Multi-office integration means that one phone number can be valid for all branches or locations and that one set of extensions can reach all employees no matter in what office they happen to be located.
Prior to the existence of the Virtual PBX®, the only solution possible for integrating multiple offices was to have a PBX installed at each office, and have dedicated TIE lines that connected the PBXs and allowed calls to be routed to extensions at each office. This was usually a very expensive proposition, and was therefore only available to large companies that were well financed.
With the advent of the Virtual PBX® it is now possible for even very small offices to achieve multi-office integration without the traditional expense associated with it allowing them to present a unified presence to their customers.
There are two separate configurations that can used to integrate multiple offices for customers and employees. The first configuration is the Virtual Office (VO), which uses the advanced call routing features of the Virtual PBX® to integrate all of your employees into one virtual office, even though they are actually scattered among multiple offices. The second configuration is the Multi-Office Routing (MOR) which uses the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) queuing features of the Virtual PBX® to route callers to specific offices instead of to specific employees.
For very large companies Virtual PBX® has developed the a system where a single telephone number can be advertised nationally, but reach the branch or location in the callers home area. This is often a vanity number such as 1-800-XYZCORP, 1-800-FLYHIGH, etc. This is done by Geographic Routing (Smart800) where a caller dials the nationally advertised number but is routed based on his Area Code (and perhaps Prefix) to the branch nearest to him.
This feature should not be confused with services which simply route a caller to the phone number of the nearest location. The difference is that each branch also gets a complete Virtual PBX® customized to that location's special features (a greeting with the special name of the store, extensions for the personnel at that branch, Sales, Support, etc. queues for their special product lines, etc.).