The short answer
Where greetings live
Every greeting belongs to the thing that plays it: a menu's greetings on the auto attendant, a group's or queue's voicemail greeting and pre-alert announcement on that group or queue, a person's voicemail greeting on their extension's Voicemail tab. The Greetings page in the portal lists all of them in one table, with the level each one sits at and where its audio came from, and it is where the company's hold music is set.
Text to speech
On any greeting, type the words, choose a voice, and set the speed with the slider beside it, from half speed to one and a half times. Generate, listen, and save. A greeting that reads too fast or too slow is regenerated at a different speed in the same voice. Each saved greeting is stored as a new named file; the old one stays in the list, so you can go back.
Your own recording
Upload an MP3 or WAV. The phone platform stores audio at telephone quality and refuses anything longer than about ten minutes, however small the file. A recording made on a phone in a quiet room is fine; a professional voice is a nice touch on the main greeting, with text to speech for the after-hours and holiday greetings that change more often.
Changing the words of an existing greeting
You do not have to start over. The portal can read the current recording back as text, so you edit the transcript and regenerate it. A greeting that was a person's own voice comes back in the system voice; one that was made with text to speech sounds the same as before.
Pre-alert announcements
A pre-alert announcement plays to the caller before the phones ring: "this call may be recorded," or "please hold while we connect you." It sits on the Settings tab of a menu, group, queue or extension, hidden until added from + Features, and it can carry a schedule.
Hold music
Hold music is one setting for the whole company. It plays on every hold, in every queue, and behind every menu. On the Greetings page, the Music on Hold row at the top holds it: choose Default, which is the file we provide, or upload your own MP3. Three rules:
- The recording must run at least five seconds. A four-second clip is refused for the slot even though it uploads.
- It cannot be longer than about ten minutes.
- It is a recording stored on the phone platform. It cannot play a live stream or a radio station from a link.
Voicemail greetings
A person's voicemail greeting can be recorded from the phone or set on the extension's Voicemail tab with any of the tools above. See voicemail. Holiday greetings are in holidays and closures.