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Comment by randlet | Hacker News Reader

"If your office has a phone system that uses short extensions internally, have your IT department set one up to redirect to your cell phone. That way you can tell your coworkers to dial “5555”, instead of your whole number."

Fantastic tip! Super simple but I really think this idea will make you feel more available to your co-workers.

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Protip: This can be done extremely cheaply with Asterisk and a SIP provider; it can be done faster at a slightly higher cost with Twilio.

EDIT: changed lower to higher @ "cost with Twilio". Need moar coffee.

We use Asterisk to do a multiple-simultaneous-ring service. Actually, a little more complex. The typical plan is:

ring a desk phone for 10 seconds then ring the desk phone and a cellphone for 55 seconds then drop to voicemail voicemail is transcoded to mp3 and emailed to your preferred address as an attachment, along with call ID info.

Exactly what I had in mind. I've done it with Asterisk and Twilio, and as I mentioned, Twilio is a little more expensive but its easier to wrap it together quickly, while Asterisk can be much more flexible but requires some admin.

The phone system where I work unfortunately doesn't support forwarding extensions like this. Instead I setup a Google Voice number that is a local call for everyone at the office.

My office also provides VPN phones for remote employees. Plug it into your network, login with your token and you have your full extension, vmail, etc. available anywhere.

A decade ago I was trained on pbx system in the office and one thing the trainer mentioned that I remember is that this extension forwarding should be avoided. Reason? A rogue employee can set it up to forward to a foreign country and make expensive calls on company dime. So we just turned it off.

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