Instructional Design Studio

IDS has heard that many faculty are interested in providing students with a phone number that can be used to reach them after regular office hours. Making yourself accessible to students in the evening can be particularly helpful if you have non-traditional students in your courses who aren’t in a position to call or stop by your office during the day. At the same time, you may not want to share your home or cell phone number with students, lest it be abused. One possible solution to this dilemma is to set up call forwarding using Google Voice.

Google Voice will give you a phone number you can give to your students. Then you can set up your voice account to forward calls to that number to your cell (or home) phone or your office phone, depending on the time of day and day of week. This way, you can have your student calls sent to your cell phone between 6PM and 9PM on weekdays, but bounce back to your office phone (and your office phone’s voice mail) between 9PM and 9AM, meaning a student’s 3AM call will go to your office voice mail and not ring your personal cell phone.

Setting up a Google Voice account is pretty easy. First you’ll need a Google account. If you don’t already have a Google account, go to http://www.google.com, click the SIGN IN button in the upper right, then click the red SIGN UP button in the upper right of the sign in page.

Creating an account

If you’re creating a Google account, you’ll need to provide some basic information. You do NOT need to provide a cell phone number as part of the account creation (but if you plan to use a cell for forwarding, you may as well). Click NEXT when you have provided all the necessary account information. The next page asks you to set up a profile. You can click NEXT through this page as well. That’s all there is to setting up your Google account.

Set up Google Voice

Across the top of the Google screen you should see a black bar with a series of menu items. Click MORE.

Then click EVEN MORE from the bottom of that list.

Then scroll down to the HOME & OFFICE block and click VOICE.

When you open Voice for the first time, you’ll be prompted to accept the Terms and Privacy Policy. Read the linked documents, then check the box and click PROCEED to continue setting up your account.

Next you’ll be asked to set up your Google Voice number. Because you want to provide students with a separate number that forwards to your cell, home, and/or office phone, you’ll want to select I WANT A NEW NUMBER.

Before you get your Google Voice number, you’ll be asked to provide a forwarding phone. Enter your office, home, or cell phone number, choose an appropriate type for the number, then click CONTINUE.

To verify you’ve provided a real phone number, Google Voice will give you a two digit code, then call you. Pick up the call and enter the two digit code to verify your number. You’ll also be given the opportunity to set up your voice mail on Google Voice at the same time. Listen to the prompts and walk through the voice mail creation process.

Finally, you’ll be prompted to choose a number. Enter an area code, zip code, or city in the first box and/or a word, phrase, or number in the second box, then click SEARCH. Select a number from the list of options provided, then click CONTINUE.

Congratulations! Your new number is set up.

Any calls placed to your new Google Voice number will ring the initial number you set up the account with.

Schedule your rings

Now it’s time to add some new lines and set some parameters so the right phones ring at the right times.

Click the GEAR icon in the upper right corner of the screen, then choose SETTINGS.

You’ll find your new Google Voice number, then the number it forwards to. Click the EDIT button under the number it forwards to.

You can change the name, number, and type associated with this entry. To set the timing, click SHOW ADVANCED SETTINGS.

Now you can set up a RING SCHEDULE for the phone. I’ve started out with my office phone. I want to provide access via cell phone from 5PM to 9PM on weekdays and from 1PM to 5PM on weekends. So I want to set this up so my office phone will not ring at those times (we’ll set up the second line in a minute). So I select USE CUSTOM SCHEDULE, then put in the times I’ll want my cell phone to ring (because I don’t want my office phone to ring at those times). Under the Weekends heading, I’ll set it up to NOT ring between 1PM and 5PM.

Click SAVE at the bottom of the screen to save these changes. Now let’s add that second phone (in this case, a mobile phone). Click ADD ANOTHER PHONE.

Enter a name for the new number (e.g., “Cell phone”), the number, and a type, then click SHOW ADVANCED SETTINGS again. Again, we’ll want to select USE CUSTOM SCHEDULE, and again we’ll want to select the times we do not want this phone to ring. So we’ll set it to NOT ring from Midnight (selected from the top of the list) until 5pm (when we want this phone to start ringing), then click ADD TIME RANGE, and set the phone to not ring from 9PM until Midnight (selected from the bottom of the list). Similarly, enter Midnight to 1PM and 5PM to Midnight for weekends.

Click SAVE at the bottom of the screen, and you’re ready to go. Give your students your new Google Voice number, and they’ll be able to call you and reach you at your office or on your cell phone (or home phone), depending on the day and time.

This is a pretty simple set up. If you’re inclined, you can have multiple windows each day

Unfortunately, there isn’t an automated way to have hours set for Saturday but not Sunday (or vice versa). This can be managed manually by editing the settings on this page, going in some time before your weekend hours start on Sunday and switching your work phone to “Always ring on weekends” and your mobile phone to “Never ring on weekends” — you’ll just need to remember to flip this back on before the next Saturday.

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