Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Google Voice for Newbies: Scheduling your rings

A few days ago, I decided to spend some quality time poking around the Google Voice Settings page. I'm glad I did, because I found a Voice feature I never knew existed! It's the "ring schedule" feature. I'd never thought about setting up a preset schedule for phone calls and was pleasantly surprised to find out this was actually a popular requested feature by users.

This help center article describes how to set up your ring schedule. So then the question is: why would you want to do this?

There are many possible reasons, but two examples came to my mind immediately. Say you have unreliable cell phone reception at home, and you want to be able to take your calls from your home phone on evenings and weekends. However, you don't want the home line to ring and bother your roommate during work hours when you're not there. You can do this. Or if you don't want any calls interrupting your dinner from 6pm-7:30pm every night, go ahead and set your ring schedule so calls to your Google number never ring your phones during dinner time. During those hours, callers will be able to leave you voicemail so you can catch up after you're done eating.

Whether you're new to Voice or didn't know this feature existed, give it a try! If you have questions about this or any other features, visit the Google Voice Help Forum. We also welcome stories and comments regarding interesting ways you're using Voice. Share these in the "Tips and Tricks" category of the Google Voice Help Forum.

Posted by Carol and Heather
Googlers