Converting to a totally virtual office - how phone?

September 12, 2017 2:16 PM

The small company I work for is getting ready to convert from having a physical office to having the few of us who work there work from home instead. But, how do we manage the phone?

Currently we have 3 voice lines and a fax line (yes, we have customers who fax - I know) and we would like to keep the numbers but have the ability for them to ring in or be transferred to 3 locations. Is this possible? Is there a VoIP solution? Is there any solution?

posted by quince to Technology (5 answers total)

Best answer: The term to google is "virtual pbx"
One example is https://www.ringcentral.com/office/features/virtual-pbx/overview.html
posted by Sophont at 3:02 PM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: My old company used RingCentral for this. You can have physical phones, soft phones (an app on your computer), ring to your cell phone, or ring to an app on your cell phone, or some combination thereof. When I had to send the occasional fax, I did it from the cell phone app or the soft phone app (so you probably need a scanner instead of an actual fax machine, or just use your phone to take a picture).
posted by radioamy at 3:25 PM on September 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I have used Bria and RingCentral for this and vastly prefer RingCentral for user friendliness and features. For RingCentral you can fax by attaching a PDF in the computer desktop version of the app, or take a picture using a cell phone. You can also set up ring groups and ring patterns so multiple phones ring at once, or calls always go to voicemail after hours.
posted by Red Desk at 4:36 PM on September 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I asked a similar question before - You might want to check out Dialpad if you're in the states. Our internet wasn't good enough for a decent line - but yes, we ended up using Bria a local ePBX provider and it's working great. Not flawlessly, but good enough!
posted by LongDrive at 3:24 AM on September 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Another vote for RingCentral. We used RingCentral at my last employer, and I echo everything radioamy and Red Desk said.
posted by briank at 10:59 AM on September 13, 2017 [1 favorite]