With PhonePad’s Receptionist mode, users can access the Inboxes of other users.  This is how you set it up:

Navigate to the PhonePad folder and run PhonePad Admin.  Login using the default administrator account (or an administrator account you have created).

Select a user from the list of users, then select the Edit User option in the sidebar.

Make sure the Receptionist checkbox is checked, then click OK.  With the same user still selected, click on Receptionist Access on the sidebar.

You can give the selected user access to another user’s Inbox by selecting names from the list on the left and adding them to the access list on the right (using the arrow buttons).

Click Close to close the Receptionist Access window.

When the selected users logs in to PhonePad, a list of users will be displayed (next to the Inbox message list).  They can then access other users’ Inbox by selecting their name from the list.

When you first install PhonePad, a default administrator account is automatically created for you.  The login details are:

Username:          Admin

Password:           admin

Use this account to login to PhonePad Admin.  Once logged in, it is recommended that you change the password or create a new administrator account and delete or disable the default account.

If you can’t remember your administrator account details, contact support and we will give you instructions on how to reset it.

You can’t do much with PhonePad if you don’t add any users.  Without users, you won’t have anyone to send phone messages to or receive phone messages from, so let’s go through the steps for adding users.

The first thing you need to do is run the PhonePad Admin module and log in using a PhonePad administrator account (you can’t login to PhonePad Admin using a non-admin account).  PhonePad Admin should be located in your PhonePad folder.

A default administrator account is automatically created for you when you first install PhonePad:

Username:     Admin

Password:     admin

Login to PhonePad Admin using these login details, or if you have changed this or created a new administrator account then login using those details.

Once you have logged in, PhonePad Admin’s main screen displays a list of all users.

Adding a user is simple.  Click on the Add User option in the sidebar on the left side of the window.  The Add User window will be displayed.

Enter a name for the user.  You should make the name unique within PhonePad to avoid confusion.

Enter a password for the user in the Password and Confirm fields.  The Confirm field will be highlighted in red if the two passwords don’t match.

Select the Admin checkbox if you want this user to be a PhonePad administrator.

Select the Receptionist checkbox if you want this user to be able to access other user’s Inboxes.

The Login Enabled checkbox should be checked unless you don’t want the user logging in.  The Hidden checkbox can be checked to prevent a user from appearing in the To: field in phone messages and text messages, and therefore prevent other users from sending messages to that user.

Click OK and you have created your first PhonePad user.  Rinse and repeat.

We’ve had a few support emails recently about connection problems when using PhonePad in “Local Mode”.  These have been caused by mapping issues with the PhonePad data folder.

Here’s how it typically happens.  PhonePad is installed on a shared drive on the server.  When the connection setting is done, it is based on the mapping of the user’s (ie. the person doing the installation) network drive.  The problem is, other users may have different drive mappings.

For example, the person installing PhonePad has their network folder mapped as G:, with their PhonePad data folder set to G:\PhonePad\Data.

But other users may have the same folder mapped as J:\PhonePad\Data.  This is will cause problems when the other users try to connect to the PhonePad database.  The usual error message will be:

The error message may look a little complicated but it simply means that PhonePad is unable to locate the PhonePad database in the specified location.

This can be easily solved by using a UNC (Uniform Naming Convention or Universal Naming Convention) path.  Run DBConnect (it’s in your PhonePad folder) and click the UNC button to change the mapped path into a UNC path.

Occasionally clicking the UNC button doesn’t convert the path to a UNC path.  If for some reason it doesn’t work for you, you will need to manually remove the drive letter and add the name of your server.  The format is \\<servername>\<phonepad data folder>.  Using our previous example, the path would change from G:\PhonePad\Data to \\MyServer\PhonePad\Data.

Once this has been done you should find that, no matter what drive mapping each user has, PhonePad will be able to successfully connect.