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Dear CCNY Staff,

Working at a distance, while offering new advantages to establish innovative approaches to our daily work, also means adding new contact methods for each of us who work with the general campus public, including new student prospects. 

As we look at ways to ensure the continuity of our work, we recognize that the issue of managing incoming calls and voicemail responses is a high priority for the college. It is imperative that we maintain communications with our community, even when working from a distance.  I realize that the logistics of determining who should answer the line may be a challenge but we must continue to be responsive and that means, at a minimum, your main departmental number should be transferred so it is answered by someone in real time as often as possible. 

The way our phone system works, a phone can be transferred in one of two ways, you can transfer the number from the handset (must be on campus) or you can make a request to telecommunications ( telecom@ccny.cuny.edu ) to transfer the number for you.  The limitation here is that unlike some offices where multiple phones are programmed with the main number, the transfer will only go to one phone number. To provide a workaround for this limitation, each department could set up a cloud-based phone number with an application like Google Voice, Talkatone or others.  This way, the departmental manager could assign times where different people could manage the cloud-based phone number through an application. The Telecommunications department is available to assist you in making the correct choice for your needs.

Regardless of how this is handled, it must be handled.  The following is a list of main numbers that are not transferred.  Please note that some of these departments may have staff that are on campus and are answering phones or may have others means for ensuring all customers are responded to in a timely matter.  For those of you who don’t, you need to designate a phone number to transfer your main line.  Additionally, if you need your personal desk line transferred, please make a request to the Service Desk or Telecommunications ( telecom@ccny.cuny.edu ).

Thank you,

Ken Ihrer
Vice President of Operations
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