To access your automated attendant, hearingimpaired callers need a standard standalone, acoustically coupled TTY along with a touchtone telephone. The TDD-English announcement set makes it more convenient to set up teletypewriter (TTY) automated attendants that provide service to hearingimpaired callers.
Planning Your TTY Attendant
The following are recommendations and requirements for planning the use of the TTY automated attendant feature:
The TDD announcement set should be activated when administering the TTY automated attendant menus. If the TDD announcement set is not running, you must put your ear to the handset resting in the TTY acoustic coupler to hear the spoken messaging announcements that you need to follow while administering the automated attendant menus. Without the TDD announcement set, a hearingimpaired person cannot set up automated attendant menus.
To record automated attendant menus, you need a standalone, acousticallycoupled TTY (available from many telephone equipment stores); a TTY with a buffer is recommended since you may want to edit a menu before downloading it to your system. (Refer to the user's guide that came with the TTY for instructions on using your TTY.)
The TDD announcement set needs to be identified on the Subscriber or Class of Service screen for the automated attendant by setting the Login Announcement Set: and Call Answer Primary Annc. Set: fields to TDD.
The use of separate telephone numbers for TTY and voice automated attendants tends to be more user friendly for the intended audiences. While this is not required, it is strongly recommended.
The Multilingual feature can be used to administer an automated attendant with nested TTY menus and nested voice menus. However, TTY callers see either nothing or only unreadable characters resulting from voiced prompts or greetings, and hearing callers encounter TTY messaging noise.
The TTY automated attendant can be administered to use name addressing. The caller must use the touchtone keypad rather than the TTY keyboard to address a message by name.
TTYs use the Baudot communications protocol in which the same 5bit code can represent either a letter or a nonalphabetic character, such as a number or figure. (For example, the binary code 00001 is both the letter "E" and the number "3".) This sharing of 5bit codes is made possible by having a letters mode and a numbers/figures mode.
If a TTY receives the 5bit code 11111, it is set to letters mode. The TTY then assumes all subsequent 5bit character codes received are letters. By contrast, if a receiving TTY is set to numbers/figures mode (by receiving the 5bit code 11011), it then assumes all subsequent 5bit character codes received are numbers and figures.
Important This is important because a TTY that is not in the same mode as the device that is transmitting to it displays characters on the receiving TTY that make no sense to the caller.
All messaging TTY announcements contain the appropriate mode reset codes to ensure that the receiving TTY stays modesynchronized with your system during announcement playback. It is, however, your responsibility to ensure mode synchronization when recording automated attendant menus.
Each subscriber or caller who wants to communicate with the TTY automated attendant needs a standard standalone, acoustically coupled TTY and a touchtone telephone. Devices that bypass the touchtone telephone, such as computers with nondialing TTY modems, are unable to issue commands to the messaging software .
TTY Feature Operation
Assign the TTY announcement set on the automated attendant Subscriber or Class of Service screen, and record a TTY automated attendant menu using a TTY (the menu is actually the personal greeting for the automated attendant extension). Instead of speaking the menu greeting into the telephone, type the menu greeting using the TTY keyboard. Callers who reach the TTY automated attendant must use a TTY to interact with the automated attendant.
Here is how a TTY automated attendant relates to other messaging features.
Automated Attendant: The TTY Automated Attendant feature enables you to set up automated attendants for hearingimpaired callers. Any number of subattendants can be administered.
Multilingual: It is recommended, but not required, that TTY automated attendants have a separate telephone number than voice automated attendants (Call Answer Language Choice set to n[no]). Call Answer Language Choice can be set to y(yes) to administer an automated attendant with nested TTY menus and nested voice menus. However, TTY callers see either nothing or unreadable characters resulting from voiced prompts or greetings, and hearing callers encounter TTY messaging noise.
Multiple Personal Greetings: TTY automated attendant menus greetings must be recorded with a TTY. TTY automated attendants may take advantage of the Multiple Personal Greetings feature to record different menus for outofhours and internal and external calls. If the Multilingual feature is on and Call Answer Language Choice is y(yes), you record menu greetings using personalized Dual Language Greetings rather than Multiple Personal Greetings.
Mode Synchronization when Recording Menus
Some TTYs have both a letters and a numbers/figures key for switching to the indicated mode. On such devices, if the first character in an automated attendant menu is a letter, press the letters key before you type anything else. If the first character in an automated attendant menu is a number or figure, press the numbers/figures key before you type anything else.
If you do not have these separate keys, synchronization of modes is less convenient, but can be accomplished in the following way:
If the first character you need to type is a letter, type /(a slash) and press the space bar a few times before you start typing. This causes the system to reset to letters mode.
If the first character you need to type is a number or figure, type x and press the space bar a few times before you start typing. This causes the system to reset to numbers/figures mode.
TTY users need to use both the keypad on their touchtone telephones and the keyboard on the TTY. In menu instructions, make it clear which to use. You might use the word "dial" when the user needs to use the telephone keypad and the word "type" when the user needs to use the TTY keyboard.
When using a TTY to type directly to the system, the messaging software captures and preserves any misspellings, hesitations in typing, and so on. For this reason, it is recommended that you use a TTY with a built-in buffer and completely edit the menu before calling the messaging software to download the buffer. Refer to your TTY user's guide for instructions on editing and downloading the TTY buffer.