Virtual telephones are useful in a hot desk environment. You can have a set of physical telephones, one on each desk. Their telephone lines can have very simple settings and a restrictive class of service to prevent them from calling billable destinations. Then each person who uses the hot desk environment can have a virtual telephone line with all their settings, speed dials, and class of service.

When a person walks up to a desk, they log in their virtual telephone on top of the physical telephone. At that point, any calls to their virtual telephone will make the physical telephone ring. When calls are made out from the physical telephone, they are made with the settings of the person's virtual telephone line. When the person leaves, they log out and the physical telephone reverts to its own settings.

Multiple virtual telephones can be logged on the same physical telephone. In this case, calls for any of the virtual telephones will make the physical telephone ring. Calls made from the physical telephone will have the settings of the last virtual telephone to log in. If that virtual phone logs out the settings revert to the physical telephone's, even though other virtual telephones remain logged in. Re-logging in on one of the other virtual telephones will make its settings take effect.

To configure virtual telephones

1. Log in to the Enswitch web interface.
2. Ensure that at least two telephone lines exist under Features » Telephone lines.
3. Set a feature code to point to the virtual telephone login feature.
4. Make telephone lines for all physical and virtual telephones. Set a virtual telephone PIN for all virtual telephones.
5. Configure handsets with the physical telephones' settings and register them to the system.
6. From a physical telephone, call the feature code.
7. Follow the prompts to enter a virtual telephone number and PIN.
8. To log out, call the feature code and again follow the prompts.