Using Microsoft Excel With Bulk Forward Tool

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Using the various features in the VoIP Innovations' Back Office can greatly assist you in the day to day operations of running your VoIP business. For newer customers, we understand that the magnitude of the tools and features we provide can seem intimidating at first. We never want our customers to feel overwhelmed with needless tabs or menus which is why our Back-Office interface streamlines all necessary tools and information. We also have various articles on this wiki to explain much of the functionality of the Back Office and methods for optimizing our offerings. One such offering is our Call Forwarding feature. Since you can add and remove DID/Forward combinations in bulk, it is useful to know how to take advantage of a program like Microsoft Excel in conjunction with the Bulk Call Forwarding Tool.

If you haven't read the Wiki article regarding Call Forwarding, we suggest you read that first before proceeding with this article so you have a basic understanding of the feature itself, and how it functions in regards to configuration in the Back Office (click here to read the article). As you can see from that article, it is recommended that you export your current DID list before setting up your forwards. This will ensure you have a record that you can easily refer to when you want to remove existing forwards regarding the Endpoint Groups you moved DIDs from. This article is centered on the information obtained in this list so to follow the steps outlined herein, you will need to export this information.

Begin by downloading your DID Listing; hover over the DIDs tab and select DIDs->Manage DIDs. On the Manage DIDs page you will need to select the DIDs you wish to export. For the sake of this
 



example, we can assume you are trying to export all of your DIDs so you will need to click 'Reset/Show All DIDs on the box to the left of the screen.
Next, on the Manage DIDs page, click the drop down next to 'DID Results'. This will allow you to export specific types of DIDs. For the sake of this example, we will export all the local DIDs by selecting 'Local DIDs' then clicking the 'Download' link. From here the file will be saved in .CSV format, as explained above, you will need to import the information using Excel's importing tool if your computer is not set to do so automatically.




















If you saved the file to your computer, you can open the file directly from Excel by clicking 'Open' or CTRL+O and browsing to the file

 






If your Excel setting require using the import wizard, on step 1 to the wizard, make sure the Delimited data type is selected, then on Step 2, make sure the Comma check box is the only one checked, as shown below:



Once you have the data imported into Excel, follow the steps in the picture to copy the necessary
data to a new sheet.

 



First you will want to make sure that you select the DIDs that you are going to be using the Bulk Update Tool for. After selecting those DIDs, you will want to copy them so you can move them over to another sheet in the Excel file.

Click this button to open a new sheet within Excel

Once you have the list of numbers copied over to the second sheet you can create a second column that will list the number you are setting as the forward number.



Next, you will place a comma in all the needed cells in Column 'C'.
After that you will want to select all the needed cells in column D and see the formula in the following image.




The numbers in the formula resembles the row but this formula will concatenate the rows in the order you set the formula in. In this case, you will want the order to be (DID, comma, Forward Number).

After the formula is properly filled within column D, the excel sheet will resemble the following image.



From here you can now copy column D and paste the list to the Bulk Forward Tool in the back office which you find by going to DIDs -> Bulk Update Tools -> Bulk Forward Number Update.




You can copy and paste the new list to the bulk forward numbers update text box as this will set the forwards in place for the desired DIDs.

Also with this tool there is a forward removal where you can remove forwards on DIDs in bulk.


The difference with removing forwards in bulk is that instead of the format being (DID, Forward TN) it will now be (DID, Endpoint Group ID)
 

The first step will be to copy both your TN column and the Endpoint Group column.




After having these columns copied you will want to paste them over to a second sheet in the excel file.



After this you will want to find your Endpoint Group IDs as these will be needed to remove the forwards. You can find these in the My Endpoint Groups page in the back office under Endpoints -> My Endpoint Groups.




On this page, you will find the ID as at the first column in the table that appears showing all of your endpoint groups.



Once you have the matching Group Name/Group ID, use Find/Replace in Excel to switch out the data.

 
Next you add the new column containing a single comma in each cell and place the formula in Column D.


 

Now you may copy your new list in column D and paste it to the removal text box for the bulk forward tool.



Once you update these you will have removed the forwards on these numbers.


***As always, this change will take 15-20 mins of propagation***