PhoneTone Help

PhoneTone Help

How to Use PhoneTone
PhoneTone Tips
PhoneTone and Contacts
PhoneTone's Calling Cards
Setting Up Your Pocket PC Locations
Telephone Number Formats
PhoneTone Options
PhoneTone 30 Day Trial

How to Use PhoneTone

PhoneTone dials your TouchTone phone by using the speaker built into your Pocket PC to generate TouchTone (also known as DTMF) tones. Enter a number by selecting a Contact from the list on your screen, or "dialing" a number with the buttons on PhoneTone's onscreen keypad. The phone number you've selected or entered appears in the Display Box at the top left of your screen. Hold your Pocket PC speaker up to a telephone's mouthpiece, and push the Dial button to dial or redial the number you see.
You also can edit or enter a number using your Pocket PC onscreen keyboard, and dial it with the onscreen Dial button or by pressing the Action button.
You can set up and use PhoneTone's Speed Dial buttons to dial a phone number with just one touch. You can choose Show Speed Buttons from the View menu to switch between displaying the Contacts view, the Keybad view, and the Speed Buttons view. Select Speed Dialing from the Tools menu to set up your Speed Dial Buttons. Your Speed Dial buttons can include any sequence you want to dial, including extension numbers, access codes, passwords, etc. You can have up to 12 Speed Dial numbers.
PhoneTone uses the intelligence built in to the Pocket PC to determine whether to set any selected phone number as Local or Long-Distance. You can override this with selections on the Edit menu.
Depending on the Location you have set in your Pocket PC Settings, you may also see additional numbers before or after the number you've chosen. See Setting Up Your Pocket PC Locations to set up PhoneTone and Locations to work best for you.
You can use the leftmost list on the menu bar to select from more than one phone number set up for a contact, and the rightmost list to select a calling card you've set up within PhoneTone. See PhoneTone's Calling Cards to learn how to set up Calling Cards within PhoneTone to work best for you.
PhoneTone can also be useful for navigating phone mail systems or retrieving phone messages when you're at a rotary phone, overseas, or at any phone that does not generate compatible tones. PhoneTone generates North American standard tones, so if the phone you are using is built to use a different standard, PhoneTone can generate the tones your phone mail system will recognize.

PhoneTone Tips

Making Calls

You can make PhoneTone pause before dialing if you want to select or enter the number before putting your Pocket PC against the phone receiver. Use the Timing pick on the Tools menu to set this up. This pick will also let you make the tones and pauses between them longer (or shorter) if your phone system requires it.
While PhoneTone will work best when the tones are as loud as possible, you don't have to have your Pocket PC volume at its loudest all the time. Instead, pick Dialing from PhoneTone's Tools menu and check Set volume to highest level when dialing. You do need to have the Enable Sounds for Progams option in your Pocket PC "Volume & Sounds Properties" Settings selected in order for PhoneTone to work.

Getting the Most out of PhoneTone

Set up Speed Dial buttons for the numbers you dial the most. These can include extension numbers, calling cards, passwords, etc. -- any set of numbers, including pauses, you'd like to dial. You can have up to 12 Speed Numbers.
You can set up calling cards within PhoneTone, and easily switch between them and choose one when you need it.
Sort your Contacts by Name or by Company by touching the column heading. Selecting Name will switch between sorting by First or Last name. Use the tabs on your left, or the Find tool to quickly locate a Contact. Use the box on the menu bar to select between more than one number available for one Contact.
Dial a number from the Contacts by picking the contact and then selecting Tools->Dial Contact.

Numbers Dialed

You can enter special characters into the Display Box, or include them in Locations or calling cards to pause dialing, either until you indicate to continue (for example, when waiting for a calling card prompt), or for a set amount of time (for example, when you need to dial 9 for an outside line). See How Characters are Dialed for complete information.
In addition to selecting numbers from Contacts, you can enter numbers or special characters manually into the dial area, or edit any number selected from the Contacts list using your Pocket PC onscreen keyboard.
PhoneTone will work seamlessly with your Pocket PC Locations and Contacts to completely automate your local, long distance and international calls, including access codes and calling cards. See Setting Up Your Pocket PC Locations and Telephone Number Formats for to see how to set this up numbers and locations to work best.
You can override your Pocket PC intelligence about local and long distance phone numbers with the selections on the Edit menu.

