Unfortunately, using GrandCentral meant that there was one more place where people could leave me voicemail messages – one more inbox to manage. I had just recently consolidated all my inboxes by using PhoneTag, so the GrandCentral inbox was very unappealing. Now, according to PhoneTag, it is now possible to use both services at the same time – or is it…

I’ve read and re-read the press release regarding this. I’ve searched the Internet extensively. Everyone is saying roughly the same thing (example from Gizmodo):

When you sign up for PhoneTag, which formerly went by the incredibly nerdy name SimulScribe, you get a phone number to add to your GrandCentral account. When you miss a call, PhoneTag picks it up and records the message.

That’s great, but nobody is explaining how to configure this. I’ve got a PhoneTag account and a GrandCentral account. I’ve tried adding my PhoneTag number into GrandCentral as a phone – it doesn’t work. I’ve requested the set-up instructions from PhoneTag for GrandCentral and it only says that I need to program my mobile phone to forward unanswered calls to my PhoneTag number – and I’m certain that I specified that I’m using GrandCentral.

I’ve opened a support request with PhoneTag regarding this. When I receive the details, I’ll post them here. In the mean time, feel free to post your experience with these two systems in the comments below.

UPDATE

This morning I received a new welcome message from PhoneTag in response to a new account that I started setting-up. I found it interesting that even though I abandoned the set-up process, somebody over there activated my new account anyway. This new account is configured to work with GrandCentral. Unfortunately, you can’t use one PhoneTag account between your cell phone and your GrandCentral account. Here are the details on how it’s done:

• PhoneTag answers, but waits for a while before playing the greeting – maybe 30 to 40 seconds
• My greeting is preceeded with a DTMF “1″ tone

So, when someone calls my GrandCentral number, the call is simultaneously sent to my cell phone and my PhoneTag account. While the PhoneTag account is “ringing” (silently waiting), my cell phone is also ringing. If I don’t answer it on my cell phone before the PhoneTag silence ends, the call will be accepted by PhoneTag when it plays the DTMF “1″ tone.

What really surprises me is that this is very similar to the hack that I had done months ago. I had re-recorded my PhoneTag greeting so that it was preceded by the sound of me pressing “1″ – which would cause GrandCentral to transfer the call to my PhoneTag voicemail. The only difference here is the initial slience. Previously, this is how I had it set-up:

GrandCentral —> Cell phone —> PhoneTag

Now, the call goes simultaneously to my cell phone and PhoneTag.

More frequently, I would find myself in a meeting with my cell phone ringing. All I know at this point is who is calling based on a quick glance at the screen. The reason for their call and the urgency of their need to talk to me is unknown. With traditional voicemail systems, I would have to excuse myself from the meeting or wait until the meeting is over to learn the purpose of the call.

With PhoneTag, a transcription of the text message is sent to my phone via e-mail within a few minutes of the caller leaving it. Now, I am able to glance at my phone and read the message - this allows me to respond more appropriately. In addition, any phone numbers left by the caller are click-able, making return calls a breeze.

The service works quite well. Sometimes they seem to suffer from significant delays in message delivery. I have my account configured to send me a notification as soon as a new message is sent in addition to the transcription that follows when it is ready. Sometimes the interval between these two messages is several minutes or up to a few hours – which is a huge drawback. For the most part, however, the transcription arrives within 5 minutes of the missed call.

Like many people, I use my e-mail inbox as a task list. If something is sitting in my inbox, it will get my attention. Prior to PhoneTag, I had to manage a few separate inboxes in the form of my various voice mailboxes on my home, office, and cell phones. With this system, I am able to forward all my phones to one system, which then delivers the final message to my e-mail inbox for action. Sometimes I even reply to the voicemail as if the caller had sent me e-mail (which is a far more efficient way to communicate these days). The combination of all my inbound messages into one place is a huge time-saver and it helps me keep things organized.

None of this would be possible if I didn’t have the first two foundational elements:

1. Good Spam Filtering
2. Push e-mail through Hosted Exchange

There are other services that provide similar features. I am simultaneously testing SpinVoxwith similar good results. By comparison, I like the ability to forward an e-mail with a WAV or MP3 file to PhoneTag for transcription. SpinVox does not offer this feature. On the other hand, SpinVox has other features that allow you to dictate blog entries to it for automatic posting to your website.

YouMail and CallWave also offer similar services, but I have not tested them extensively.

You can get a free 30-day trial of PhoneTag by clicking this link.

I’ve run in to many business professionals who have a BlackBerry or Smart Phone, but they are still using POP e-mail and wired sync through their desktop. They are always amazed when I demonstrate the features of hosted Exchange with wireless ActiveSync.

Up until recently, the benefits of running an Exchange environment were reserved for companies that were large enough to justify the cost of a dedicated server, software licenses, and maintenance. Now, with hosted Exchange, it is possible to get all the same benefits as the big guys in pieces as small as one user seat – for a very reasonable monthly fee.

