What do the different colors mean?
For Groups:
Red means that the group is currently being sent to voicemail
Orange means that all contacts but the selected group(s) are being sent to voicemail
Green means that the group is currently not being sent to voicemail
Grey means that the group is currently unmanaged by the Group to Voicemail application
For Schedules:
For any color other than grey, that means that the schedule is currently active
Red means that the associated groups are being sent to voicemail
Orange means that the associated groups are the only contacts not being sent to voicemail
Green means that the associated groups are not currently being sent to voicemail
Grey means that the schedule is not currently active
If the lettering of the schedule is also grey, then the schedule is currently disabled
How do I do “X” to a group?
In general, the actions you can perform on a group can be accessed by pressing and holding on the group name in the Groups tab. This should bring up a context menu of options to choose from. If you just press a group, it will allow you to edit the members of that group.
How do I do “X” to a schedule?
In general, the actions you can perform on a schedule can be accessed by pressing and holding on the schedule in the Schedules tab. This should bring up a context menu of options to choose from. If you just press on a schedule, it will allow you to edit the schedule settings.
How do I create a new group?
From the Groups tab, press “Menu” and then select “Add Group”
How do I create a new schedule?
From the Schedules tab, press “Menu” and then select “Add Schedule”
What are Repeat Days used for in a schedule?
Repeat Days are the way that recurring events are managed in a schedule. If you set the Start Day and End Day to be the same, if you specify an All Day schedule, or if you specify an Overnight schedule, you can select days to repeat that schedule on. For example, if you wanted a schedule to be in effect Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 4:00pm to 6:00pm, you could set the Start Day to Monday and the End Day to Monday, with the start time set to 4:00pm and end time 6:00pm. You can then check the boxes for Wednesday and Friday (in addition to Monday) to repeat the schedule on those days as well.
Is there a way to manually review/change the “Send Contact to Voicemail” option for a specific contact?
Yes. You can either open the Contacts app directly from the launcher, or if you are in the Group to Voicemail app, from the Groups tab you can press “Menu” and then “Contacts”. Open the contact that you would like to review/change, press “Menu” and then “Options”. From that screen, you can verify that the “Incoming calls – Send calls directly to voicemail” option is set correctly.
What does Everyone Else to Voicemail do exactly?
There are currently three Action types: Send to Voicemail directly, Don’t Send to Voicemail directly, and Everyone Else to Voicemail. The first two are pretty straightforward, but there could be some confusion as to what “Everyone Else to Voicemail” does. When you manually assign this action to a group, or when a schedule does it automatically, every contact in your phone (that has a phone number assigned to it) is set to be Sent to voicemail EXCEPT for the group(s) you specified. This means that when anyone in your contacts calls you, besides the ones in the specified group(s), they will be sent directly to voicemail. Only those in the privileged groups will come through.
Why do I still get calls from other numbers when an “Everyone Else to Voicemail” action is active?
Groups to Voicemail is currently unable to manage calls that come into your phone from anyone outside of your contacts. This means that if someone calls you from a number outside of your contacts, it will still come through (whether it be a number you don’t have for that contact yet, or a 1-800 number, or an unknown caller, etc). Unfortunately, at this time, Android does not have a clearly documented and supported way of doing this. There may be other apps in the market that will control this sort of thing, but I’m not willing to dive into it just yet, until it’s supported by Google.
How does the Don’t Send to Voicemail action work?
When part of an active schedule, the groups associated will not be sent to voicemail directly. In other words, the phone will behave like a normal call and send the Contact to voicemail after the regular number of rings. However, when the schedule is no longer active, they will be sent directly to voicemail. So, if for some reason you wanted a group to only be able to call you for a short window of time and sent to voicemail otherwise, you could use this action.
How do conflicts get resolved?
Everyone Else to Voicemail actions will always take precedence over any other action. So, if an Everyone Else to Voicemail action becomes active, any other currently set actions will be disabled. However, once an Everyone Else to Voicemail action is active, you can manually update groups from the Groups Tab, should you so desire.
Send to Voicemail actions will take the next priority. So, if there are two active schedules, one that sends the group to voicemail, and another one that specifies Don’t Send to Voicemail, the group will be sent voicemail. Similarly, if a contact belongs to two different groups, one that is currently being sent to voicemail, and another one that specifies Don’t Send to Voicemail, that contact will be sent to voicemail.
When I go to add contacts to a group, why aren’t all of my contacts listed?
Currently, the list of contacts available to add to a group is filtered on whether or not that contact has a phone number associated with it. If the contact does not have a phone number, it will not show up in the list.
What Settings are available to modify?
There are currently two different settings to modify: Display System Groups and Display Notification. Since Group to Voicemail is set to sync with your Google Account, there will be some groups in the list by default, including a few prefixed with “System Group: “. If you don’t use these groups, and would like to hide them from the display, simply uncheck the box in the Settings screen. The second setting is Display Notification. When enabled, a notification will appear in the status bar any time a change is made to a group or schedule (either manually or automatically). Then, from the status bar you can view how many schedules are currently active and how many groups are currently being sent to voicemail at any given time. If you would like to disable this functionality, simply uncheck the box.
Something didn’t work (or not as I expected). What do I do?
Please send all questions, comments, suggestions and bug reports to info at forthegamer dot com. I’ll respond as soon as possible.
Where can I find more information?
If you can’t find the information that you are looking for on the Group to Voicemail application page, have scoured the FAQ and still can’t find what you’re looking for, feel free to send me an email at info at forthegamer dot com.
Matt Augustine 