Work from home while connected to office phone system and enjoying Alexa Voice Service and Alexa call control
Using BT110 in a home office while connected seamlessly to your business phone system and enjoying the convenience of Alexa Voice Service and Alexa voice call control
Key objectives:
- Work from home
- Seamlessly connected to the office phone system
- Alexa voice call control unaffected by IP-PBX prefix calling requirements
- Continue to enjoy a broad suite of Alexa Voice Service features
Being Alexa Voice Service (AVS) certified, the BT110 brings you a broad range of AVS smartspeaker features such as standard Alexa questions & commands, timers, alarms, reminders, and voice-enabled control of AVS-supported IoT devices, supporting you to work efficiently and comfortably in a home office environment. These Alexa-built-in benefits, plus BT110’s flexibility to allow users to switch conveniently between the superior quality speakerphone mode and the added privacy smartphone private voice mode makes the BT110 an ideal phone solution for people to work from home.
As a remote worker working from home, it is important to be able to connect seamlessly to the office phone system and appear as an IP-phone extension to the office IP-PBX system. Furthermore, while connected to the office phone system, it is highly desirable to retain the convenience of Alexa Voice Service (‘Alexa, turn on the kitchen light.‘, ‘Alexa, give me a reminder to call Steven at 11.‘) and Alexa voice call control (call by name: ‘Alexa, call Christina.’, call by number: ‘Alexa, call 1-408-555-1212.’, and call by extension ‘Alexa, call 3319.‘) without modifying the contact numbers in your Alexa App or BuddyTalk Mobile App to accommodate he IP-PBX’s prefix based dialing requirements. These objectives can be uniquely satisfied using the BT110.
Connecting the BuddyTalk device to your office phone system
Take the following two steps to connect the BuddyTalk device to your office IP-PBX system:
- VPN into your office voice network
- Configure your IP-PBX as the SIP proxy of the BuddyTalk device
The BT110 is equipped with a VPN client to allow the device to connect to the office VPN server, allowing the BT110 to appear as if it is located in the office network.
VPN into you office voice network
Configure the BuddyTalk VPN client to connect to the office voice VPN server.
Navigate to Network > VPN Setting. Upload the necessary VPN profile and credentials to connect to your office VPN server.
Check “Enable VPN” and uncheck “Route All network traffic through VPN”.
Note that the BuddyTalk device VPN client uses the OpenVPN library, and is intended to connect to OpenVPN based VPN servers.
Configure the BT110 as an IP-phone extension to office IP-PBX
Depending on whether your office uses an IP-PBX or hosted voice service, you will configure the SIP Proxy Server settings with either your IP-PBX server information or the server from which your hosted voice service is provided.
Navigate to Telephony > Profile Config to configure your IP-PBX to be the SIP Proxy server of the BT110 device.
Navigate to Telephony > Port Config to configure the extension number and enter the required user credentials for the BuddyTalk device to be an IP-phone extension.
Alexa voice call control with or without IP-PBX calling prefixes
If your IP-PBX requires a prefix for external dialing, to utilize Alexa voice commands, Mobile App and Tablet Controller’s contacts without modifying their contact numbers with the IP-PBX prefix, you can use the BT devices Digitmaps and Digit Replacement Rules to automatically take care of the various prefix requirements. An example of such Digitmap and Digit Replacement Rule for the following IP-PBX dial plan where a prefix of ‘9’ is required for external dialing is given below:
Please see Dialing Plan, Digitmaps, and Digit Replacement Rules for details.
As a result, you will be able to enjoy the convenience of Alexa voice command dialing, the flexibility of smartphone Mobile App based call control, and yet connect seamlessly as an IP-phone extension to your office IP-PBX system.
Continue to enjoy a broad suite of Alexa Voice Service features
Since all non-SIP traffic stay in its original route (not going through office voice network VPN), the Alexa Voice Service features remain intact.
- Standard Alexa questions and commands,
- Timers, alarms, reminders,
- Voice-enabled control of AVS-supported IoT devices