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Forward Calls to Another Phone as Your Backup

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Forward Calls to Another Phone as Your Backup

In our previous blog about Call Forwarding for Daily Use, we discussed how VirtualPBX Phone Plans can forward all your calls to your smartphone. But what if you only want to forward calls to another phone when your primary phone is unavailable?

This is what we call “failover.” It’s an included feature with all our phone plans, and it’s especially useful in our Unlimited Minute Plans for using our Web Phone as your daily driver and your smartphone as a backup.

Let’s take a deeper look at how failover works.

Failover Call Forwarding Configuration

Forward Calls - User Portal - VirtualPBXUsers are able to enter their User Portal and change their personal settings when they want to forward calls to another phone.

They can enter the number for their smartphone, for instance, to have all calls be directed to that preferred device.

Admin Control for Failover

Account administrators have the power to establish Failover settings for any user on their Phone Plans.

In the Users section of their VirtualPBX Dashboard, admins will find a User Features grid that looks like the image shown here.

User Features Menu - VirtualPBX Dashboard

Clicking “Call Forwarding” in that grid will open a pop-up menu that presents the Failover Mode option. It’s then possible for the admin to enter a phone number to be used as a sort of emergency number for that user.

Call Forwarding Failover Menu - VirtualPBX DashboardIn Failover Mode, the designated user will only have calls forwarded to them when none of their other devices are registered.

Deregistering a device may occur when:

  • A user signs out of their Web Phone
  • A VoIP device is disconnected
  • Power is lost to a VoIP device

Failover to the Rescue

In practice, Failover Mode can be helpful for users who have more than one device but who might wish to make workplace devices primary. An individual may have a Web Phone and desk phone that they use every day at work, but they may want calls directed to their smartphone in the case of a power outage at the office.

When you want to forward calls to another phone, Failover Mode makes is simple to have one device work as your backup.

Admins can make the change easily for any user. And at any time the user needs to change back to normal Call Forwarding, they can enter the User Portal and select the necessary settings.

If at any point changes are made in the admin Dashboard or the User Portal, those settings will immediately take effect. Admin actions in the Dashboard will override existing User Portal settings; similarly, User Portal changes will override settings in the Dashboard.

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