How do I prepare my phone system for a holiday?

Customize your phone system features to use during a holiday or holiday season.

Before you begin: You must be assigned an Admin or Super admin role to perform this task.

If you're an admin uses GoTo Admin, you will sign in at https://admin.goto.com.
If you're an admin uses PBX Administration (classic), you will sign in at https://my.jive.com/pbx.

Then choose what you would like to do to get your system ready for the holidays.

Tip: Are you a visual learner? Watch this video playlist.

Update dial plan

Update your current dial plan if you will have employees or departments taking time off.

Record holiday greeting

Record a holiday greeting. This greeting sound clip can be added to your dial plan in a later.

Tip: Try it out! Add a text-to-speech sound clip and include one of our 3 new holiday background music options (only available in GoTo Admin):

Heart melting Christmas
Jazzy white Christmas
Santa's coming

Customize hold music

Customize your hold music system-wide, on specific lines/extensions, ring groups and/or call queues to holiday specific songs.

Update schedule

Create or update your schedule if your hours are adjusting for the holidays and automatically route calls to the right place. You can also add a holiday (date and time range) to a schedule and automatically let your callers know you are closed. Then learn how to add the schedule and/or holiday into your dial plan.

Create/update your schedule for adjusted operating hours

Create a new schedule or update an existing schedule if you will have changes to your regular operating hours:

Tip: Remember you can clone your dial plan, make edits within that copy and then try it out without altering your original dial plan. This can be very useful when trying something new!

Create a holiday for closed hours

If you will be closed on a holiday and need to adjust your call flow. Add a holiday (date and time range) to an existing schedule and automatically let your callers know you are closed.

Note: Holidays do not automatically recur each year for example, you must add Christmas each year.

Add schedule/holiday to dial plan

If you have created or updated a holiday or schedule, now add it to your dial plan:

Sign into your desired admin portal. Then navigate to your dial plan you would like to add a schedule or holiday to:
- If you are an admin who uses GoTo Admin, sign in to https://admin.goto.com. Then from the left navigation menu, select Phone system > Call routes > Dial plans and choose the desired dial plan that uses the schedule you just changed/created.
- If you are an admin who uses PBX Administration (classic), sign in to https://my.jive.com/pbx. Select Dial Plans from the left navigation and choose the desired dial plan that uses the schedule you just changed/created.
Result: The dial plan editor will launch.
Locate the Schedule node in your dial plan and choose your new holiday from the drop-down menu.
Optional: Add the Play Sound Clip node to your Schedule node's path for When on Holiday and choose the holiday greeting sound clip (from the drop-down menu) you created above in step 3.
Verify all paths of the Schedule utility node for When Open, When Closed, and When on Holiday are accurate.
Select Save.

Turn on call forwarding

Turn on call forwarding if you'll be out of the office, and make sure your users also know how to turn on call.

For desktop/web app video instructions, click here.
For mobile app video instructions, click here.

Update voicemail greeting

Update your voicemail greeting and encourage all users to do the same for time off or for office closures to let callers know when they can expect a call back.

For desktop/web app video instructions, click here.
For mobile app video instructions, click here.