Office Call Forwarding: How to Set It Up and What to Know

All-call (unconditional) forwarding sends every incoming call to the destination immediately. Your office phone does not ring at all. This works well when the office is closed, when you are out all day, or when you want an answering service to handle the line.

Conditional forwarding only redirects calls in certain situations: when the line is busy, when nobody answers after a set number of rings, or when the phone is unreachable. This is useful for overflow, so you answer normal calls yourself and only the ones you miss get passed along.

One thing to know: with all-call forwarding turned on, calls skip your office voicemail, because the call never reaches that line. If you switch back and forth, test each mode so you know exactly where a caller ends up.

• All-call forwarding: every call goes to the destination; the office phone stays silent.
• Busy forwarding: activates only while you are already on a call.
• No-answer forwarding: activates after the phone rings a set number of times.
• Unreachable forwarding: activates when the phone is off or out of service (mostly mobile lines).
• All-call forwarding overrides your office voicemail while it is on.

The code you dial depends on both the carrier and the exact product. AT&T, for example, publishes different codes for AT&T Phone for Business than for AT&T Collaborate, and wireless codes differ again. Find your service name on your bill or in your account portal, then use the matching instructions below.

If your carrier or product is not listed here, do not borrow another carrier's code. Check your provider's support pages or call their business support line and ask for the forwarding activation and deactivation codes for your exact service.

• Verizon mobile: dial *72 plus the 10-digit destination to forward all calls; *71 plus the destination for unanswered calls; *73 to turn forwarding off. Set it up from the mobile phone while in Verizon coverage.
• Verizon business landline: dial *72 and follow the activation instructions from the same line; dial *73 to deactivate.
• T-Mobile: dial **21*1 followed by the 10-digit destination and # for all calls; **61*1 for no reply, **62*1 for unreachable, and **67*1 for busy. Disable with ##21#, ##61#, ##62#, or ##67#, or reset everything with ##004#.
• AT&T Phone for Business: all calls *72, destination, #; no answer *92, destination, #; busy *90, destination, #. Turn each off with *73#, *93#, or *91#.
• AT&T Collaborate: *72 plus destination for always-forward, *73 to disable; *62 plus destination for busy, *63 to disable; *92 plus destination for no-answer, *93 to disable. An administrator controls feature access.
• Comcast Managed Voice (Panasonic TPA65): lift the handset, dial *72 and the destination, then hang up to enable all-call forwarding; *73 disables. *92 sets no-answer and *90 sets busy, with *93 and *91 to disable.
• Optimum Business Phone: dial *72, wait for dial tone, then dial the destination. If the destination is busy or unanswered, press flash, dial *72 again, and redial; two beeps and dial tone confirm. *73 turns it off.
• Frontier Unlimited Digital Voice: lift the handset, dial *72, wait for the second dial tone, enter the destination, and listen for confirmation. *73 disables.

Many business phone systems manage forwarding in a web dashboard instead of, or in addition to, star codes. The general pattern is similar across systems: sign in with an account that has permission to manage phone features, choose your phone number or extension, open the call or forwarding settings, pick the forwarding type, and enter the destination number.

A few product-specific examples: Spectrum Business Voice users sign in to SpectrumBusiness.net, open Voice, choose the number, and use Voice Settings or Forwarding Manager to pick all calls or busy/no-answer forwarding. Vonage Business Communications users select Call Forwarding and enable forwarding to a phone number. Windstream OfficeSuite UC users use the My Call Forwarding widget in the WE Connect Dashboard, where they can also set the number of rings before unanswered calls forward.

After any portal change, place a test call from an outside phone to confirm the destination rings and the setup behaves the way you expect.

• Sign in with an account role that can manage voice features.
• Select the specific phone number or extension you want to forward.
• Choose the forwarding type: all calls, busy, or no-answer.
• Enter the full 10-digit destination and save.
• Verify with a real test call from another phone.

Forwarding is also how you connect your existing office number to a phone answering service, including AllDayDesk. You keep your public business number and simply point it at the service when you want calls handled. With AllDayDesk, setup starts by choosing your business or entering its website, checking the business details it found, hearing a personalized sample of how your calls would be answered, and then choosing your phone setup. The sample is a demonstration only and does not create a real booking.

The forwarding instructions depend on your phone service, so use the carrier steps above to point your line at the number AllDayDesk gives you. Once calls come in, AllDayDesk answers around the clock using the business information you saved. When a caller asks something the service does not know, such as a price or an open appointment, it takes a message instead of guessing. Calls, transcripts, summaries, and any bookings show up in your dashboard.

If you want callers to reach you directly in some situations, you can configure call transfers to another destination with your own rules. Transfers are not guaranteed to be picked up or answered immediately, so configure the destination carefully. New appointments are booked on the built-in AllDayDesk dashboard calendar by default, once you have set up your services and availability, and an optional Google Calendar connection is available in Settings after you connect and authorize your Google account. Changes to existing appointments come to you as requests, not confirmed changes.

• You keep your existing business number; forwarding just reroutes calls.
• Identify your exact carrier product before dialing any code.
• AllDayDesk answers using your saved business details and takes a message when an answer is unknown.
• Transfers require you to configure a destination and rules; pickup is not guaranteed.
• Bookings land on the dashboard calendar, with optional Google Calendar in Settings.

Forwarding is not universal. Some services only offer it in select areas or on certain handsets, and features often depend on the plan you subscribe to. Google Voice is a notable case: Google states that forwarding calls from a Google Voice number to an automated system is unsupported, so a Voice number is not a path to an answering service.

Costs can also change. Some carriers bill forwarded calls differently than normal inbound calls, so check your plan before leaving forwarding on permanently. And remember that forwarding applies to calls only, not texts, on services like Verizon mobile.

• Identify your exact product from your bill before using any code.
• Check whether your plan supports the forwarding type you want.
• Ask your carrier whether forwarded calls cost extra on your plan.
• Forwarding moves calls, not text messages.
• Google Voice numbers cannot be forwarded to an automated answering system.