How to Add RingCentral Extensions

Tech & Software
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Hey guys,

I bought RingCentral Premium (holiday pricing) and am beginning to set up my phone system. I’m following along with the video posted below and have thus far set it so that when a seller calls my number it goes straight to an automated message using Seth’s blind offer script.

As you get to around minute 5:51 of the video and Seth clicks on Users, you can see 5 extensions that route to different areas in the business (Postcard Leads, Sales Dept, Loan Servicing, etc.)

My question is… How do you add these users/extensions? RingCentral now looks slightly different than what the video shows but as I click “+Add User” I’m brought to a page that gives you 3 separate user types to choose from (which cost extra to have if they get more than 10 calls) and each one requires an email that is different from my main email…

I must be doing something wrong, right?

Thanks in advance for any insight.
this video

NOTE I should also add that I plan on hiring virtual assistants, acquisitions managers and using PAT LIVE in the nearish future. So it is going to make sense to have all these extensions set up.

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@seanhangley I actually just cancelled their free trial this morning, and I don’t have access to it anymore. I can’t remember exactly where I found that setting. I know their interface for settings was extremely frustrating. The options for the settings vary depending on how you are accessing them. Such as the desktop app, mobile app and online portal(admin portal even had two sets depending on if you were in admin mode or profile). To get everything the way I wanted I spent a lot of type cycling between the programs to find what I was looking for. Hopefully this helps, I cant log into it to try to find it.

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@mintproperties First off: Excellent name, Shawn. Second off: Yes. The interface is unbelievably frustrating and unintuitive.

In an attempt to fight off Analysis Paralysis I just jumped right in and signed a contract/paid for RingCentral lol… So currently I’m stuck with it for at least a year.

I called up tech support to say at the very least I need a number that I can print on my mailers for users to call and be directed straight to the blind offer message… But I’m also going to need a number that I can call from and users can call back to have a conversation on the acquisition of their property… I don’t want people to call me back after our first real acquisition conversation and just be directed straight back to “Hello and thanks for calling! If you’re hearing this message right now you probably just received a letter from us in the mail…”

The support member had no idea what I was asking though and told me to worry about setting up another number after I got my team in place. LOL… I was like “Dude. NO. I need to have this set up now so that when people receive my mail, everything works as it should.”

I’m frustrated and tapping out for now. I’ll call them back and hopefully get a more competent representative later.

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@seanhangley yup definitely good to just jump in and go. My plan is to get a second toll free number that I can set up for mailers/auto voicemail. Then I’ll have a second number to pass out to anyone who gets past that point. An alternative would be to set up a phone tree system to direct calls to my cell phone or a voicemail. I know on Ringcentral you can buy additional numbers without customer service. I would guess additional settings/options would open up once you had the second number on your account.

I’m sure your following Seth :slight_smile: how do you set up your system so someone can call you directly.

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@seanhangley said in RingCentral Extensions:

My question is… How do you add these users/extensions? RingCentral now looks slightly different than what the video shows but as I click “+Add User” I’m brought to a page that gives you 3 separate user types to choose from (which cost extra to have if they get more than 10 calls) and each one requires an email that is different from my main email…

UGH. I’m sorry about that (on RingCentral’s behalf). I remember the last time they changed everything around, and it rendered my previous tutorial useless.

For what it’s worth, I have it on my list to do a similar tutorial like this for OpenPhone soon. RingCentral has always been fine for me, but I do know what you mean about things being unnecessarily difficult to find what you’re looking for.

From what I hear of OpenPhone, everyone seems to like it (as much as you can “like” a phone system like this), and it is less expensive anyway.

Jaren put together this tutorial a while back; it’s not quite as long/comprehensive, but you might find it helpful if/when you ever go in that direction.

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@seanhangley this is a little hard to diagnose without seeing exactly what you’re seeing on your screen and where it’s breaking down.

Do you have any number at all? If so, how do you have that number configured (is it going straight to voicemail or is it forwarding numbers somewhere else)? Just trying to establish what you have, and what you still need.

