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Many auto attendants will have options to allow for time-of-day routing, as well as weekend and holiday routing. The specifics of these features will depend entirely on the particular automated attendant, but typically there would be a normal greeting and routing steps that would take place during
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Telephone callers will recognize an automated attendant system as one that greets calls incoming to an organization with a recorded greeting of the form, "Thank you for calling .... If you know your party's extension, you may dial it any time during this message." Callers who have a touch-tone
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systems. Voice messaging (or voicemail or VM) technology has existed since the late 1970s; in the early 1980s companies provided voice-prompting systems that allowed callers to reach (route the call) to an intended party, not necessarily to leave a message. Automated attendant systems are also
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While persons within an enterprise served by a PBX can call each other by dialing their extension numbers, incoming calls, i.e., calls originating from a telephone not served by the PBX but intended for a party served by the PBX, required assistance from a switchboard operator (also called a
487:. Many AAs will also offer a simple menu system ("for sales, press 1, for service, press 2," etc.). An auto attendant may also allow a caller to reach a live operator by dialing a number, usually "0". Typically the auto attendant is included in a business's phone system such as a
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Automated attendants provide, among many other things, a way for an external caller to be directed to an extension or department served by a PBX system without using direct inward dialing or without switchboard attendant assistance.
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are generally considered distinct. An automated attendant serves a very specific purpose (replace live operator and route calls), whereas an IVR can perform all sorts of functions (telephone banking, account inquiries, etc.).
732:"). Direct inward dialing has advantages such as rapid connection to the destination party and disadvantages including cost, lack of identification of the called organization and use of ten-digit telephone numbers.
720:(private branch exchanges) or PABXs (private automatic branch exchanges) are telephone systems that serve an organization that has many telephone extensions but fewer telephone lines (sometimes called "
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which will allow a caller to dial by name in order to find a user on a system. There is no standard format to these directories, and they can use combinations of first name, last name, or both.
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On a purely technical level it could be argued that an automated attendant is a very simple kind of IVR; however, in the telecom industry the terms
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signals from rotary dial telephones (except for audible clicks), callers who have rotary dial phones have to wait for assistance.
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or, in most cases, wait for operator ("attendant") assistance. Since the telephone network does not transmit the
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Default mailbox - where to send calls if '0' is not answered (or is not pointing to a live person)
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In addition, an automated attendant would be expected to have values for the following:
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The following lists common routing steps that are components of an automated attendant:
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Timeout - what to do if the caller does nothing (usually go to the same place as '0')
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normal business hours, and a different greeting and routing for non-business hours.
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referred to as automated menu systems and much early work in this field was done by
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301:Industrial
289:Lawn mower
222:Telephone
183:Laboratory
135:Automation
81:newspapers
958:Telephony
932:1528-9729
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776:does not
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666:does not
607:directory
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243:Vehicular
226:Attendant
213:Reasoning
208:Pop music
193:Broadcast
51:talk page
832:See also
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272:Domestic
258:Robotics
166:Building
127:a series
125:Part of
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188:Library
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455:(also
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306:Paint
102:JSTOR
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171:Home
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198:Mix
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