The FacetPhone IP-PBX business telephone system is a state-of-the-art communications system
that is "VoIP from the ground up!" FacetPhone is now available for Mac and Linux computing environments. See the new FacetPhone Mac brochure here. The FacetPhone user interface can be used on any computer that supports Java.
FacetPhone is ideal for businesses large to small, and provides "enterprise-class"
features such as visual voice mail, call recording, multiple auto-attendants,
ACD queues with
full call center and contact center support, conference bridging, enterprise instant
messaging, multiple office and telecommuter integration,
unified communications, powerful IVR functionality, and a rich computer-based graphical
user interface for any and all users within the company. And with FacetPhone, you don't have to pick
and choose the features you want. It comes as a single package providing you all the features you
need now, and in the future, all at a single affordable price.
FacetPhone includes all the normal features of a PBX plus much more as you can see below. With FacetPhone there are no feature packages to choose from. You always get
all the features for one low price.
Telephone
User Interface
For voice
communications, FacetPhone uses IP phones, standard analog telephones
and soft phones in any combination. From the telephone instrument, users may dial, answer,
put calls on hold, transfer calls, park calls, pickup parked calls, conference,
record calls and manage their voice mail. IP phones and standard analog phones with callerID
displays and voice mail waiting indicators are supported.
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Graphical
User Interface
The FacetPhone user interface provides a powerful and easy to use desktop computer interface
to the phone system for all system users. Presence management, graphical call
control, enterprise instant messaging, visual voice mail with advanced voice mail delivery,
unified communications, call recording, conference calls & conference bridging,
contact center controls, and user-level and system-level administration are all provided through
this interface. The FacetPhone user interface is available for Windows, Mac OS X,
and Linux desktops and laptops.
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Presence Management
Using the
graphical user interface on the PC, FacetPhone provides an informative
display detailing which employees are available, on the phone, busy, at
lunch, out of town, etc. This display is available not only to operators
but to all users if desired. Operators and users may see the availability
status of people within a department, the entire company, or any other
group the administrator allows. Operators (and optionally users) may visually
monitor phone lines and extensions. With Call Forwarding users may set
their status to have their calls forwarded to an outside number. And with
Roaming Extensions, also known as "hot desking" or "hotelling", users may login to
FacetPhone from any extension or
location, including a branch office or home office. FacetPhone automatically
routes calls for a user to the proper telephone, and the presence display
reflects the user's current physical location.
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Voice
Mail & Unified Communications
FacetPhone
supports all the standard voice mail features through the telephone. But
through the graphical user interface, voice mail becomes particularly
useful and easy to manage. When the user receives a voice mail message,
the FacetPhone user interface gives an immediate indicator on the user's
PC screen.
- Security: FacetPhone voice mail security is provided through a user Personal Identification
Number (PIN).
- Voice
Mail Light on Phone: FacetPhone automatically manages the voice
mail waiting indicator light on telephones that have this feature.
- Multiple
Greetings: The user may define multiple voice mail greetings
for different situations depending on their user status.
- Graphical
User Interface to Voice Mail: The user interface allows users to visually
sort and manage their voice mail messages. Each voice mail message has
the callerID information, date and time of the message, text notations
associated with the message, and the message duration.
- Add
Text / Comments: Users may add text comments to any voice mail
message as a short visual description of the message content.
- Playback: Voice mail messages may be played on the telephone or the PC speakers.
- Voice
Mail Distribution Lists: Much like email distribution lists,
voice mail lists can be created for the entire company or by individuals
for their own use. Once the distribution list is created, users can
send group messages by going into their voice mail management and simply
recording and sending the message. When a user receives a voice mail
message sent to a group, they can send a reply voice mail either to
the sender or to the entire group of recipients. Likewise, they can
forward the voice mail (with an optional prefix message) on to a specific
user or group of users.
- Voice
Mail Forwarding To Email: Users may choose to have their voice
mail forwarded to their email account as an audio attachment. Voice
mail may be forwarded to email on an ad-hoc or continuous basis, giving
the user an easy-to-manage unified messaging system.
- Voice
Mail Notification via Email: Users may opt to have a special
notification only email (without the actual audio attachment) sent to
them whenever a new voice mail is received. This will give them an instant
alert via email, cell phone or pager with the callerID information.
- Voice
Mail Proactive Delivery: Users may have FacetPhone automatically
call them at one or more outside telephones to deliver new voice mail.
- Mouse
Click Return Call: Users may place a return call to the sender
of the message with a single mouse click.
- Informational
Only Mailbox: Mailboxes may be defined to provide informational
messages without recording any voice mail. This can be useful as an
end point for the auto attendant routing to a group mailbox.
- Telephone
Access: The FacetPhone voice mail system is completely available to
users from a standard telephone. Users may access this system locally
or remotely. When dialing out from their extension, a stutter dial tone
indicates new voice mail messages have been received.
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Auto-attendant
Utilizing
FacetPhone's powerful and flexible Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system,
the auto attendant feature is available for use by both the main reception
lines and departmental groups. Auto attendant is also supported at the
user/extension level through the voice mail system. All greeting prompts
are completely customizable by the company and group. Some of the auto
attendant features are:
- Reception: FacetPhone is designed to be used with or without a receptionist answering
the inbound phone calls. The auto attendant for the main reception lines
can be turned on or off as needed. It can be on during normal business
hours and provide automated routing of all calls. Or, it can be activated
only for after hours and holidays. It can also be used as a backup to
the receptionist where it is activated only after a predetermined number
of rings.
- Group:
At the group or department level, the FacetPhone auto attendant can
be on all of the time, or activated for non-business hours, departmental
meetings, lunch hours, etc.
