Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Listening to voicemails

Missed calls, like other Skype events, are flagged for your attention in the New Events tab (which is the second tab from the right) of the notification bar. Click on this tab to see recent missed events, including voicemail messages that have been left for you, as shown in the following figure.
Clicking on a voicemail event in the New Events tab of the notification bar takes you to the History tab, as shown in the next figure. Voicemails that you have not yet listened to are flagged by a red dot with a star. By clicking on the green round button with an arrow on it to the right of the voicemail item, you can listen to your voicemail using the audio-out device you have configured for Skype (for example, headphones or speakers).

How to Direct Call to Voicemail?

To have unanswered incoming calls directed to your voicemail, simply put a tick in the box opposite Send Unanswered Calls to Skype Voicemail. If you want to control how and when calls are redirected to voicemail, click on the Advanced Settings link alongside Send Unanswered Calls to Skype Voicemail. This generates a window in which you can customize how your voicemail behaves, as shown in the following figure.

How to add personalized message to voicemail?

By default, you are given a rather bland “The person you are trying to call is not available …” prerecorded message. This is what callers hear when they are redirected to your voicemail. However, you can replace the prerecorded message with a personalized greeting of up to sixty seconds in duration.
Go to Skype: Tools: Options …, and in the window that appears, click on Call Forwarding & Voicemail. A settings window appears, as shown in the next figure.
Look under the heading “Welcome Message” at the bottom of this page. To record a personalized greeting for your voicemail, click on the middle square button with the red circle on it. Speak into your microphone (or headset or handset) to record your greeting and then either click on the same red button again to cut the recording short, or let the recording run to the end of its allotted 60 seconds. You can now review your greeting by clicking on the green square button with an arrow on it. Now, when callers are directed to your voicemail, they will hear your personalized greeting message.
If you’re not satisfied with the greeting, you can either rerecord it by hitting the middle red square button again and repeating the recording procedure, or you can click on the red square button with a circular arrow on it to reset your greeting to the default message.