Phone Reminder Guide

General Tips for Phone Reminders

Messages will be delivered by a computerized female voice.

Check the Text to Speech Tips page for more information.

Call 732-658-9111 to record a message in your own voice.

Check the Set Up Reminders by Telephone page for details.

Say hello when you answer the phone.

When you receive a phone reminder, please say "hello". Your voice activates the phone system, telling it that you are ready. If you don't say anything, it will take longer for the reminder message to begin.

Phone reminders can be recorded by answering machines.

However, the beginning of a reminder will probably not be recorded because most answering machines play a greeting before they start recording. Therefore, it is necessary to have your reminder set to repeat once.

Phone reminders will be re-sent in two minutes if they fail.

If there is no answer, the phone line is busy, the phone number is not in service, or the call fails, our system will call the same number again every two minutes up to three times.

The Extended Status column tells what happened to a phone call that was made.

After a reminder has been sent, on the Details of an Event or Reminder page, the Remind Me By section at the bottom of the page displays the results of a reminder. For a telephone reminder, the last column (Extended Status) displays whether a phone call was answered or not, whether it was answered by a person or an answering machine (this determination is not 100% accurate at this time), whether the person finished listening to the entire message or ended the call prematurely, whether the phone number was invalid (destNotObtainable), or whether there was a problem with our phone system (resourceNotAvailable).

The formats of phone reminders sent to you and to your contacts are slightly different.

To yourself:

"Hello" line:		Hello [your first name, last name].
"Source" line:		This is a reminder from yourself.
"Subject" line:		The subject is: [subject].
"Event time" line:		The time of the event is: [event time].
"Description" line:		There are further details: [description]. (if there is description)
"Voice Message" line:		Please listen to this voice message: [play attachment]. (if there is an attachment and it is a .wav sound file)
Footnote:		This reminder service was provided by 6Channel6. Please visit our web site at www.6channel6.com.

"Repeat" line:		Repeat one time.

		Hello ...

End:		Goodbye.

If the reminder is sent to a contact, the first two lines are somewhat different. Your name will also be spoken.

To your contacts:

"Hello" line:		Hello [contact's first name, last name].
"Source" line:		This is a reminder from [your first name, last name].

If you have the basic service, there are limitations to phone reminders.

The format of a phone reminder cannot be changed.
The footnote is mandatory.
Reminders set up by telephone cannot be forwarded to other people.
Any voice attachments will not be played over the phone.

Do not set up two phone reminders for the same time to the same number.

Otherwise, none of the reminders will go through because our system will make two phone calls from two phone lines simultaneously. This will cause the receiving phone line to be busy.

To avoid this problem but still send multiple reminders, set up just one reminder and check the boxes in the Remind Times section (directly below the Description box). For example, you can stipulate that the first remind time be two minutes before the event, the second remind time at the time of the event and the third five minutes after. We strongly recommend that you leave at least a two minute gap between remind times.

Do not send phone reminders to more than twenty people simultaneously.

We don't have that kind of capacity. Our system is not for emergency or broadcast use. The subscription fee for that capacity is much higher.

Make sure the phone numbers you send reminder to are not on the do-not-call list.

Please be advised, it is your responsibility to verify that the phone numbers to which you send reminders are not on the do-not-call list. 6Channel6 is not required to check. 6Channel6 is not liable for the phone reminders you send.