Office Phone Forwarding: A Practical Guide

There are two broad types, and mixing them up is the most common mistake. Unconditional (all-call) forwarding sends every incoming call away immediately, so your desk phone will not ring at all. Conditional forwarding only moves calls in specific situations: when the line is busy, when nobody answers after a set number of rings, or when the phone is unreachable.

If you want your office phone to keep ringing during business hours and only catch calls you miss, you want conditional forwarding. If you want the line fully handled elsewhere, use all-call forwarding. Note that all-call forwarding usually overrides your office voicemail, so decide where missed calls should land before you switch it on.

• All calls (unconditional): every call forwards right away; the desk phone does not ring.
• No answer: forwards only after the phone rings unanswered.
• Busy: forwards only while you are already on a call.
• Unreachable: forwards when the phone is off or out of service (mostly relevant to mobile lines).

Star codes are not universal. The same carrier can use different codes for wireless, residential, and business products, and hosted VoIP systems often manage forwarding in a web portal instead. Check your bill or provider portal for the exact product name before you dial anything.

For example, AT&T Phone for Business, AT&T Collaborate, and AT&T wireless each use different codes. Comcast Business has separate instructions for Voice Mobility, Business Voice, and Managed Voice. Frontier separates Digital Voice from other products. Once you know the product name, the rest is straightforward.

• Look at your monthly bill or online account for the product name.
• Ask your provider which product your office lines are on if the bill is unclear.
• Do not borrow codes from a different product or carrier; they may fail silently or forward to the wrong place.

Below are forwarding instructions drawn from each provider's own documentation. These apply only to the named product. If your service is not listed, call your provider or check its support site rather than guessing a code.

For portal-based systems, forwarding is usually found under the phone number's settings in your online account, where you pick a forwarding type and enter a destination number.

• AT&T Phone for Business: all calls, dial *72, destination, #; off with *73#. No answer, *92, destination, #; off with *93#. Busy, *90, destination, #; off with *91#.
• AT&T Collaborate: always forward with *72 plus destination, off with *73; busy forward with *62 plus destination, off with *63; no-answer forward with *92 plus destination, off with *93. 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 forwarding, *93 disables; *90 sets busy forwarding when call waiting is off, *91 disables.
• Optimum Business Phone: dial *72, wait for dial tone, then dial the destination. The destination answering confirms it; *73 turns it off. Forwarding can also be managed in My Optimum Voice.
• Frontier Unlimited Digital Voice: lift the handset, dial *72, wait for the second dial tone, enter the destination, and listen for confirmation; *73 disables. The portal path is Settings, Call Settings, Call Forwarding.
• Spectrum Business Voice: sign in to SpectrumBusiness.net, open Voice, choose the number, then Voice Settings or Forwarding Manager, and enable unconditional or busy/no-answer forwarding with your destination.
• Verizon business landline: dial *72 and follow the activation instructions from the same line; *73 deactivates. Verizon mobile (for a cell-based office line): *72 plus the 10-digit destination forwards all calls; *71 plus the destination covers unanswered calls; *73 disables, set up from the phone while in Verizon coverage.
• T-Mobile: **21*1, destination, # enables unconditional forwarding and ##21# disables; **61*1 covers no reply, **62*1 unreachable, and **67*1 busy, each disabled with ##61#, ##62#, or ##67#. ##004# resets to defaults. Vonage Business Communications: in the app, select Call Forwarding and enable Forward Calls to a phone number, then verify with an outside test call. Windstream OfficeSuite UC: in the WE Connect dashboard, use the My Call Forwarding widget to set Call Forwarding (Immediate) to Another Phone, or set a ring count and another phone number for unanswered calls. C Spire: dial *72 plus the 10-digit destination and press Call; *73 then Call disables, and a No Answer Transfer feature can be added to your plan.

Most systems play a confirmation tone, a second dial tone, or a spoken confirmation when forwarding activates. Listen for it before hanging up. Then place a real test call from an outside phone, such as your cell, and confirm the call arrives at the destination the way you expect.

Two things to watch: forwarding calls to a mobile number may use plan minutes or long-distance charges depending on your plan, and all-call forwarding overrides voicemail on the original line. If your destination does not pick up, the caller may reach that destination's voicemail instead of yours, so record a greeting there too.

• Listen for the confirmation tone or message after dialing the code.
• Test with a call from a different phone, not the forwarded line itself.
• Check your plan for forwarding or long-distance charges.
• Record a greeting on the destination number in case it answers.

Forwarding is also how you point your office number at a call answering service. With AllDayDesk, you keep your existing public number and forward calls to the service; the setup steps depend on your phone provider. You start by choosing your business or entering its website, checking the business details, and hearing a personalized sample call before choosing your phone setup option.

Once connected, calls, transcripts, summaries, and bookings show up in your dashboard. New appointments go on the built-in AllDayDesk calendar by default once you have configured your services and availability, and an optional Google Calendar connection is available in Settings after you connect and authorize your Google account. When the service does not know an answer, a price, or an opening, it takes a message for you instead of guessing. Changes to existing appointments come to you as requests, not confirmed changes.

• Keep your public number and forward calls to the service; instructions depend on your phone provider.
• Setup: pick your business or enter its website, review the details, hear a sample, then choose phone setup.
• Calls, transcripts, summaries, and bookings appear in your dashboard.
• Transfers to you require you to configure a destination and rules; pickup is not guaranteed.

If your office uses a Google Voice number, be aware that Google states forwarding calls from a Google Voice number to an automated system is unsupported. You can configure conditional forwarding on a separate cell line so missed calls reach Google Voice voicemail, but you should not plan on forwarding a Google Voice number to an automated answering service. Check with Google support or your provider before relying on any forwarding chain involving Voice.