PhoneTone and Contacts

Use the Contacts list to retrieve phone numbers from your Contacts database.
Use the tabs at the left side of the list to quickly navigate to names beginning with any letter. You can also type a letter to scroll to names starting with that letter. Tap the column headers to sort your Contacts by last name, first name or company. Tapping the left column header alternates between last name order and first name order.
To search for a specific entry in a large database, pick Find from the Edit menu, or use the Find tool on the command bar. Enter the name you're looking for and select searching in Name, Company or Both fields. Press OK to start the search. The search always begins at the currently selected Contact.
If you select or find a Contact with more than one phone number, you can select which of the phone numbers will be retrieved using the leftmost drop-down list in the Contacts view. Use the Settings... choice on the Tools menu to change which phone number is selected by default.
The Display Box at the top of the screen shows how the selected number will be dialed. This may include:
- translation to local or long-distance dialing
- prefixes or formatting you've set up in Locations, and
- and any Calling Card information you've added to PhoneTone.
Number Translation: PhoneTone uses the intelligence provided with your Pocket PC's operating system to determine when to add country codes, city or area codes, access codes and other components. This intelligence works best when you've set up your Contacts and Location as your Pocket PC device expects. (See Telephone Number Formats for details.) You can override the country, city and area codes logic by using the Force to Local, Force to Long Distance or No Translation picks on the Edit menu to manually choose whether country, city and area codes are added. The Auto Translate pick tells PhoneTone to use your Location information to choose the right format.
Locations: Your Pocket PC has Locations information set up as part of your Communications Properties. PhoneTone, as well as other programs, use this information. You can get to this information within PhoneTone from the Locations pick on the Tools menu. The Dialing tab on this window allows you to select the location you are dialing from and to customize the dialing prefixes and formatting for each location. See Setting Up Your Pocket PC Locations for information and examples.
Calling Cards: PhoneTone lets you set up calling cards or other numbers or codes that are added to your selected Contact's number. Use the rightmost box on the command bar to choose any (or no) calling card. See PhoneTone's Calling Cards for information and on how to set these up.
Once you see the telephone number you want in the Display Box, simply press the Dial button to dial the number.

PhoneTone's Calling Cards

The Calling Cards pick on the Tools menu lets you set up numbers to dial before or after any selected Contact in PhoneTone. These will often be calling cards and their associated access numbers, but do not have to be. They can be any sequence of numbers you'd find useful.
Once you've set up the sequences for all your calling cards, you can easily pick which one you want to use at any time from the rightmost box in the command bar within PhoneTone. Select No Card if you don't want to use any of the cards you've set up.
For each card you can specify up to two character sequences: one to dial before the number and one to dial after it. For example, you may want a long distance company's access number before the phone number, and your calling card number after it. Either sequence can be blank, and any of the characters described in How Characters are Dialed may be used.
These sequences do not have to be calling cards or access numbers; they can be any sequence you'd like appended to your selected Contact phone number.
You can require a password to access your credit card information if you like. Tools->Set Password to set your password. You can always lock out access again by pressing the lock button in the menu area.
Each time you select a contact from your Contacts list, the telephone numbers will first be translated using your current Location information. Then the calling card sequences you've set up will be added to the beginning and the end of the translated number.

Calling Cards and Locations

Using the Calling Cards within PhoneTone is an alternative to setting up additional Locations with calling card information. This can be a very convenient way to easily switch cards. When setting these up, you will need to make sure that the Locations and calling cards you set up will work together. Remember that any Locations translation happens first, then PhoneTone's calling card information is added. PhoneTone's calling card information will be added only to the very beginning or end of the translated number, not inside any Locations calling patterns.

For example, to set up a calling sequence to dial

9, to get an outside line from work

102880 to access your long-distance carrier

212 555 6666 to reach the person you wanted, and

102880 to supply your calling card number

You need to either have the 9, and the 102880 in a PhoneTone calling card, or both in Locations. You can't have the 9 in Locations and the access number in PhoneTone, as Locations translation happens first.
Remember that you can put any calling sequences in the PhoneTone calling cards. They don't have to be your actual calling card or access numbers.