Here are some of the useful features available with Hosted Exchange:

Data on the Cloud

Within a non-hosted Outlook set-up, all of your calendar, contact, task, and e-mail data is stored on your PC. If you have multiple PCs or need to access your data from somewhere else, you’ll quickly hit a wall.

Things get worse if you want to receive and reply to e-mail on a mobile device. You can either send a copy of every e-mail to a separate account that is checked by your mobile device or you will have to configure Outlook to leave a copy of your e-mail messages on the server. Both solutions leave you with a mess of e-mail that will be frustrating.

With Hosted Exchange, all your data is stored in a central place. All of your computers and your mobile device connect to the central source to send and receive updates. When an e-mail message arrives, it will be instantly sent to your computer in Outlook and to your mobile device. If you delete it in one location, it will be deleted in all locations. If you reply to it from your phone, your reply will appear in your “Sent Items” in Outlook.

Further, you will be able to access all your data through any web browser via Outlook Web Access.

Instant Automatic Sync

With Hosted Exchange there is no need to worry about manually synchronizing your data between multiple computers and your handheld device. Once a change is made to your data, that change will be automatically reflected on all your configured computers. Gone are the days when you had to use a cable and software to keep your data current. In addition, if you use the group collaboration feature described below, changes made to your data by others will nearly instantly be reflected on your wireless device or remote PC. This is helpful when you have someone else who can schedule appointments on your behalf.

One of the most popular features supported by Instant Automatic Sync is push e-mail. Beyond the value of having e-mail messages instantly delivered to your inbox on your desktop and mobile device, push e-mail is a building block that will allow you to use some new productivity enhancers which will be discussed in the near future.

At the same time, push e-mail would be less useful if it wasn’t for the first Foundational Element, good spam filtering.

Group Collaboration

If you work in an environment where it is helpful to share information about your appointments and contacts, then you’ll appreciate the group collaboration aspects available with Hosted Exchange. You will be able to set-up calendar sharing that will allow other members of your organization to view, modify, edit, or create new items in your calendar. The same goes for tasks, contacts, and even e-mail. Everything is controlled by permissions so you can only grant the required level of access.

This feature is what bridges the divide between the corporate uses and personal uses of Hosted Exchange. Busy families can enjoy the benefits of knowing each other’s appointments and scheduling events on every-one’s calendar. The ability to add common contacts between multiple individuals is a handy feature.

Conclusion

Overall, the bottom line is that the valuable benefits of Microsoft Exchange that were once reserved for companies of a certain size are now available to small business, individuals, and even families thanks to the advances in Hosted Exchange. I highly recommend you at least try it out. Once you add this tool to your set-up, you’ll open the door to even more interesting productivity enhancements.

I am frequently surprised when I hear someone complaining about the amount of spam that they receive on a daily basis. Because of the filtering service that I use, I can honestly say that I haven’t received more than a handful of junk e-mail messages in the past year. And by a handful, I mean somewhere between 5 and 10. Back in the mid 1990s, various work related situations led me to develop a crude e-mail notification system that sent the sender and subject of each message to my pager as they arrived. This system allowed me to keep on top of things at the office without having to actively check my e-mail throughout the day. Unfortunately, the ugly thing we call spam was just around the corner, ready to make my pager go crazy.

I quickly modified the system so that it would only notify me if the message met certain criteria. Unfortunately, sometimes an important message wouldn’t meet the criteria, so I wouldn’t be notified of it. Whenever this would happen, my confidence in the notification system would drop and I found myself checking my e-mail frequently just to make sure something didn’t slip through. The battle against spam was like a road trip on many winding roads through the desert. Each solution had a different method with various levels of inconvenience. The most inconvenient was a service that required all senders to validate themselves the first time they sent you a message by clicking on a link in an auto-reply. Other systems use various server-level tricks that help separate the bad from the good.

It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I found a service called MX Logic that works wonderfully – without any false positives and without any inconvenience to the sender or recipient. I liked the service so much, I added it to our product offering as Street Sweep. There is an interesting shift in the usefulness of e-mail that takes place once the threat of spam is eliminated. Now that I can be confident that each message that reaches our server is legit, message notification or push e-mail finally makes sense. Now that push e-mail is not a nuisance, it can become a crucial building block for other products and services that will help me increase my productivity and my ability to keep up with things that are happening at work and home.

I often realize that there are solutions to problems or situations that I usually just take for granted.

My experience with TiVo is a perfect example of this concept.

For years, I’d see an ad for TiVo and think “I have no idea why I would ever need that – I just don’t watch enough TV.” And then I received a TiVo as a gift. After just a few days with the device, I was hooked. Because I didn’t have the time to watch much TV, I was able to put more meaningful programming into the small TV time slot I did have. That’s the “IT/Revelation” that TiVo was responsible for.

It took an outside force to get me to try something new – and once I tried it, there was no going back. I think that most people who see TiVo or any of the other DVR products in action experience the same “I can’t live without it” reaction.

Once I had my TiVo “IT/Revelation”, I decided that I was going to actively seek out new technology that might improve some aspects of my business or personal life. With hundreds of products and services out there, there is plenty to explore.