9,999,999 different mailboxes. So you can, in theory have this many different users. The number of people that can call the system at the same time is limited by the number of ports you have.

What is a Port?

An automated voice system can handle 1 to 24 calls at the same time. Each call is handled by a port which is a hardware connection for a single phone line on your PC. If you have two phone lines, you will need two ports to handle calls that come in. If you want twenty-four people to be able to call the system at the same time, you will need twenty-four ports and twenty-four phone lines. If a twenty-fifth person calls, they will receive a busy signal.

Can Each Person Have His Own Phone Number?

For voice mail service bureaus, often it is desirable to order a block of phone numbers from the phone company and give one to each mailbox owner allowing people to directly call their mailbox. This type of system is called DIRECT-INWARD-DIAL or DID. An additional piece of hardware is required called the VP2000.

What is Audiotext?

A telephone audiotext system plays pre-recorded informational messages from a library to your callers at their request. You can have an unlimited number of messages stored on your system for playback ( up to the size of your hard disk - typically 15MB per hour of sound ). You can combine audiotext with call forwarding, allowing callers to be connected to a box owner, or combine with voice mail to collect information. If you have a CAS compatible fax modem you can give the caller an option to receive a fax with further details for that particular box.

Can I screen calls with The SBA?

The SBA can announce the callers' selection to you when you answer, and give you the option to accept or decline a call. You can also have the caller speak his or her name and The SBA will announce the caller's name to you with the option to accept or decline their call.

Can I answer calls that come in if I don't have a phone system or Centrex?

The SBA comes with a feature called Simulated Call Transfer. This feature is excellent for those using regular old phone lines (POTS lines) and want to be able to answer an incoming call. When a caller chooses an option to be transferred a dialog box will flash and a sound file will be played indicating that you have a call on line. Simply pick up the phone attached to the incoming line and click answer or send the call to voicemail or you can even play a message that says please continue to hold! A music file can be played while the caller is waiting on line, this is perfect for small one or two person offices that want to sound like a large corporation!

How does The SBA handle Call Forwarding?

The SBA gives you the ability to receive calls anywhere through a single telephone number. Clients will no longer have to remember an office phone number, cellular phone number, and pager number. The SBA actively seeks you and connects you with a calling client wherever you are - if you are accepting calls. If you are not, your calls can be sent directly to voice mail. The SBA conveniently consolidates all of your messages in a single voice-mail bank. No longer will you have to check an answering machine, rented voice-mail, and with a receptionist or answering service for messages. The SBA will allow you to keep different time/day-slots where you can be reached!

Can The SBA page me when I have messages?

Yes, each mailbox owner has the ability to list his or her pager number for notification. The SBA will notify this pager when a message is left in the mailbox. You can even select the days, time and frequency of the page!

What about Fax On Demand, Fax Back, Fax Mail and Fax Broadcasting?

The SBA's Fax on-demand allows your callers to select and automatically receive fax documents including text and / or graphics from any fax machine in the world. Using The SBA's fax on-demand, product information and technical reference materials can be selected by your customers. There are two ways in which your fax system can work, same call or two call. Same call works as follows: the caller has to be calling from the handset on his or her fax machine and press the start key when the system signals to do so. The two-call format will prompt the caller for his or her fax number and a personal identifier. The SBA will then call you back and deliver the information requested. You even get remote fax update with The SBA, this feature allows you to update your fax documents from anywhere. If security is a concern, don't worry, you can assign passwords to protect your documents. Built into The SBA at no additional cost is Fax Mail! Fax Mail allows you to receive faxes into your mailbox and retrieve them from wherever in the world you are, you will no longer need to rely on someone else to forward important faxes to you! Another popular application is Fax Broadcasting, with this feature you can broadcast outgoing faxes to a list of fax numbers.

Can I send messages to Groups?

With this feature each mailbox owner can predefine lists of people to send messages to or to all on the system by recording only one message! After the last person has listened to the message, the recording will be deleted from the system. This is great for messaging entire departments about upcoming meetings or the entire company for notification of holiday time off. If you are running a voice mail service bureau it works great for notifying customers of system changes or new features you're offering.

Can I set up an Information Line?

With The SBA you can set up an audiotex information line that lets callers listen to messages about various topics, or be given the option to receive literature by fax. With three way calling, call transfer, Centrex, or a PBX you can redirect the call out so that the caller will be connected with a live operator. If the call is not answered or the line is busy The SBA can take a message.

Can I set up classified / dateline ads?

