How-to: Pauses and extensions in phone numbers 65
For those of us stuck working in a corporate environment (or working with a corporate environment), calling numbers with extensions is just a fact of life. But figuring out how to dial those extensions can be a pain. Do you store it in the contact name? That’s not elegant. Or as a note? You don’t want to pull up the note every time you need to call that person. Just remember it? Ha!
Thankfully, Palm has built pause and extension support right into the webOS phone and contacts app. Here’s how you do it:
Extensions: Enter the phone number in the contact, insert a P and then the desired extension. When you call this number a gray box will appear on the phone screen with the extension’s number - tapping it will dial the extension.
Pauses: If an extra screen tap seems like a chore to you, and you can count on this automated phone system to pick up right away, then pauses are your friend. Instead of a P, insert a T (seems kind of counter-intuitive, but it works) for a two second pause before the phone dials whatever numbers follow. Need more time? Add more T’s for more two-second blocks. Pauses can be especially useful when dialing into a service with an account number, like your bank. Enter the phone number, a T or two as needed, and then your account number. Voilà, skip over tedious button pressing or voice recognition and get to where you need to be.
The T for pause is more powerful than you might think. If you have to frequently navigate the same tree of automated phone options you can insert multiple pauses to burn through with automated ease. For example, 555-2419 TT 3 T 5 TT 8 will dial the phone number, pause four seconds, press 3, pause two seconds, press 5, and the pause four more seconds before pressing 8.
[via: Palm]
65 Comments
Wow, great tip. In my job I have to call companies that have 3 or 4 steps to get to the department I need. I call them often and get tired of having to remember what sequences go with the different companies. Now I can have a shortcut on my launcher!
I've wondered about this myself. But a possible typo in the article... Wouldn't the example number pause four seconds between each digit?
D'oh!
I saw this on Palm's twitter feed and was blown away. Is this a standard on smartphones, or another Palm innovation?
BlackBerry has "hard" and "soft" pauses that can be inserted into contact #s via menu option. Hard pause works like "P", waiting for your input to dial the extension. Soft pause works like "T", but I don't think you can add multiple pauses like webOS. WINNER=PALM
Good to know :)
You can add multiple pauses and waits on a BlackBerry.
Additionally, the BlackBerry supports dialing phone numbers with extensions by entered the number, followed by the letter x and then the extension number. When dialing, the BlackBerry dials the number, and then pops a dialog for you to dial the extension once the call is answered (it also provides an option to skip the extension, or end the call). I have both the Pre and a Blackberry Tour, and for extension handling, I think this give a slight advantage to the BlackBerry.
Where the BlackBerry really shines, for me, is that it doesn't reformat my phone numbers when I sync. I prefer to store numbers in ###.###.#### format, and use Outlook to maintain my contacts. When I sync the BlackBerry, the phone numbers come over as entered in Outlook (including the x### formatted extensions as noted above). On the Pre, the numbers get reformatted to (xxx) xxx-xxxx. If there's a way to prevent that, I'd love to hear about it.
I like both devices, and keep trying to move to just the Pre. But, for work, for now, the BlackBerry keeps winning.
How can we work in a corporate environment without proxy support ?
Typo:
"The T for pause is more powerful than you might thing. "
should be, "think"
just helpin.
How can I enter "t" pauses into my voicemail number?
That's pretty impressive stuff =) Another point for webOS!!!
LOL...I love this tip. I can't imagine a company would anticipate this. I'm gonna but it do the test.
I love this tip. I have a concern, When I am on the phone and get another one in I can't seem to conference them. Nor can I end just one call. Did I miss something? The only way I can conference is by calling the numbers. If I received them it won't happen. If I received the first and wanted to make and connect a second I can't. Maybe my brain is fried from getting little sleep since the Summer, any help?
No, we can't join a second incoming call to an existing conversation (can any cell system do that??)
Also, CDMA-type phone systems (Sprint, Verizon, and I think one in Mexico and Canada) cannot end just one call of either a conference call or call waiting. It is a limitation of the CDMA cell technology, not Palm, or even Sprint or Verizon.
I believe the iPhone on ATnT could.
yes its not CDMA...
is it a true techno limitation? I always assumed They (wireless companies) wanted to keep biliing for minutes on 2 calls, esp when you leave 1 call for another and you talk to the second caller for a while. Or are They not as greedy as I fear, and it is just a limitation on CDMA ( I noticed this w/ Vzw ans sprint)
I read somewhere that sprint or palm one, for some reason I can't recall having something to do with the type of phone network, can't make this work. It was flawless on the iPhone. I missed that when I switched to the pre. My parents phone doesn't drop the connection unless the person on the other line hangs up so if I'm on the phone with my fiance and my mom calls and I answer then go back to my girl, my parents phone is tied up until I hang up with my fiance. No way to end just one call.
