Set Distinctive Ringtones for IVR Calls

Assigning a distinctive ringtone to an IVR (Interactive Voice Response, the auto attendant menu that greets callers and routes them) lets users recognize, by ear alone, which menu is handing them a call. You can deliver that ringtone two ways, and you can use either or both:

• On the user’s desk phone (IP phone).
• In the user’s Cloud Voice App.

Set a distinctive ringtone on an IP phone

To play a chosen tone for IVR calls on a physical phone, you tag the IVR with an alert info value and then map that value to a ringtone on the user’s extension. The phone picks up the setting the next time it reprovisions.

Note

Users can also set a distinctive ringtone by hand from their phone’s own web interface. For those steps, check with the phone’s manufacturer.

Before you start: the user’s extension must already be bound to an IP phone through auto provisioning. If that isn’t done yet, see Auto Provisioning for background, along with:

• Auto Provision IP Phones Remotely via RPS Method
• Auto Provision IP Phones Remotely with Proxy

Tag the IVR with an alert info value

The alert info is a label the PBX (Private Branch Exchange, the phone system) attaches to calls leaving this IVR. It tells the IP phone which ringtone to ring.

1. Sign in to the PBX web portal and go to Call Features > IVR, then open the IVR you want to configure.

2. In the IVR Alert Info field, enter a label that identifies the IVR. This example uses CustomerService.

   

3. Click Save.

Map the alert info to a ringtone

Caution

The Alert Info value you select here must match, exactly and character for character, the label you typed in the IVR’s IVR Alert Info field. If the two differ, the phone falls back to its normal ringtone and no distinctive tone plays.

1. In the PBX web portal, go to Extension and Trunk > Extension and open the user’s extension.

2. Select the Phone tab.

3. In the Distinctive Ringtone section, click Add.

4. For Alert Info, choose the value you set on the IVR, CustomerService in this example.

5. For Ringtone, pick the tone to play for these calls. This example uses Ring5.wav.

   Note

   The ringtones you can choose from depend on the phone model.

   

6. Click Save.

Reprovision the phone

The change takes effect once the phone reprovisions.

1. Go to Auto Provisioning > Phones.
2. Click next to the phone tied to the user’s extension.

When a call arrives through the CustomerService IVR, the user’s phone now rings with Ring5.wav, so the source of the call is clear before they answer.

Set a distinctive ringtone in the Cloud Voice App

You can also assign a ringtone that plays in a user’s Cloud Voice App whenever a call reaches them through the IVR.

1. Sign in to the PBX web portal and go to Call Features > IVR, then open the IVR you want to configure.

2. From the Cloud Voice App Distinctive Ringtone drop-down list, select the ringtone you want.

   

3. Click Save.

Note

• Manage the custom ringtones you have uploaded under PBX Settings > Voice Prompt > Custom Ringtone.
• A custom (uploaded) ringtone applies only to the Cloud Voice App web and desktop clients for IVR calls. On mobile, the app plays whatever ringtone is configured within the app itself. Built-in ringtones apply everywhere.
• If the caller is a contact who already has a distinctive ringtone set in the user’s Cloud Voice App, that contact ringtone takes priority over the IVR ringtone.