Setting up your Call Forwarding for After Business Hours | BT Cloud Work

BT Cloud Work lets you set custom user hours for extensions. If you have configured custom user hours, you will need to configure how calls will be handled in the off periods. This article is for users or extensions; for admin instructions on routing your calls, see Routing a call during business and after hours in the BT Cloud Work app desktop and web.

If you access any after hours configuration tabs while the user hours are set to 24/7, you will receive a message prompting you to configure the user hours.

Configuring after hours call forwarding settings

1. Log in to your BT Cloud Work portal.
2. Navigate to Call Handling and Forwarding:
   • From the top navigation tabs, go to Settings, or, 
   • From the Overview page, go to Call Handling Rules.
3. Click Call Handling & Forwarding.
4. Click on the After Hours tab. If your user hours are set to 24 hours / 7 days a week a message will prompt you to change your user hours in order to continue.
5. Under Your calls will do this during After Hours, select how after-hour calls to your extension are handled.
   • Send callers directly to voicemail: Routes all incoming calls directly to your voicemail.
   • Play announcement and disconnect: Plays either the default message stating that no one is available to take the call or a custom audio recording of your preference.
   • Forward Calls: Forwards calls to your preferred phone number or device.
   • Unconditional Forwarding: Directly forwards calls to your preferred number while bypassing any other configuration settings.

Call forwarding settings

1. Under the User hours tab, you can select a ringing option under Incoming Calls Forward in this Order:
   • Sequentially: Forwarding numbers will ring at the same time.
   • Simultaneously: Forwarding numbers will ring one at a time in order of priority.
2. Enable or disable ringing your desktop or mobile app first.
   • For the sequential option, your desktop and mobile apps are set to ring first before the call is forwarded to your other forwarding numbers in the order it was set.
   • For the simultaneous option, your desktop and mobile apps will ring first before the call is forwarded to your other forwarding numbers. All other forwarding numbers ring at the same time.
   • You may disable this option. Once disabled, incoming calls will be forwarded directly to your forwarding numbers.
3. Add phone numbers to your forwarding numbers list.
   • By default, you can enter your Home, Mobile, and Work numbers.
   • To add another number, click Add Call Forwarding Number, then enter the Phone Name and the Phone Number in their respective fields. You can add up to 7 slots.
4. Add another extension within your account as a forwarding number.
   • Click the More icon, then select Forward to Other's Phones.
   • Select a phone from other users, and then click Done.
5. Set the number of rings for each forwarding number.
6. Click Save.

There may be a delay when forwarding calls to a non-BT Cloud Work number due to the time spent establishing a connection between BT Cloud Work and the forwarding number carrier.

By default, BT Cloud Work plays an announcement when a call is forwarded to your home or mobile phone to identify how you should answer the phone, especially if you use your phone for both business and personal use.

The Play announcement feature requires you to press 1 to accept a forwarded call.

• If there's no action, the caller will be routed to the extension's mailbox to leave a message, and the message will be saved in the BT Cloud Work user's mailbox.
• If set to Never, and you want BT Cloud Work to keep your voice messages, either you set the number of rings lower than what is required to kick on the forwarding number's voicemail or keep the Play announcement before connecting feature is enabled. For more info, visit Configuring user extension Incoming Call Information settings.

You can save your voice messages in one location at a time. You need to choose where to save your voice messages: in your BT Cloud Work extension's mailbox or your personal device (landline/mobile phone). For more info, visit Voicemail - Save voicemail on your personal phone instead of BT Cloud Work.

Forwarding to an answering service

1. Log in to your BT Cloud Work portal.
2. From the top navigation tabs, go to Users.
3. Go to Users with Extensions and select a user extension from the list.
4. Click Call Handling & Forwarding, then click Settings from the option tabs.
5. Under Incoming Call Information, click Edit. 
6. Select Play Announcement, and from the Direct Calls dropdown, choose Never.
7. Click Save.

NOTE: By selecting Never, BT Cloud Work will not be able to tell when your mobile or home voicemail picks up, and business calls may receive your voicemail. We recommend using For non-BT Cloud Work phones only.