Your parents phone will be freed up when they hang up the call.
I saw this on Twitter yesterday...
I bet you guys are running out of "juicy" stuff to talk about waiting on 1.4 lol...its cool tho Derek, I respect the hustle...lmbo
Great tip - I just revised all of my extensions in my contacts list
Palm forgot to mention the Dialing Shortcuts feature, where if you work at a company that has direct dial extensions and all start with the same 3 to 6 digits (e.g. 612-555-XXXX), you can simply dial the remaining digits and hit send.
Wow, what a feature Palm. Is this what is delaying a complete API, Flash, voice commands, video camera, etc. My phones have had this feature for a decade. Hell I just wish the phone would not take 2 seconds to answer a call. Sorry Palm you lost me today with the demise of gDial Pro.
psssssssttt... Palm had nothing to do with it. Place blame where blame is due it was Google and their APIs...
The Treo did this as well. The only disappointing part is it don't work in a calendar appointment. I would love to be able to input a number (say a conference number with an access code) into my calendar and be able to dial that with one tap. for now I have to create phone-book entries with the numbers I use frequently.
+1 - I've been asking for this since day one. Most of my meetings are calls to a conference number. The location reflects that data. Sometimes the conference codes can be quite long. It'd be a lot easier if I could just tap the number in the location.
Please go to http://www.palm.com/feedback and enter this request if you believe it's valuable.
That would be so cool. I wish there was a way to do this for confrence calls. Patches anyone?
CDMA just as GSM has its limitations. CDMA can conference call but can not make a conference call when someone calls you nor can you drop 1 line and keep the other active.
To conference call from a CDMA phone both lines have to be initiated from YOUR phone. No other way around it... patches wont do squat...
Yeah, this works awesome for putting numbers in contacts. But here is what DOESN'T work. I would like to put one of these numbers in the notes of a calendar entry -- you know, for conference calls that require a passcode. It would be nice to be able to put into the details "8887776666p12345". The Pre recognizes the "8887776666" portion as a telephone number and makes it clickable to dial, but it completely ignores the "p12345" making this completely useless.
Mikey47, I wonder if using a CAPITAL P in your dial string will work as you want?
My phone is rebooting, (I just downloaded v1.4) so I can't test it right now. But I think the CAPS T and P will work for you.
I noticed that my use of lowercase p and T did not work in my phonebook, but the CAPS did.
... just thinking ...
YES it needs to be a capital P or T not lowercase. Was driving me crazy why it wouldn't work for me but sometimes its the stupidest things...
I've been doing this for years, even on my old dumb phones. I thought it was pretty common knowledge as it was in the instruction book for one of them.
Still, it's good to know when you're in a rush to check your balance or do a transfer. I just leave off the end of certain accounts that I don't want anyone to know, in case it were lost.
I loaded this on my voicemail in contacts (as I did on my Treo) so that I wouldnt have to type my password each time. On the pre it only seems to work if I call my voicemail from contacts, not by holding the "1" or hitting the voicemail icon on the phone card.
I had the same problem. I was kinda disappointed.
I just set this up for my bank account, I think it's amazing, good stuff
I just want to know - is there any way to speed up the dialing between DTMF tones? It is painfully slow to send DTMF digits with this method.
what resally mskes me angry is tha most of the time when am calling like a company and then am beeing asked to press a number to do what ever i need \\
i press the number on my pre and its like i didnt press nothing at all i do see the number on the screen but i dont hear the tone and then i press it again then it beebs twice
seriosly there is a problem with that
this is giving me lots of head aches
Does anyone have an answer to how to make this work for voice mail when you press one or press the voicemail icon? Too much trouble to go to the contact card every time I want voicemail.
Why not just go into your Sprint or Verizon settings and tell it to skip your pass-code. You can also tell it to auto play your messages as well.
Pressing 3 then 1 in voice mail gets to settings to change those things on a Sprint phone, all of that has been possible since 1997.
Not sure what else you would need pauses for within voice mail.
Why not just go into your Sprint or Verizon settings and tell it to skip your pass-code. You can also tell it to auto play your messages as well.
Because thats not secure -- all you need is Asterisk or some other PBX system -- if the caller ID of your cell phone can be spoofed, they have instant access to your VM.
Thanks for the comments guys. I have a problem with avoiding the pass-code. I've always been able to use the pause system on every phone I've ever used until this one. I am hoping for a solution that keeps things secure and easy at the same time. Too much to ask for I guess.
