Work from Home Smartly: Best Practices on Unifying Your Remote Workforce

Work from Home Smartly: Best Practices on Unifying Your Remote Workforce

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, a drastic rise in people working from home has been observed in the past few weeks. Organizations like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have asked employees to stay at home and work remotely, trying to reduce risks from the spreading coronavirus. To keep day-to-day business operations continue as usual, companies around the world are taking measures to reduce the gap for teleworking employees.

Challenges in Connecting Teleworkers

  • Managing a lot of endpoints: plenty of employees use desk phones to handle business calls in the office. Though you can take your phone home, it may take a lot of time and effort for the IT staff to set up a large number of desk phones remotely via the VPN. A lack of IT resources in business businesses makes it even more challenging.
  • Hindered by the outdated system: there are many companies still using analog phone systems which may find it hard to transition to a remote working model because they need to reply on physical landlines to make voice calls. Legacy phone systems are inherently unfriendly to teleworkers and you can hardly just replace them all overnight.
  • The rise of security concerns: as employees using personal devices to work from home, the IT staff is no longer in control of the network environment, which may increase security risks to corporate systems and data if personal devices are not held to the same standards and protections that are in place on your business network.

Tips and Best Practices in Unifying Dispersed Teams

While this is an unprecedented moment, it is also a chance for businesses to look at the capability and flexibility of the corporate communications systems, step out of the comfort zone and adapt to the work-from-home environment. In fact, remote working has gained increasing popularity over the past decade. Business VoIP solutions and unified communications have proved to be extremely valuable to unify the remote workforce.

The transition from office to home can be difficult to adapt and manage at first. Below are some useful features, smart tips, and best practices to support working from home.

1. Connectivity is key.

  • Make your office extension mobile.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) capability becomes critical in the remote working environment. Softphones that work on mobile phones and desktops allow teleworkers to make and answer business calls from their own devices, with one single corporate phone number. While voice remains a central communication method for business, some service providers make the softphone more powerful by including additional modes of collaboration.

We offer Linkus Unified Communications Softphone for our PBX users, which allows remote workers to transfer, hold, mute, and record calls, set up call forwarding rules and ring strategy settings, check missed calls, call history, voicemails and one-touch recordings, just like with a desk phone. Better yet, Linkus also support chat, presence, file sharing, CRM integration, etc. to facilitate a collaborative workforce.

Linkus Quick Start Guide
  • Register employees’ endpoints as remote extensions.

For small businesses with only a few endpoints, remote extension registration is a cost-effective way to connect employees. Employees take their desk phones home and register them to the corporate phone system remotely via VPN or DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System) configuration; then your desk phone can function well at home. It’s worth noting that the remote connection via DDNS inevitably requires some firewall configurations like port forwarding on the router, which might pose potential security threats.

2. Engage your team and your customers.

  • Set up IVR as your always-on 24/7 receptionist.

IVR allows businesses to customize an appropriate voice response greeting and custom menus to make sure incoming calls come to the right person or department. Particularly during the pandemic, if there are any changes in your customer services, you can quickly record and upload an announcement to inform your callers in time. IVR keeps business professionalism and customer satisfaction unaffected.

  • Initiate an ad hoc conference to bring everyone together.

Ad hoc conference is a quick and easy way to have a meeting whether you are in the office or not. For instance, with our Linkus Softphone, you can assemble everyone involved in a project for an instant meeting by simply initiating a conference on your mobile phone. Invite any members you want to the conference by adding their extension or phone numbers; Linkus will make calls to the invited parties immediately, and they can enter the meeting by picking up the call.

  • Allow customers to reach remote employees on the same business number.

Call Forwarding helps redirect incoming calls from your office to alternate numbers, including a mobile phone number or other phone lines. It is particularly beneficial for businesses to set up multiple call forwarding rules to handle different scenarios. For example, “When Busy”, ask the caller to leave a voice message. When “No answer”, ring your mobile phones then. Choose “Always” to direct all incoming all to another destination.

  • Send employees voice messages to their email address.

With the voicemail to email feature, employees receive a voice message audio file as an email attachment to catch up with clients and quicken response time when out of the office, lowering the possibility of voicemail messages being ignored and missed. Besides, with voicemails in the email folder, remote workers are allowed to categorize, rename, delete, and even forward them to colleagues if needed. Alternatively, our customers can check voicemails directly on your mobile phone or desktop via Linkus Softphone.