When you try to add a new extension, is this what you’re seeing?

Screenshot 2023-01-23 at 3.48.14 PM.jpg
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Assuming so, which one are you selecting?

Whichever one you’re selecting, what are you seeing next? Is that next step where you’re getting stuck, or have you gotten further than this?

I might suggest calling RingCentral customer service again (hopefully, you’ll get a more competent person who can help you), but don’t use terms like “blind offer message” and “mailers” and “acquisition” and all of that. This will only confuse them by muddying up the waters and making your actual request harder to understand. Instead, just say,

“I’m a new Premium subscriber. I have one phone number (tell them the number and how it’s set up). I need a new phone number and extension, so I can forward calls to a new destination that I will choose. Can you help me do this?”

If you set up the account with a single number, then this new number will probably bring a new monthly cost with it.

Also, you may have already seen this, but I have another RingCental video that explains how the extensions are set up.

This video doesn’t explain how to set them up from scratch, because they already existed when I was shooting the video. I was just explaining how they’re configured.

@MintProperties at around 16:12, I start talking about how the number for extension 5 is one that directs to my personal phone (the one that rings in my pocket) and I also go on to explain how the settings are configured for the postcard leads (when I want calls to go straight to voicemail).

I don’t think you’re far off from getting things set up right, and once it’s set up, you’ll never have to think about it again as long as you keep it this way (it’s been many years now since I’ve moved anything around in my account, so it’s not an ongoing thing that bothers me). But, the bottom line is, RingCentral definitely makes this more confusing than it needs to be, and it sounds like their customer support is pretty darn bad. I’m sorry about that on their behalf. I didn’t mean for this to be such hassle for you.

If you continue spending hours trying to get this setup and it still isn’t working, you might consider pulling the plug with RingCentral, demand a refund for whatever time you haven’t used yet, and then switch to OpenPhone.

I’ll keep that OpenPhone tutorial on my shortlist of things to do. It looks like they actually have a pretty decent tutorial of their own, if you ever go that way and need some help in the meantime.

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@retipsterseth all ready jumped ship :slight_smile: largely due to price. I signed up for open phone about a week ago. One of the things that sold me was the voicemail integration with pebble that Jaren showed on his video. I haven’t spent a lot of time on it yet, but it was a lot simpler to set up a single voicemail. Once I add a second number I’ll mess around with the phone tree system.

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@retipsterseth Thank you so much for reaching out with all that info!! Absolutely no reason to apologize for them - and even with the UI/UX changes, your course and tutorials are unbelievably helpful and informative. You are the GOAT, sir.

Whichever one you’re selecting, what are you seeing next? Is that next step where you’re getting stuck, or have you gotten further than this?

I’m seeing the same extensions you showed in the image attached. I believe that I’m going to have to select MVP if I want to be able to call inbound leads with the number… However - for the sake of experimentation, I separately selected all three user extensions (MVP, PRO +, PRO) to see if I could add ANY user to the account. Regardless of which type of user you want to add, you need to give them a completely new email for it. I’m not sure that it makes sense to create a new email simply to get another number added - but maybe that’s just the way they do it?

Today, I reached out to the sales rep I initially worked with (who’s great… totally different experience than the tech support rep) and he told me to reach out to the onboarding team and they should be able to help… I’m going to try that tomorrow after work.

@retipsterseth do you remember if you purchased three separate MVP numbers when setting the extensions for your postcard leads, sales and personal number? When I talk to the onboarding team I’m going to try to have them set me up in such a way that copies your process.

Thanks again for any insight!!

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@seanhangley said in RingCentral Extensions:

Regardless of which type of user you want to add, you need to give them a completely new email for it.

That’s odd. I don’t recall ever having to do that… but for what it’s worth, it wouldn’t be hard to come up with a new, unique address just to check this box. Just use the + sign and add any variation to your original email address; those emails will appear in the same inbox.

