“Did you know” tidbits about Cisco VoIP Phones

Did you know that if you are moving offices, you can plug your phone into any working network jack on the NCI at Frederick network with no additional programming required on the system?

Your phone can also be moved and connected at any NCI South office locations in a working network jack, however, when moving to the South location some additional programming will be required to allow 911 emergency tracking to work properly. Please notify the Helpdesk to put a support ticket in when connecting your phone to the NCI South office areas so we can complete the programming requirements.

So when moving offices, you just take your existing phone with you. During the building renovation projects now occurring, it makes it super simple to move offices! This is anywhere on the NCI at Frederick Phone system including the NCI Campus at Frederick, the ATRF at Riverside Park, the Pilot Plant at Geoffrey Lane and NIAID at Industry Lane.

Did you know that there is a voice dial feature that can be added to the Cisco Phones?

This feature allows you to push a speed dial button on your phone, say a name and be connected to that person thereby removing the step of either searching the enterprise directory on your phone or logging onto the website and looking up someone in the phone directory.

Useful Documents:

FAQs on the Cisco Phone System

How does the alternate greeting work?

The alternate greeting can be used to record a temporary message, for example to use when you’ll be out of the office on vacation. You can easily switch between the alternate greeting and your “standard” greeting, and can even set the alternate greeting to turn off and switch back to your standard greeting at a specific time.

To enable and record an alternate greeting do the following:

  • Press the messages button.
  • When prompted enter your PIN followed by #.
  • Choose option 4 for “Setup”.
  • Choose option 1 to change your Greetings.
  • The greeting you currently have set is played. You can then choose option 2 to access the Alternate Greeting.
  • If you want to set and end date to switch back from the alternate greeting to the standard greeting you can press 1 and follow the prompts, if you want the alternate to play until you go in and change it back press #2
  • Your alternate greeting will now play. If you want to change the recording you can press 1 and follow the prompts. If you are happy with the message you can press * and your alternate greeting will now be enabled. You can hang up at this point.

To switch back to the standard greeting from the alternate greeting do the following:

  • Press the messages button.
  • When prompted enter your PIN followed by #.
  • Choose option 4 for “Setup”.
  • Choose option 1 to change your Greetings.
  • The greeting you currently have set is played. If this is your alternate greeting and you want to change back to your standard greeting press 2.
  • Your standard greeting will now play. If you want to change the recording you press 1 and follow the prompts. If you are happy with the message you can press * and your standard greeting will now be enabled. You can hang up at this point.

How can I check my messages when I’m out of the office?

There are several options to check your voicemail when you are out of the office.

From a telephone you can do the following:

  • Dial 301-228-4900.
  • When you hear the “Welcome to Cisco Unity Connection Prompt” press * followed by your extension and the # key.
  • The system will then prompt for your PIN followed by the # key just like when you press the messages button in your office.
  • Once you enter your PIN you can interact with the voicemail system just like if you had pressed the messages button in your office.

If you have NIH webmail access your voicemail messages can be accessed along with your emails via the webmail client.

  • The message will be a wav file attachment to the email, on most computers double clicking the attachment will play the message.
  • Keep in mind that deleting the message from your email does not delete it from your phone, you will still need to delete the message from the phone when your return to the office.

How can I send all calls to voicemail so my phone doesn't ring?

The Cisco phone does this by forwarding your phone to the voicemail number. Press the “CFwdAll” softkey followed by the “Messages” button (the one that looks like an envelope). At the bottom of the screen the phone will say “Forwarded to Voicemail”. This affects only the primary line, if you have additional lines on your phone they will continue to ring.

To turn this off press the CFwdAll button again, and the call forwarding will be deactivated.

I have heard that there is a way to say the name of a person and have the system automatically connect me, how can I do this?

If you dial extension 301-360-3431 you will be prompted to say the first and last name of the person you are trying to reach, the system will attempt to match that to a person, and will then offer to connect your call. In the future this directory may include people at other NCI and NIH locations, however at this time it is limited to people using the NCI at Frederick phone system.

How do I get to the voicemail system from the new phones? I tried dialing 7000 but my PIN/password doesn’t work anymore.

When your phone is replaced you are setup with a new voicemail account as well, if you had one before. To access the new voicemail system you can simply press the messages button on your phone (looks like an envelope). Your PIN/password was reset as part of the change, the default PIN is in the documentation you should have received with the new phone. If this doesn’t work please feel free to open a ticket with the Frederick IT Helpdesk at 301-846-5115. If you need to get to your voicemail from a phone that doesn’t have a messages button, dial 301-228-4900. If dialing from a phone other than your own, press the * key when the voicemail system answers to indicate that you want to sign in. When prompted for your ID enter your extension, and then when prompted for your PIN/password enter the same PIN/password as you use to access your voicemail from your desk. You can then interact with the voicemail system in the same way you do when using your desk phone.

On the old system I had speed dials setup, how can I setup speed dials on the new system?

The Cisco VoIP phones allow you to setup what Cisco frequently refers to as “Abbreviated Dials” and sometimes as “Speed Dials”. To set these up you use a web site that connects to our Cisco phone system. Directions for accessing this web site and setting up these “Abbreviated Dials” are available through the Cisco Speed Dial Link.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)/Protected Health Information (PHI)

What precautions should I take if I work with PII/PHI Information?

Employees who frequently deal with PII or PHI information should change their voice mail greeting to strongly request that callers not leave personal information that others not authorized to retrieve the information may hear.

Employees who frequently deal with PII or PHI information should request the feature in Unified Communications, whereby the voice mail the message is forwarded to the recipients e-mail, be disabled on their UC Phone by submitting a request to the IT HelpDesk @ fredhelpdesk@nih.gov

What do I do if people leave PII/PHI Information on my voice mail?

If someone chooses to leave sensitive information including PII/PHI on voice mail that is forwarded to e-mail then it is the responsibility of the employee to not forward the e-mail unless encrypted.

International Calling

Only authorized users who have authorization codes have had their phones enabled for international calling. Any other users that need to have international dialing access need to request a code via a fillable form on the NCI at Frederick Website at International Calling Request Form . Telephone access codes are supplied on an individual, as needed basis, for work related calls only and are not to be shared amongst employees. Additionally, all Cisco conference room phones are being enabled as they are deployed. If you would like verification that a conference room phone is configured, or to request a fax machine be able to fax internationally, they need to send a request to fredhelpdesk@nih.gov to have international calling enabled.

Where do I go with questions?

Contact the NCI at Frederick Helpdesk at 301-846-5115 or fredhelpdesk@nih.gov.