PhoneTone

Fed up with the laborious length of digits that you are required to enter when dealing with your hospital paging system? Frustrated with the sesquipedalian sequences of codes for your long distance calling card? Here's a great wee program from Iliumsoft that you'll find indispensable. PhoneTone works with the Contacts in your PocketPC and dials them for you on any phone.

What's different with PhoneTone?

There are several dialer applications available for the PocketPC - so why would you choose this one? PhoneTone is much more flexible - you can configure it to include several pre & post sets of digits, along with pauses and other features.

I have set up my PhoneTone so that I can quickly and easily send any one of several pre-assigned sets of codes so that I can reach my Residents easily. For example - say I am up on Unit 41 at PLC Hospital - I can't even remember (or find easily) the correct extension for the ward since it is not listed on many of the phone sets. I also can't remember what the pager number is for my Resident and, as usual, the switchboard is too busy at the moment to find her number for me. So after several attempts, I finally get her pager number. I find a ratty paper strip that tells me that I can use extension 3960 or 4824. Assuming I remember that you can only dial directly into extensions that start with 4, and that I can remember the number of the paging system itself, I would then dial:

212 8223

I then wait for eight seconds.

I then dial the Resident's 3528

I then wait for four seconds.

I then dial the ward extension, substituting an 8 for a 4, making it 291-8824, followed by the all important # key. (If I forget the # and hang up, which is easy to do when you are in a hurry, there is nothing to indicate the error - I'll just wait forever for the Resident's call, which they never received.)

Instead of all that pollaver, try PhoneTone instead. With 3 key presses, I can send that same message much more quickly, without having to know the ward number or the Resident's pager number - it's all pre-programmed.

Installation & Setup

Installing PhoneTone is the same as any other PocketPC app. No changes here. However, it does take a wee bit of tweaking to set it up for best use of the hospital paging system. We are working with the author to setup an automatic configuration file but in the meantime, you will have to do this by hand.

Setting most of the configuration is done from the Tools menu. Most are self-explanatory. The Timing usually needs to be adjusted, slowing down the tones, as in this next example.

Note that the Pause in the first field is in seconds, whereas the rest of the values are in milliseconds. Click on Ok, not Reset, to store the new values.

You can also set up some Calling Cards, as a way to store the numbers for the Residents' pagers.