- Dial
by Name: The FacetPhone auto attendant allows in-bound callers
to route their call to the appropriate person without knowing their
extension. This feature allows for either first or last name directory
look up.
- Dial
by Extension: In-bound callers may quickly route their call
to the appropriate person if they know the correct extension number.
- Dial
by Group: FacetPhone will allow in-bound callers to route their
call directly to the auto attendant of a group or department.
- Voice
Mail: Of course, callers may be routed directly to a user's
voice mail, or voice mail management.
- Informational: The FacetPhone auto attendant can also be used to play specific informational
messages (without allowing for a voice mail to be recorded) based on
telephone menu prompts.
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Call
Center Features
- Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): The
FacetPhone ACD provides for automatic call routing to the next available
agent in a group or department. The FacetPhone GUI has a separate window
for monitoring and managing the ACD queues. This shows the number of
agents on duty and available, the number of unanswered calls in the
queue, and the average and maximum wait times. The current status of
these statistics is shown, along with a rolling average over several
time periods.
- Call
Monitoring / Recording / Barge-In: With
FacetPhone, call center supervisors and managers may monitor calls,
and may optionally record calls, or barge in to calls "on-the-fly"
as needed. When monitoring calls, other supervisors and managers can
see at a glance on the FacetPhone graphical user interface which calls
are already being monitored. With call recording, management may record
all calls on a per user basis, or they may start and stop recording
during specific calls. With call "barge-in," supervisors may
easily join a call in progress to lend advice or clarification.
- Alarm
Limits: The
call center manager or supervisor can set alarm limits so they will
be instantly notified when the number of calls in the ACD queue exceeds
a specified limit, or when the average wait time is greater than the
defined limit.
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CallerID*
Support
FacetPhone
provides complete support for callerID. The company name (if available)
and phone number of the calling party is provided to the user in multiple
ways, depending upon individual preferences.
- Telephone
Instrument: If the telephone instrument supports callerID,
the information will be displayed on the telephone.
- FacetPhone
User Interface: For calls from the outside, the operator or
user gets a small FacetPhone screen pop on their PC with the caller's
company name and phone number. For calls from another inside extension,
the user will get a similar screen pop on their PC with the caller's
name and extension.
- Voice
Mail: Any voice mail messages received will retain the associated
callerID information.
- TAPI
Applications: Users may optionally configure FacetPhone to
provide screen pops through their Windows applications such as Outlook,
Goldmine and any TAPI enabled application such as Act!. With these applications,
FacetPhone provides the callerID information and they automatically
pull up a matching record in their database if one exists.
- UTAPI
& NetTAPI Applications: Virtually any software application may take advantage of the FacetPhone
UTAPI and NetTAPI protocols to request the callerID. In real time, FacetPhone
will send any callerID data to the application which can then screen
pop the corresponding database record. To take advantage of UTAPI and
NetTAPI, changes need to be made to the customer's software application.
* The callerID
service must be purchased separately from the customer's local phone service
suppler.
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Computer
Telephone Integration (CTI)
Computer
Telephone Integration is the ability of the phone system to interact with
the company or employee computer system(s). An IP-based phone system is
particularly well suited for CTI. FacetPhone uses CTI to communicate with
customers' software applications.
- CTI - TAPI (Windows Applications): FacetPhone supports Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) with some Windows
applications through Microsoft’s Telephone Application Programming
Interface (TAPI). TAPI provides a standard way for Windows applications
to interact with a telephone system. Users can dial from their TAPI
enabled application (such as Act!) and also perform “screen pops”
which automatically brings up customer information based on the callerID
data provided by the phone system (see screen shot under callerID Support).
In addition, FacetPhone supports the proprietary telephone interfaces
provided by the popular Outlook and Goldmine applications.
- CTI
UTAPI (Universal TAPI): FacetPhone supports Computer Telephone
Integration with software applications through an easy-to-use protocol
developed by FacetCorp. UTAPI allows companies to quickly and easily
enhance their customer relationship management application to allow
telephone dialing and callerID-based customer lookups.
- CTI
NetTAPI (Network TAPI): For more comprehensive interaction
with software applications, FacetCorp developed the NetTAPI protocol.
The NetTAPI commands allow for application program notification of
any user phone activity, to initiate and terminate call recording, and
to request the complete call detail record associated with a user's
phone call. With FacetPhone's NetTAPI, customers and software providers
can automatically put the entire call detail record, including the location
of any recordings, in the corporate customer relationship management
system.
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Enterprise
Instant Messaging (EIM)
Instant messaging,
or text chat, can be conducted between two or more users logged into FacetPhone.
This feature is particularly handy for those quick co-worker communications
where someone doesn't want to intrude with a phone call or wait for an
email response. It is also very useful for short, quick communications
while you are on the phone. FacetPhone EIM excludes all parties that are
not on the corporate network resulting in a more secure, productive work
environment.
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Branch
Office & Telecommuters
FacetPhone
fully integrates users that are in a branch office or are telecommuters
via the Internet. Remote locations become simple telephone extensions,
so users may dial inside extensions or outside numbers just as they would
from their central corporate location. They get complete access to the
FacetPhone graphical user interface and telephone functions. Operators
and other users on FacetPhone can see their remote status through the
presence management screen. Branch office and telecommuter support require
the following components:
- Broadband
Internet connections at remote and HQ locations
- VPN Router
at remote and HQ locations
- FacetPhone
gateway at remote locations
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Graphical
Administration
FacetPhone
is designed to be completely managed and administered by the customer.
Through the FacetPhone user interface, the user may control their: user
location/work status, voice mail greeting settings, and unified messaging
directives. The manager may control: users, groups, lines, stations, and
gateways
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