The text below should (hopefully) clarify how to dial with your landline. To make this more clear, we have created a screencast that may be more helpful (requires an Internet connection):
Screencast: Modem Dial Method Configuration
There are several ways to use Dialectic to dial your landline. You have a choice of options for the Dial Method to use for this:
- Speaker Dial Method. This is the most basic Dial Method since all Macs have speakers and can output audio to the speaker. To use this Dial Method with your landline, you simply hold your phone’s receiver next to the speaker when it plays the touchtones. Believe it or not, this will actually dial your phone!
- Modem Dial Method. If you have a modem (including the Apple external USB modem), you can connect your modem to your Mac and to the same line as your landline (you may need a splitter which should allow for the modem & your phone to be connected to the same phone jack in the wall). When the modem dials, it should have direct access to your phone line like any other extension. Once it has dialed, you will pick up your phone and conduct your conversation. If you have a modem, it is highly recommended that you use this Dial Method over the Speaker Dial Method as you will receive better, more consistent results.
- Phlink Dial Method. If you own the Ovolab Phlink hardware/software package, you can connect this to your landline and have Dialectic dial this device. For more information on connecting Phlink to your landline, please see your Phlink documentation.
- PhoneValet Dial Method. If you own the Parliant PhoneValet hardware/software package, you can connect this to your landline and have Dialectic dial this device. For more information on connecting PhoneValet to your landline, please see your PhoneValet documentation.
Once you have decided on the Dial Method you want to use with your landline, you need to configure a Dial Method configuration for that Dial Method with the settings appropriate for your needs (e.g., if you have chosen the Modem Dial Method, your configuration should be customized for your particular modem). (See the Dial Method help section that corresponds to the Dial Method you’ve chosen by clicking the name of the Dial Method in the list above).
After configuring your Dial Method configuration as required, you’ll need to configure your Dialing Rules for your current Location (or a new Location created specifically for dialing your landline).
The Dialing Rules should reflect the requirements of the phone service you have on your landline for your specific locale (e.g., your country, whether you need to dial a prefix for an outside line, your local area code(s), etc.). You’re almost done!
The final step is to make sure that the Dial Method configuration for all of the call types that you want dialed with your landline are set to the configuration you’ve configured in the steps above. Typically you want all of your call types for a particular Location to be dialed with the same configuration. To make this easier, select the configuration for any call type and then click the button just to the right of the configuration name and Dialectic will set all call type Dial Method configurations for this Location to this specified configuration. For more information on this, please see the call type settings section.
