The Communication Manager supports the Confirmed Answer option for cellular voice mail avoidance for any OPTIM application, including Extension to Cellular. With Confirmed Answer set to yes on the user's Configuration Set screen, when answering the phone, the user hears the dial tone. The user must then press one of the digits on the cellular phone's keypad. Until the system receives a digit, the system does not treat the call as answered. The time to wait for the digit can be administered from 5-20 seconds, with a default of 10 seconds. Communication Manager plays recall dial-tone to indicate that input is expected. During the response interval, the original call continues to alert at the desk set and any stations bridged to the call. If a user does not enter a digit before the time-out interval expires, the call is pulled back from the cell phone.

If the user wants to use the cell phone for both personal and business calls, the Confirmed Answer option can be used to both guarantee that business calls (to the enterprise phone number) do not end up in cellular voice mail. The Confirmed Answer option also notifies the user on answer whether the call went to the enterprise phone number, or directly to the cell phone number.

• In some businesses with the Extension to Cellular (such as for after hours support), it is critical that a call be treated as answered only if a person answers the call. In such a scenario, Confirmed Answer is the only reliable voice mail avoidance method.

• Confirmed Answer is the most reliable form of cellular voice mail avoidance. An added benefit of the feature is that the dial-tone is a signal to the user that the call is a business call, not a personal call.

See also, Setting up a Cellular Voice Mail Avoidance timer.