Setting Up Your Pocket PC Locations

Your Pocket PC has Locations information set up as part of your Communications Properties. Locations let you specify different ways of dialing a phone or modem, depending on the location you're calling from. For example, for calling from work you might want to begin all numbers with a 9. From pay phones, you might want to include a calling card number.
Locations also let you specify information about the geographical location you're calling from, which enables the Pocket PC to translate phone numbers into local or long-distance formats as appropriate. For example, telling Locations you're dialing from the 313 area code lets the Pocket PC automatically not include the (313) when translating a phone number.
Setting up locations correctly lets PhoneTone and other communications programs automatically add access codes, country, city and area codes, and calling card numbers to the phone numbers you select.
You can get to your Locations information within PhoneTone from the Locations pick on the Tools menu. The Dialing tab on the window you'll see allows you to select the location you are dialing from and to customize the dialing prefixes and formatting for each location.
You can select any of the dialing locations established (using the "When dialing from:" list) or create a new location. Use the Change Dialing Options Help for details on how to set up locations correctly and use the options provided.

Location Contents

Combine locations with the special characters recognized by PhoneTone for added power and ease-of-use. For example, to use your calling card for long distance calls you make from pay phones only, you would:
- set up a new location, named Pay (using the New ... button), then
- add the special character "$" followed by your calling card number to the Long Distance dialing pattern (using the Edit ... button).
Now when you've picked Pay as your location, PhoneTone will add your calling card number to any long distance number. PhoneTone will wait until you hear the calling card "bong" and choose OK from its prompt before dialing your calling card number. You'll be able to use this setup with your Pocket PC modem too.
For best results, you should make sure the phone numbers in your Contacts Database are set up in the Telephone Number Formats expected by the Pocket PC.

PhoneTone Cards and Locations

You can also set up calling cards and other dialing information within PhoneTone. These will not be used by other programs, but can easily be selected within PhoneTone itself.
When you do this, you need to be aware of how PhoneTone's calling cards work with your Pocket PC's Locations. See PhoneTone's Calling Cards for how to do this.

Telephone Number Formats

PhoneTone uses the intelligence built into the Pocket PC to determine when to add country, city and area codes to a number you're dialing. If you set up your Contacts database using the following consistent format, country, city and area codes will always be used when appropriate by PhoneTone and any other program which utilizes the Pocket PC logic.
Remember that access codes, calling card numbers, and other control information are determined by your location, and that only country, city and area codes are controlled by the telephone number formats. See Setting Up Your Pocket PC Locations for more information.
Also remember that you can tell PhoneTone not to utilize the Pocket PC phone number logic, using picks on PhoneTone's Edit menu.
The standard format for telephone numbers is called Canonical Form. Numbers in this form start with the plus sign (+), followed by the country code, area or city code, and subscriber's telephone number. The complete sequence for a telephone number in this form is either:

+countrycode (areacode) subscribernumber

or

+countrycode (citycode) subscribernumber
This is the international standard for specifying telephone numbers, as well as the format used by the Pocket PC.
If all the phone numbers in your Contacts Database are in this form, PhoneTone will work very well with no changes needed. However, as you may already have a lot of Contacts in your database that are not entered this way, PhoneTone tries to accommodate phone numbers that are not in this form as follows.
If a phone number in Contacts does not start with a plus sign, PhoneTone will add a plus sign and a country code to the beginning of the phone number using the country code you have configured in the Dialing Options dialog box (pick Dialing... from the Tools menu to see this dialog). In addition, if there is no area code or country code present (indicated by the absence of parentheses) PhoneTone will add the area code you have configured using Dialing Options. This still may not always be sufficient or correct, so you may need to use the Force To Local, Force to Long Distance or No Translation menu picks (under Edit), or you may need to edit the number in the Display Box.
You can also use the Ignore spaces in phone numbers choice on Dialing Options to tell PhoneTone to remove any spaces embedded in your phone numbers before allowing the Pocket PC to translate them.

PhoneTone Options

PhoneTone has many options you can change to make it work best with your phone systems, the Contacts you have set up, and your personal preferences.

Translation Options

PhoneTone uses the Pocket PC's built-in intelligence to determine when to use country codes, city or area codes, access codes and other components with your phone numbers. This intelligence works best when you've set up your Contacts and Location as the Pocket PC system expects (see Telephone Number Formats for details). If you don't have the numbers in Contacts recorded as the Pocket expects, or your local dialing follows different rules, you can use the following options to override the number translation and choose whether country, city and area codes are added.