Remote Working Playlist

3. Ease the burden of remotely managing business phone systems.

The sudden shift to a remote working model can pose security and network administration challenges. Some small businesses don’t even have dedicated IT staff to handle these issues. It has become key consideration to ensure your communication system is easy to set up, configure and manage securely when opting for a teleworking offering. Some providers, including Yeastar, makes the setup process effortless from an intuitive web interface with a few clicks.

Particularly, we even offer Linkus Cloud Service (LCS), to create a more friendly remote working environment, minimize configurations, and improve call quality for S-Series PBX users, and the Remote Management tool to enable our partners to monitor and manage customer-premises PBXs and gateways easily and securely without having to travel to the equipment.

We are committed to working closely with our customers and partners to keep employees stay connected, engaged, productive and safe during the global pandemic. If you are looking for a solution to empower teleworkers, feel free to try out our complimentary solutions or chat with us on your specific needs.

Remote Working Solution

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User Login

Instantaneously receive user login credentials via email once the extension has been deployed by the adminstrator.

Log in conveniently via any web browser for access to the user portal.

Event Center

Determine what events and logs are to be recorded and/or have notifications sent.

Specify particular notifications to be sent to respective authorized personnel.

User Login

Access and manage user settings for softphone application and voicemail.

Manage call routing and presence status for your individual extension.

Retrieve or download your personal call logs and recordings.

User Login

Receive your log-in credentials and set-up guide via email, sent by your admin.

Log-in on any web-browser to get started with PBX set-up.

Configure contacts and personal settings from the web portal.

Auto Provision

Add, remove, or modify IP phone settings from your web interface.

Upgrade IP phone firmware conveniently from your PBX.

Upload various default setting parameters specific to respective IP phone models for greater convenience during set-up.

Contacts

Store, retrieve, and share company contact details easily on your PBX.

Have detailed contact information for your vendors and clients conveniently stored .

Bulk add a list of contacts instead of having to key details in individually.

PBX Monitor

Monitor the status extensions, whether they aren idle, in use, or unavailable.

Know whether your SIP Trunk running properly, or experiencing problems.

Monitor the number of call conferences currently running on your PBX, and their individual durations.

Maintenance

Check for and download firmware upgrades to ensure that your PBX is always up-to-date.

Perform back-ups to prevent data and settings from getting lost.

Perform troubleshooting on your own to debug.

Call Detailed Report

All call log activities are stored, with the option of having audio conversations recorded by default or for specific extensions.

Filter by date, time, or extension number to retrieve specific call logs or recordings

Playback call recordings directly from the PBX or download to store externally.

User Permission

Set up vaious groups of users for allocation to certain sets of access rules.

Determine what features a certain group of extensions can or cannot access.

Determine if users can access, play-back, or download call logs and recordings from the pbx.

Portal Login Page

Receive your administrator log-in credentials and set-up guide via email.

Log-in on any web-browser to get started with PBX set-up.

Installation Wizard will guide you through basic configurations.

Security

Restrict a general group or specific IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access to your PBX.

Determine specific the range of SIP ports for connection between your PBX and endpoints.

Restrict country codes for outbound calls either company-wide or on certain extensions.

Voice Prompt

Upload and designate customised audio recordings at multiple levels of a call journey.

Upload recorded music to fill the silence that would be heard by callers on hold.

Upload customised voice prompts to create a professional call experience.

General

Customize general call preferences either company-wide or for individual extensions.

Set-up feature dial codes for convenient user navigation to specific call features.

Determine how voicemails are retrieved, and also upload custom voicemail recordings.

Call Features

Add multiple automated responses to be played at different phases of a call journey.

Designate specific extensions to ring concurrently based on an external caller's dial pattern.

Customize messages and waiting times to keep external callers engaged when put on hold.

Call Control

Have calls received on specific SIP trunks routed to designated extensions within the PBX.

Set-up dial patterns so that outbound calls are routed to their intended destinations.

Determine how calls are routed and received at different times of a day.

Trunks

Register multiple SIP trunks on a single PBX as needed.

