I am quickly becoming a fan of Google Voice. Since this is a somewhat new service I will explain the services and then ask my question.
Google voice is a virtual telephone number, from which you can forward inbound calls to any/all of your physical phones. But more relevant to my question, you can also make outbound calls from the online Google voice interface. To do this, you can select a user from your Google contacts or type in any phone number you wish to call. You then select the phone from which you wish to call them from. For instance, when I am at my home office, I would choose "client XYZ" and then I will be prompted for which phone to use. Once I make my selection, my chosen phone will ring. When I answer that line, it will then start ringing at the recipient's end. This model works well and all of my calling activity is logged. I could also record a call for later playback, but more on that later.
Google has also now added "Google voice extensions", which is a browser plugin for the Google chrome browser, which allows me to simply select any phone number on a web page and click dial, as well as adding some other quick access buttons in the browser for calling features.
So, why am I rambling about all this? Because I like to track all of my calling activity and I think we are very close to workflow nirvana. What I am looking for is a way to initiate my outbound calls from ACT! using Google voice. On top of that I would love for the call activity to be automatically logged, or least launch the new call history window for me to enter the call results.
Does anybody have any experience with any of this and comments on it's feasibility?
Personally I see a few ways to handle this, as follows
1. (The most elegant solution) A software plugin for ACT which adds a "call" button next to each phone number entry in the contact screen. This call button would integrate with Google voice and allow Google voice to handle the rest of the outbound calling. Additionally, pressing the call button could launch the new call history window too. Even more elegant would be for the plugin to access the right click menu so you could initiate calls from a right click.
2. Use a Web Interface to view my ACT database and then just use the existing Google voice extensions in the browser to initiate calls. Does Act Premium have a web interface? This would be a passable solution until something more elegant is available. This would permit a single ACT lookup and all my calls could occur from there.
3. Copy the phone # from ACT! and paste in into the Google interface. This works now, but is obviously tedious, especially when making lots of calls. It would only require a lookup in one application but would require lots of toggling back and forth.
4. synchronize my ACT DB with my Google contacts, which can also be done now, but this would require me to do 2 lookups. One in Google voice to find my target client, and one in ACT to record the call results.
I forgot to mention that Google Voice is free. You can use the service with your existing phone number or get a new one from Google. You can even choose the area code you want your new # to reside in. There are a ton of other cool features in Google voice, such as FREE SMS texting and granular controls over where your calls get routed (ie, clients go to mobile phone and Mom goes to voice mail, not that I condone dodging your mom's calls). It also has a full voice mail system, which you can use different greetings for different callers and have your voice mails transcribed to your email. It is definitely something I suggest looking into.
Anyway, back to my request... Any thoughts on this? All comments welcome!