For example, I could give you [email protected] and [email protected], and anything sent to either of those addresses would both be delivered to the same inbox (it’s a nifty little trick you can use when opting into lists, to see if anyone sells your email address without your permission).

When I signed up, I don’t recall them being called “MVP” numbers. They were just extra numbers I had to pay an additional $5/mo for, maybe more for the toll-free ones… but to answer your question, that’s probably what they are.

I’ve got one number for the main “office” (where people can hit an extension and get transferred to my phone or another voicemail box), one for the sales dept (the number that goes on all my property listings), and another number for the acquisitions side (the number that goes on all my direct mail pieces).

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@seanhangley @retipsterseth
I’ve dealt with similar RingCentral issues to the point where I moved on and went ahead with the rest of the masterclass (which is awesome!) and am now circling back to solving my RingCentral setup before sending my first mailer. I too jumped all in from the get-go to avoid analysis paralysis.

There are two different settings on the admin portal: you can add a user (which is what you are selecting and is significantly more expensive ~$335/yr) or you can add a number (this is much cheaper ~$60/yr). I believe the user requires a new email b/c its for a new team member to have a dedicated number. In your (and my) situation I think just adding another number with a seperate vm is all that’s really needed. I may be overlooking something but I am trying to solve this problem as well.

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@hjordan @retipsterseth @MintProperties

Hey guys! OK. So I just got off the phone with support and I’m innnnnching closer to some answers.

It looks like if you want to add an extension without having to make a new email for each user then you go to the “Users” tab and click “Unassigned Extensions” under the “User List”.

This is where things got a little wonky in the conversation.

I sent a screenshot of Seth’s video as he was on the “Users With Extensions” screen and the support rep said that if you want to be able to both make and receive calls then each of the numbers are indeed going to have to be MVP numbers (each costing an additional $335 per year).

Butttt if you go to"Unassigned Extensions" and then click “+Add Unassigned User”…then click “Domestic” you’re brought to a page that allows you to pick between “Add Users with Devices” or “Add Users without Devices”.

“Add Users with Devices” gets you a number with an MVP plan ($335).

“Add Users without Devices” seems like it may be the $5/M number Seth had… But this support agent said they may charge you a lot more if you make OR receive more then 10 calls… That obviously wouldn’t work if you are expecting decent lead flow.

(Below is just a screenshot of what you will see when you get to the Users without Devices tab)

Screen Shot 2023-01-24 at 8.35.00 PM.png
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This support agent was a lot better than the original… But he also said several times before answering my questions “wait one second and let me read something.” He also originally directed me to the $5/M option and then said “oh wait I messed up…that one won’t work”. Hahaha, so I’m not super confident in his answers.

ALAS… I will give my Account Specialist a call tomorrow to try and figure this out once and for all. I’ll obviously post my updates here so that the whole community has the answer!

Have a great night guys.

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@seanhangley @retipsterseth @MintProperties
I finally got a knowledgable rep. I haven’t tested the system yet (will work on that tomorrow) but explained the problem we are having and he had a pretty quick solution. Essentially, you don’t need additional users, you can just set up “call-queues”. These call-queues can have their own vm’s, extension #'s, and you can make outbound calls from them. You can purchase additional numbers for $5/month and assign these numbers to the call-queues. All incoming calls will route to your phone via the app and it will show you what number or extension the inbound call is calling for. You can set the vm’s received by the different call queue numbers to go to separate email addresses as well. Most of these settings can be set up on the admin site home page under Groups → Add Call Queue. Then just name the group whatever that phone line will be used for. I haven’t worked all the kinks out but wanted to let you know before you spent a bunch of time on the phone with them tomorrow morning.

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@hjordan @retipsterseth @MintProperties

Alright, guys. Just got off an hour-long phone call with the onboarding team where I had them watch a few minutes of Seth’s video. And all I can say is Seth - you must be the RingCentralKing because everyone is stumped on how you have your account set up the way you do lol. I asked the rep how I could literally copy your setup and she said that if I’m going to have the two extra numbers that can make and receive calls, I’m going to have to purchase two licenses (MVP users for the $335 each).

