Check and manage voicemail from a phone

Dial into an extension, call-group, or company mailbox and use the keypad menu to play, save, and delete messages.

Every mailbox on the phone system can be reached from a handset as well as from the dashboard. The dial-in menu is the only way to reach voicemail without a browser, and it is the only place where an extension or call-group greeting can be recorded in your own voice. The two surfaces act on the same messages: saving a message by phone is the same action as archiving it in the dashboard.

Prerequisites

• A phone registered to the phone system, or a call already connected to it.
• The PIN for the mailbox you intend to open. Every mailbox has one, and the menu never opens a mailbox without it.
• The extension number or call-group number of the mailbox, if it is not your own.

Reach a mailbox

Dial one of these from a phone on the system:

Dialing *97 from a registered handset identifies the extension for you and goes straight to Please enter your voicemail PIN followed by pound. You can press star at that prompt instead, to open a different mailbox.

When the extension cannot be identified — an outside line, or a phone the system does not recognize — the menu answers Welcome to voicemail. and asks for an extension number followed by pound. At that prompt:

• Enter an extension number to open that extension’s mailbox.
• Enter a call-group number to open that group’s mailbox.
• Enter 0 to open the company mailbox.

An unrecognized number is answered with Extension not found. Please try again. and the prompt repeats rather than dropping the call.

Enter the PIN

The PIN prompt accepts up to six digits and is finished with pound. A wrong PIN is answered with Incorrect PIN, please re-enter your PIN and press pound. After three incorrect attempts the call ends — the system does not keep offering retries. Entering nothing ends the call as well.

The mailbox you unlock is fixed for the rest of that call. If the session is interrupted and the menu says the session has expired, hang up and dial in again.

Use the main menu

The menu announces what is waiting before it lists the options — for example Press 1 to listen to your 2 new and 1 old messages. Pressing 1 plays both new and already-heard messages in the inbox; saved messages are a separate list on 3.

Which keys are offered depends on the kind of mailbox:

The company mailbox is deliberately narrower: its greeting and its PIN are changed in the dashboard, not over the phone.

Any other key is answered with Invalid selection. and the menu repeats. Silence ends the call with No selection made. Goodbye.

Play, save, and delete messages

Each message is introduced with its position, the time it arrived, and the caller — Message 1 of 3. Received March 4, 2:15 PM. From .... Press any key during that announcement to skip straight to the audio.

After the recording plays, the options depend on which list you are in:

These map onto the dashboard exactly:

• Save is the same as Archive. A saved message moves out of the inbox into the Archived tab and is reachable again on key 3.
• Next marks the message you were on as listened, so its dashboard status changes from New to Listened.
• Delete removes the message from both surfaces.

Each of these also updates the message-waiting light on the desk phones that watch the mailbox, so the indicator follows what you did on the keypad.

If the mailbox is empty, the menu answers You have no messages. — or You have no saved messages. in the saved list — and returns you to the menu. Working past the last message answers End of messages.

Record a greeting by phone

Press 8 from an extension or call-group mailbox. The system says Please record your greeting after the beep. Press pound when finished., records for up to a minute, and confirms with Your greeting has been saved. The new greeting replaces whatever the mailbox played before, and takes effect on the next call.

A greeting recorded for a call group is also added to the media library for that phone system, so it appears in the greeting picker in the dashboard afterwards.

Change a PIN by phone

Press 9 from an extension or call-group mailbox. The flow has three steps: enter the current PIN, enter the new PIN, then re-enter the new PIN to confirm. The new PIN must be four to six digits; anything else is answered with PIN must be between 4 and 6 digits. Please try again.

The change is only committed when both entries of the new PIN match. A wrong current PIN cancels the change outright rather than asking again, and a mismatch on the confirmation sends you back to enter the new PIN.

Expected result

The mailbox opens after the PIN, the announced counts match what the dashboard shows for that mailbox, and every keypad action — save, delete, next — is reflected in the dashboard and on the desk-phone indicator without any further step.

Troubleshooting

• The call ends after three PIN attempts: That is the limit. Confirm the PIN in the dashboard for the mailboxes whose PIN is set there, or ask an administrator to set a new one.
• Extension not found for a number that exists: Check that you are dialing the extension or call-group number, not a direct phone number, and that you are on the intended phone system.
• The menu offers no option 8 or 9: You are in the company mailbox. Its greeting and PIN are changed from System Details in the dashboard.
• This recording is still being processed: The message arrived but its audio is not ready yet. Wait and dial in again rather than deleting the message.
• Recording not available. Please try again later.: The audio could not be fetched for this playback. The message is still there; try again, and check it in the dashboard.
• The session expired mid-menu: The call lost the mailbox it had unlocked. Hang up and dial in again; this protects a mailbox from being reached without its own PIN.

Related guidance

• Review and manage voicemail messages.
• Set voicemail greetings and PINs for each mailbox.
• Create and manage extensions.
• Create call groups and call menus.
• Manage provisioned phones.
• Troubleshoot missing recordings and voicemail.