Force to Local	will remove area, city or country codes
Force to Long Distance	will always add recognized area, city and country codes to the number, even if they're the same as the location you're in
No Translation	will use the number just as you entered it in Contacts
Auto Translate	will return to using your Location information to translate the number.

Dialing Options

If your Contacts phone numbers do not contain country and area codes, you can specify them in the Dialing Options window. PhoneTone will then use these when translating your phone numbers. Note that you're specifying the country and area codes to be included in phone numbers without them here, not the country and area code where you currently are calling from.
You can also use this window to choose whether PhoneTone interprets spaces within a phone number as a "stop", or ignores them. In addition, you can tell PhoneTone to always use your Pocket PC's loudest volume (that is, to ignore your normal Pocket PC volume).

Timing Options

Use this pick to tell PhoneTone how long to make tones, explicit pauses (specified by the comma in a number) and pauses between tones. Some phone systems may require longer tones than others. You can also tell PhoneTone to wait a specified amount of time between your pressing the Dial button and sounding the actual tones. This will allow you to position your Pocket PC against the telephone receiver.

Settings Options

You can switch between telephone numbers stored for any Contact using the convenient control on PhoneTone's command bar. However, you can choose which number is chosen by default using the Settings window.

How Characters are Dialed

PhoneTone recognizes several special characters to indicate certain actions should be taken. You can use these characters to program PhoneTone to handle sophisticated dialing sequences. The following list shows how PhoneTone interprets characters:

numbers	PhoneTone generates the TouchTone tones for numbers.
letters	PhoneTone translates each letter into the number it corresponds to on a standard telephone keypad and generates its TouchTone tone. Note that E, F and G have special meanings in the Dialing Patterns (in Locations) fields.
, (comma)	PhoneTone pauses for half a second or the amount of time you specify in Timing Options.
$ (dollarsign)	PhoneTone prompts you to wait for a Billing Signal. Press OK or the Enter key to continue dialing after you hear the signal.
@ (atsign)	PhoneTone prompts you to wait for an answer. Press OK or the Enter key to continue dialing after the call is answered.
? (question mark)	PhoneTone allows you to wait before continuing for any reason. Press OK or the Enter key to continue dialing.
! (exclamation point)	PhoneTone prompts you to press the switchhook, or flash. Press OK or the Enter key to continue dialing after the flash.
/ (slash)	PhoneTone stops dialing, even if there are more characters following the slash.

All other characters are simply skipped over. This allows you to insert parentheses, dashes or other characters to format the number. You can choose whether PhoneTone should skip spaces or use a space as a stop character in Dialing Options.
While PhoneTone's actions are essentially the same for many of the special characters (those that pause and wait for you to choose OK), setting these up for their specific meanings will make them work correctly with other software and your Pocket PC modem as well.

PhoneTone 30 Day Trial

Ilium Software makes available a 30 Day Trial version of PhoneTone that you may download from our web site.

You can tell if you’re using a Trial version of PhoneTone by opening the About PhoneTone window (from the Tools menu). If you see a Register button, you are using an unregistered 30 Day Trial.
If you’ve downloaded the Trial Version of PhoneTone, you may evaluate it free of charge for 30 days. After that period, the application will stop functioning until you register it. When you receive your name and key, start PhoneTone and select Register Now on the 30 Day Trial Notice (If the 30 Day Trial Notice does not appear, pick About PhoneTone... from the Tools menu and select Register.) Enter your registration name and key into the window that appears and press OK.

To purchase PhoneTone from Ilium Software:

Web: http://www.iliumsoft.com

Call: (888) 632-5388 (toll free) or
+1 (734) 973-9388

Email: info@iliumsoft.com

Fax: +1 (734) 973-2640

Mail: Ilium Software
3759 Prospect Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48105 USA

9,	to get an outside line from work
102880	to access your long-distance carrier
212 555 6666	to reach the person you wanted, and
102880	to supply your calling card number

Web:	http://www.iliumsoft.com
Call:	(888) 632-5388 (toll free) or +1 (734) 973-9388
Email:	info@iliumsoft.com
Fax:	+1 (734) 973-2640
Mail:	Ilium Software 3759 Prospect Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48105 USA