Provision SIP trunk settings and dedicate them to particular extensions.

Bulk add DDIs on each SIP trunk, for allocation to an individual or groups of extensions.

Extensions

View, deploy, add, and remove user extensions within your PBX system.

Allocate and deploy specific extension numbers to respective users via email.

Set-up default ring and presence status settings for individual users.

User Login

Access all company contacts made available to you by the administrator.

Create your own personal contacts list for easy reference and dialing.

Bulk import contact details for convenient data entry.

Extensions

View, deploy, add, and remove user extensions within your PBX system.

Configure default call and user settings for individual extensions.

Customize allocation of user extensions to specific ring groups.

Integrations

Integrate various CRM software for better customer service and satisfaction.

Enable transcription of audio messages into text with integration of third-party transcription service.

Enable API for integration with various third-party integrations for advanced performance such as call center and hotel reception services.

Paging and Intercom

Create different types of paging and intercom broadcast groups for selected extensions.

Set a time schedule to automatically start your broadcast.

System

Provision email SMTP and template settings for event notifications to be sent out.

Manage storage allocation and duration of various types of data being stored on the PBX.

Determine the types of event notifications to be sent out, and the parties receiving them.

IVR

Add various audio voice prompts to be played according to different call scenarios.

Add voice prompts on multiple levels for more effecient and precise inbound call routing.

Voicemail

Customize default voicemail settings for each user extension.

Add various voicemail messages for allocation to different call scenarios and users.

Provision specific rules to how voicemail messages are played over the PBX system for better caller experience.

Reports and CDR

All call log activities are stored, with the option of having audio conversations recorded by default or for specific extensions.

Use intuitive visual call reports, to check various call statistics over extensions, trunks, queues, ring groups, and more.

Call reports can be viewed and downloaded directly from the PBX, or scheduled to be sent via email to respective parties.

Security

Restrict a general group or specific IP addresses to prevent unauthorized access to your PBX.

Limit the number of otbound calls users are allowed to make within a time period to protect against toll fraud.

Restrict certain country codes for outbound calls either company-wide or on certain extensions.

User Login

Determine extension ranges for different functions.

Define use of different voice prompts depending on call scenarios or intended function.

Provision basic and advanced SIP settings to be used on the PBX.

Recordings

Record all calls made on specified trunks, including inbound and outbound calls.

Recordings

Record all calls made on specified extensions, conferences, or call queues.

Maintenance

Check for and download firmware upgrades to ensure that your PBX is always up-to-date.

Perform back-ups to prevent data and settings from getting lost.

Perform troubleshooting on your own to debug.

Trunks

Register multiple SIP trunks on a single PBX as needed.

Different types of trunks can be created, Caller ID can be customized.

Conference

Pre-set conference settings and dial-in passwords for security, and allow internal users to send conference invites to external parties.

Speed Dial

Create multiple speed dial numbers to respective external numbers frequently used for outgoing calls.

Speed dial is activated when the set prefix (default or customized) is dialed.

Ring Group

Create multiple ring groups and determine custom ring strategies and failover settings for each.

Call Queue

Create different call queues with specific ring strategies and failover settings.

Static agents permanently answer calls in queue, while dynamic agents can log in and out. Allocate different extensions to each group.

Determine what actions are to be allowed for Mangers or Agents to manage on the Queue Panel.

Call Control

Have calls received on specific SIP trunks routed to designated extensions or destinations within the PBX.

Set-up dial patterns so that outbound calls are routed to their intended destinations.

Determine how calls are routed and received at different times of a day.

Contacts

Store, retrieve, and share company contact details easily on your PBX.

Organize company contacts into dedicated phonebooks and determine accessibility rights to extension groups for each.

Bulk import a list of contacts instead of having to key details in individually.

Role and Client Permission

Pre-defined user roles within the PBX are conveniently available for allocation, or create your own set of permissions.

Restrict users from viewing specific extensions, departments, or extension groups with Extension Visibility.

Allow or resrict specific users from managing or viewing certain company contacts

Auto Provision

Pre-defined setting parameters specific to respective IP phone models are conveniently available for easy set-up.

IP Phones can be quickly provisioned to your Yeastar PBX with just the pre-defined template and device MAC address.

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