The short answer
An auto attendant is the menu callers hear: "Press 1 for sales, 2 for support." It sits in front of a number and decides what happens next. Everything about it is on one page in the portal, under Auto Attendants. Menus are unlimited and included.
How it decides which menu plays
The attendant holds three menus and two schedule pointers. The business-hours schedule, picked at the bottom of the Closed tab, decides between the Open menu (inside the schedule) and the Closed menu (outside it). The holiday schedule, picked on the Holiday tab, plays the Holiday menu on its dates. See schedules and holidays and closures.
With no business-hours schedule assigned, every caller hears the Open menu at every hour. About half of the attendants in service are built that way on purpose: one menu answers around the clock, and the after-hours behaviour lives on the hunt groups its keys point at. It is a design, not a fault. If your callers hear the daytime menu at night and you did not intend that, the schedule is what is missing.
The keys
Every menu shows all twelve keys, 0 to 9, star and pound. An unused key reads None. Each key has an action, a destination where the action needs one, and a description, which is a label for you; callers never hear it. The actions are:
- Transfer With Prompt and Transfer Without Prompt: to an extension, a group, a queue, another menu, or an outside number.
- Transfer To Operator: the same, and it is also where a silent caller ends up.
- Transfer To Mailbox: into this attendant's own mailbox, not somebody else's. To reach a person's mailbox, transfer to their extension and let their no-answer setting take it.
- Name Dialing and Extension Dialing: let the caller spell a name or dial an extension.
- Transfer To Submenu, Play Announcement, Repeat Menu, and Exit.
A caller who presses nothing
There is no "if no key is pressed, do this" setting. After about ten seconds the menu replays, and after the replays the caller goes to the operator destination if any key on that menu is set to Transfer To Operator; otherwise the call ends. So give one key, usually 0, the operator action, pointing at the person or group that should catch everyone.
After hours
The Closed menu is where callers land outside the schedule. Keep its greeting short: your hours, when you call back, and what to press. "After hours it should just take a message" is built with a mailbox that nothing rings: a hunt group with no members and Send All Calls to Voice Mail on, with the closed greeting as its voicemail greeting and delivery to your email, and the Closed menu pointing at it. See voicemail.
Greetings
Type the words and let text to speech read them in the voice and at the speed you choose, upload your own recording, or read an existing greeting back as text and edit the words. Every menu, including submenus, has its own greeting. See greetings and hold music.
Submenus
A submenu is a menu inside the menu: press 2 for support, then 1 for billing, 2 for technical. It has the same greeting and keys as the main menu, plus a Return to Previous Menu action. Two levels is usually the limit before callers give up.
More on the same page
The + Features panel adds cards the attendant does not show by default: a pre-alert announcement played before the menu, Call Forwarding Always to send the whole menu somewhere for a while, Call Forwarding Selective, Anonymous Rejection for callers who withhold their number, a mailbox, and a missed-call email. Menus are usually numbered from 900.