Yes, you can set up a special type of voice mailbox called a public mailbox with the SBA. This type of mailbox allows callers to listen to any or all of the ads in it, and reply to ads but not erase any ads. Replies can be sent to any other mailbox automatically. This way, you can assign each advertiser another box to retrieve their replies from ( if you like, you might even charge extra for this service from the advertiser ). By setting up a separate mailbox for a caller to record his or her advertisement, you can preview the ad before placing it in the public mailbox for your callers. You can also collect and verify payment information from an advertiser before allowing his message to be made public. Messages in a public mailbox can be automatically deleted when they reach a certain number of days old.

Can I do Outcall/Telemarketing?

The SBA will dial out to numbers that you have entered or bring them in from an ASCII file generated by popular telephone number CD's. The SBA will call these numbers during the time and days that you select and Deliver a message, conduct a survey or connect them to your fax on demand system to automatically receive information. When a number is busy or not answered The SBA will keep trying for as many times as you define. All results are logged and if you have solicited a response the information will be stored and retrievable by you when it is convenient. The SBA will even allow you to play a different message to an answering machine, a human answer and if a fax machine is detected The SBA can be configured to send a fax (you must have a CAS compatible fax modem installed.)

How do I set up The Small Business Assistant program(SBA)?

After installing the voice card, use the SBA installation disk to put the software on your hard drive. From Windows, you click on the SBA's icon and the system will initialize the voice card. At this point, the system is set up to answer all calls with voice mail. You can then use the system setup screen to determine which application a particular line answers with ( voice mail, audiotex, fax on-demand, autoattendant, outcall ). Each application also has its own setup screen. Within an application, you then set up individual mailboxes, fax documents, outbound calls, extensions, etc. Within the SBA's main window, there are windows showing each application. You can see how many messages there are, what calls have been made or received and who is on the system at a given time.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

The SBA is compatible with the Dialogic standard software interface.

Please call for pricing and to be fit with the board that best suits your needs. These cards record and play sounds over the phone and make and interpret the DTMF tones generated by the key pad on your telephone. Each card supports 2,4, or 8 ports (lines)on up! For fax capabilities you MUST use a CAS-compatible faxmodem such as the Pure Data Satisfaxtion 200 (9600bps), or the 400 (14,400bps). These intelligent faxmodems work dramatically better than dumb faxmodems because they contain a processor of their own to handle the details of faxing while freeing up your main CPU. We recommend using a Pentium or higher PC with Microsoft Windows 95/98 and at least 16MB of RAM. The system will need 15MB of hard drive space for each hour of voice recording time. A mouse is highly recommended. You will also need expansion slots in your PC to accommodate each voice card and fax card.

Also, faxing is only available using Windows 3.11 or Windows 95.

Faxing CANNOT be used with Windows 98

TELEPHONE INTEGRATION

You can use The SBA with out-of-the-wall Central Office (CO) lines, Centrex as well as many Key Systems (KSU) and PBX's. The rule of thumb for integrating with a KSU or a PBX is that if you can plug a standard single line device (2500 set) into the phone system either directly or through an adapter, then there is an excellent chance of integrating. These systems are most-often called a KEY SYSTEM or PBX and consist of several "proprietary" telephones and a KSU (Key System Unit), a larger box to which all of the phones are connected. If you have one of these systems, you will attach your voice card to several of its extensions, rather that attaching it directly to the telephone line. In order to use voice mail with any of these systems, the primary requirement you will need is two or more "Analog Ports" or the ability to attach several "Single Line Devices". These mean the same thing. A connection of this type allows you to attach a standard single-line telephone (called a 2500-set) to your phone system. You can easily test if a given port will work by connecting a standard telephone like the one you are likely to be using in your home to the port. If you can hear a dialtone and place and transfer calls, then the voice card in your computer will also be able to do so. If you cannot hear anything when you attach a standard telephone to your phone system, no voice mail system will work with it until you either obtain the necessary phone system upgrade from the manufacturer or get a different private telephone system. Most systems have an available option to allow this type of connection. Check with your phone system retailer to obtain this capability for your phone system. Partial list of those systems that can support voice mail:

Panasonic*, Toshiba, ROLM, Southwestern Bell Landmark*, NEC,

TIE, Samsung Prostar*, Mitel, Executone, BBS Telecom*, Norstar,

Inter-Tel, Vodavi, AT&T Merlin Legend, T Partners*, Tel-Rad

* = Recommended! No special adapter required - for others, check with your manufacturer for support of single-line ports or analog ports or OPX or station B card.