Some of us are using google voicemail on out sprint phone and it doesn't have that option.
I had the same question when I first got my PRE. One of the comments below gives the best answer that I ended up using and it works great. Assign your newly created VOICEMAIL entry (with the custom pauses, etc.) in Contacts to a SPEEDIAL. I use "V" like the user below recommended. Now you have one-buttom voicemail access.
Sounds great but doesn't work on my Pre Plus. It works if I make the call from contacts but if I set it up on speed dial and push the V the phone ignores the pauses. All the numbers are there but not the T's. Why would that happen? As I said it works from contacts but not from speed dial.
Even though I will use the T option, I really appreciate the P option; as some calls I make require you to listen first to a menu before selecting an option. Having the ability to just push that button is awesome.
Perhaps you guys can integrate some parsing in the outlook calendars as well, to look for conference numbers and detecting the x for extension? Hopefully in the future...
Great job Palm!
Wow great pointers! I already knew about the "T" but was unaware of the "P" trick. Very useful. Thanks!
I just set my voicemail contact to a speed dial. You can't reassign "1(E)" so I taged it to "V(9)". That gives me a one touch speed dial with my pin auto answered. On the treo's you could set these things in your contacts and it applied to all you voicemail buttons.
the things i keep learning about the Pre always impress me. Thanks for the great tip!
Thanks.
I would like to see a how to on how to switch back and forth on a call waiting line without conferencing the calls and without hanging up both calls. There has been several times where i try to switch to my original call to tell them I'm going to call them back but it conferences the calls then when i click hang up it hangs up both calls.
Oddly enough I was just wondering today how do this. Bless you!
Great tip. It's just one more feature that we had for years on Palm OS but was missing (or I guess un-discovered) on Web OS
I wish I had known so many people did not know about this. I have been using "T" & "P" in my dial strings since June or July of '09. This is published in milominderbinder's "Palm Pre and Pixi Tips & Tricks" (a great PDF to download to your phone & desktop):
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre-tips-information-resources/186420-...
This is an excellent source for tips and tricks for many things on the Pre & Pixi. If you have any tips or tricks not yet published, then you can publish them there for inclusion in the manual.
Yes...you CAN thank me! Thanks! ;-)
Agreed. Although not where I got this from, it is a GREAT resource. :)
And FYI everyone, the conference call can't hang up on one caller "issue" is a CDMA limitation. Just make sure to tell folks to hang up, they still show as conferenced, but they're not.
Does anybody ever go to dial a number,And the screen turns black everytime you press a digit?That's irritating.
You might want to take your phone in. That's not supposed to happen.
Your phone's not broken. You're resting one of your fingers or part of your hand over the proximity sensor in the upper right hand corner of the device. It's the sensor that's intended to deactivate the touch screen when you place the phone up to your face. Steady your hands together without approaching the upper right corner of the device, and your problem will be solved.
I hate the fact that I have to change all my contacts in Outlook (I use EAS to sync everything) to have a P or a T instead of what I have in there now. Bottom line I don't like the fact that I have to comb through 1200+ contacts to make this change just so the call GOES THROUGH. Very annoying that webos sees "x" or "ext" in your contact and won't place the call.
I've been using this to dial into my work and home voicemail for nearly a decade on a variety of platforms including WinMo, dumbphones, and Blackberry. Nothing revolutionary here.
I agree with a prior post that the tones are sent WAY too slow on the Pre. It's like one tone per second. Why so slow? Every other phone I've used, sends the tones MUCH faster.
Any developers out there up for a patch to allow "x" to perform the "P" function, and "," (comma) for the "T" function?
This was a great tip! I used to be able to do this with my Treo. Very timely tip!
i dont know about anyone else but this only works with speeddial on my phone if i speed dial from the keypad.
if i try to speed dial from the number pad on the phone app. then it dials it all together and tells me that the number doesnt exist.
this sucks cause i primarily wanted to use this in my car on the touchstone when the phone is closed and i pull the phone app up. :(
Anyone getting this to work on Verizon? I am using upper case letters and keep getting "your call cannot be completed as dialed". Makes it impossible to check voice mail from the car without pulling over.
Thanks to NeilthePilot for pointing out first that the Ps and Ts work from the contact list, at least on my Pre Plus. Too bad we can't do this from a speed-dial key.
I have an AT&T Palm Pixi plus, and this just does not work on it. It removes the Ps & Ts from the number when I select to dial it. Very frustrating.
I also have an ATT Pixi Plus and it deletes the T out when I call...why would it do this?