Office Communicator Attendant
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant is an intuitive call management application that helps administrative assistants, receptionists, and front-line business professionals handle and manage large numbers of simultaneous calls. The Attendant runs in a full screen window to provide a streamlined desktop experience for users while they handle a high volume of calls for themselves and their colleagues.
The Attendant works in concert with the new delegation feature in Microsoft Office Communicator to enable you to handle incoming calls and initiate outgoing calls for colleagues whom you support. Once another person sets you as his or her delegate, you can answer incoming calls for that manager or re-direct them to the manager’s voice mail. You can also call others on behalf of your manager and choose your contact information or that of your manager to appear as the calling party. Setup of delegation is under the control of the people you support, and can be updated easily for vacation coverage and other reasons.
All conversations, whether incoming, active, or on hold, appear in one window for easy management. An incoming or on hold call can be made active simply by clicking it, and the currently active call is automatically placed on hold. Repeat calls and calls that have been on hold for a certain amount of time appear in the call window with a conversation alert to facilitate decision making for priority calls. Call histories and notes are captured in the Conversations History folder in Microsoft Office Outlook for the attendant or colleagues to reference.
The integrated contact list for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant is similar to the Office Communicator interface (both offer common contacts that are readily available and that can be Organised into groups for easy management). You can choose to view any group as a list or a set of tiles that can be personally Organised. All contacts are shown with rich presence information to help you choose the best means of communication.
Office Communications Server R2 Attendant allows users to locate other corporate colleagues and see their presence information at any time via the integrated directory search capability. One-click communication with no need to copy or type phone numbers or IM addresses means users can contact important customers and colleagues alike. Search results can be added to a new or existing contact group as well.
With Office Communications 2007 R2 Attendant, users can transfer a call to anyone in their contact list or corporate directory based on presence information or on consultation with just a click of a button. The Transfer button sends the call to the selected contact immediately, while the Consult button either opens an instant message or calls the recipient to discuss the call first. Users can also send a call straight to voice mail. Each transfer option will remove the conversation from the queue once it has been transferred.
During a conversation, users can open the note window to take notes regarding the caller. The notes are automatically saved to the Conversation History folder in Microsoft Office Outlook where they can be forwarded to colleagues. Notes can also be e-mailed directly from the note window.
Assistants and receptionists can set up conference calls for their colleagues with incoming callers and others in the Attendant using simple drag and drop operations. Users can put their team in contact with customers and partners immediately, saving everyone the time it takes to plan a conference call or meeting.
Office Communications 2007 R2 Attendant allows users to save a group of contacts into a conversation template, and to initiate conferences with that group by selecting the template. For groups with recurring calls, this feature saves time with simple, single step calling.