****The workaround she gave is to buy a direct number ($5/m) and connect it to a “Message Only Extension” which can be found in the “Users” tab under “Groups”. The Message Only Extension can be the home of the direct mail voicemail and can receive as many messages as they can store… the only caveat is that you can’t make calls from this number.

If you are going to have a sales extension with a Virtual Assistant or anything you’re going to have to go the MVP User route - it just is what it is.

*****If you decide that you do indeed want to buy additional licenses so that you have a few numbers that you can make and receive infinite calls from then you should always call your Account Manager (sales rep) so they can get you a discounted rate… If you try doing it in the portal by yourself it will always be $335.

I think that is the best answer I’m going to get for now. If anyone stumbles across this thread and has a better idea please feel free to let us know!

@HJordan Definitely let us know what’s up with the call-queues!! And thank you for contributing to the conversation!!

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@seanhangley I think the voicemail only extension is the key. I remember being able to set that up in the phone tree as one of the options. Such as “push 1 to respond to a postcard”. Then on another one of the options such as 2 I could have it actually ring my phone. When someone called the number it they would start with the phone tree system. With having it set up this way I was able to make outbound calls with that number and it gave the customer a option to directly call me.

From what I remember you had to create a custom phone tree (multi-level auto attendant) in the admin portal. article-v2

That link isn’t what I originally followed but it shows the locations for the settings. You need to create a new IVR menu. Once you have it created you can edit the promts, such as 1,2,3. Once you have it set up you switch the system to multi level instead of single level.

Heres a screen shot of the IVR menu location.

screenshot IVR.PNG
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Good luck!

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@seanhangley @retipsterseth @MintProperties
Just as an update, I created the Call-Queue as previously mentioned and it is working properly. 2 distinct phone numbers, each with their own vm’s and both numbers can do both inbound & outbound calling. One is accessed via Groups (Manage Groups) and the original number is accessed via Users (Manager Users), both from the home page of the admin portal.

It seems odd it even has to be set up this way (not intuitive at all) and I’m sure there are other ways to go about this as Shawn mentioned with the Phone Tree. I’m also not sure how it would work if I needed to integrate something like a virtual receptionist but I’m not there yet and will hopefully cross that bridge at some point.

I am going to see how this works for a while and reassess when I’m getting closer to the end of the yearly subscription since I have already paid for it. RingCentral definitely has the feel of a more legacy system for larger enterprises. It unnecessarily complicated and basically twice the cost of OpenPhone as a comparison.

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Hey guys,

Just a heads up. I finished setting up OpenPhone today. I added a toll free number, set up a phone tree, a voicemail for people responding to letters and a way for them to ring my phone depending on business hours. It was drastically easier to set up and cheaper too. $30 a month and I don’t think they stack fees on top of that either. So far way happier with them.

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@mintproperties great to hear this. Because of this forum thread, I’m going to start porting all of my numbers over to OpenPhone today (I’ll try to record the process, so anyone else who wants to make the change can follow along). When I get it done, I’ll work on putting together a new review/tutorial for OpenPhone, so people don’t have to deal with all of this going forward.

I appreciate you guys bringing this to my attention!

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I finally got this OpenPhone tutorial done. This has been added to the course to replace RingCentral.

Porting my numbers from RingCentral to OpenPhone was quite a hassle (entirely on RingCentral’s side, OpenPhone made it easy from their end). I got 2 of my numbers ported successfully, but the other 2 are still stuck in limbo (in my case, it’s because I’ve been in RingCentral’s system for over ten years, with multiple address changes, which is making the contact verification process a little tricky). I may end up shutting down my old numbers and starting over with two new ones in OpenPhone’s system.

Anyway, I appreciate you guys bringing up this issue. It was a good motivation to update this section of the course and start pointing people toward better company.

OpenPhone wasn’t around when I started. It was just RingCentral and a few others at that time (all of which were good enough to get the job done, but left a lot to be desired). I’m hopeful that OpenPhone will be a better long-term option.

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