The whole school rings between eight and nine
In short. Most of what the office takes in that hour is the same call: a parent reporting a child off sick. Enquiry 360 is an AI answering service that takes every one of them at once, on your own number, asks the questions your attendance policy needs, and writes each absence into your own Microsoft system as a record rather than a message. Calls that belong with a person, an agency or anything safeguarding, go straight through to a number you set. From £99 + VAT a month. You can ring 01905 918444 and hear it answer.
The office has three lines and two of them are engaged. Somewhere behind the queue is a social worker, and a parent who has been trying since twenty to nine.
Many callers, separate conversations
Callers are answered rather than held. Every parent ringing at ten past eight gets a separate conversation, every one answered on the first ring rather than held in a queue, which leaves the office free for the calls that need a person.
It answers in 66 languages too. A parent who would rather report an absence in Polish or Urdu does that, and the record arrives with the office in English.
What goes on to the absence record
The child's name and class, who is calling and how they are related, the reason given and when they expect to be back. Your questions, in your order, asked the same way on the ninetieth call as on the first.
Values are checked against the rule your form sets, and where you have asked for it the details are read back before the call ends. A name spelled two ways gets settled on the call instead of in the register at half nine.
The calls that have to reach a person
Anything you class as a safeguarding concern takes its own path and reaches a person, and so does a call from a social worker or another agency. You set what identifies them and where they should go, and the caller is put through to the number you have given for that route.
When one comes in overnight, or everyone is with somebody else, the enquiry is captured in full and lands with the staff you have named, with the whole conversation held against it. The judgement stays with your people, made with everything the caller said in front of them.
The rest of the school day
Late arrivals and mid-morning appointments. A change to who is collecting at three. Trip consent, kit, dinner money and free school meal questions. A message for a class teacher, a head of year or the SENCO.
Each goes to the team, inbox or queue you choose, so the front desk stops being the sorting office for all of it. Admissions enquiries, in-year admissions and open evening bookings come through the same way, including the ones that arrive at nine at night.
Evenings, weekends and the holidays
The line answers at six in the morning, on a Sunday, and through half term, at the same price as a Tuesday. The price covers the line rather than the minutes, so a bad flu week costs what a quiet one costs.
Where an out of hours call should reach someone, that is configuration rather than code, so a school running a duty rota can point the line at whoever is on this week.
What the office has by nine o'clock
One list, in your own Microsoft Dataverse, inside your own tenant. Staff sign in with the school account they already use and see what their role allows.
Every enquiry is an ordinary row, so the attendance lead can work it in Excel, build a Power BI view of who is off and why across a term, or open the day's calls on a phone between lessons. Power Automate reaches over a thousand connectors, so the morning's absences can land in a shared inbox, post into the Teams channel the office already lives in, or feed a system that will take them.
The conversation is held against the session alongside Dataverse's own auditing, so what a parent actually said is there to look at. Call recording stays off until you switch it on, and when you do, the recordings go to storage in your own Azure subscription.
Across a trust
Each school keeps its own number, its own questions and its own routing, because a primary and a sixth form take different calls. They all write into the same Dataverse, so the trust can see attendance reporting across every school in one place, and central IT keeps the tenant, the sign-in and the retention policy it already runs.
When the office takes the call itself
If the office takes the calls itself, the same process runs on screen: same questions, same order, same record at the end. Some trusts start there to get absence recorded consistently across a dozen schools, then add the phone once they trust what it captures.
That is the application, priced separately from the answering.
Frequently asked
Can it really take a rush of absence calls at once?
Yes. Every caller gets their own conversation rather than a place in a queue, so how many parents ring at ten past eight makes no difference to how quickly the phone is answered. The office lines stay clear for the calls that are nothing to do with attendance.
How does it know which child a parent means?
It asks. The child's name, the class or year group, and whatever else your attendance policy needs, in the order your office would ask it. Values are checked against the rule your form sets, and where you have asked for it the details are read back before the call ends, so a name spelled two ways gets settled on the call. An answer it cannot make sense of is asked again rather than guessed at.
What happens when a social worker rings, or a call turns out to be safeguarding?
Those reach a person. You set the criteria that identify them and the number they should go to, and the caller is put through. When the call comes in overnight, or nobody is free, the enquiry is captured in full and lands with the staff you have named, with the whole conversation held against it. The decision is theirs, made with everything the caller said in front of them.
Can the absences reach our MIS?
That depends on what your MIS opens up, and there is a route for most of them. Every call is written into your own Dataverse first, so the office works from one list either way. Where your MIS accepts an import or offers an API, a Power Automate flow can carry the morning's absences across, and Power Automate reaches over a thousand connectors. Where a system keeps its doors shut, the office still keys in from a single checked list instead of forty voicemails.
What do parents hear when they ring?
They are told at the start that they are speaking to an automated assistant, and they can ask for a person, and where you have configured a number they are put through. It speaks 66 languages, so a parent who would rather report an absence in Polish or Urdu can do that, and the record reaches the office in English.
What does it cost for one school, and for a trust?
The voice agent starts at £99 + VAT a month per line, with free setup, and you can cancel at any time. A school can take either on its own. A trust adds a line per school, so the price follows the number of schools rather than the number of calls.
Is this the same as an automated switchboard?
It does the job an automated switchboard was meant to do, without the menu. There is nothing to press and no list of options to sit through. A parent says why they are ringing, it takes the absence properly if that is what it is, and puts the call through to the office when it is something else.
Hear it handle one. Ring 01905 918444. It is a live line, not a recording, and it takes about a minute.
From £99 + VAT a month. Free setup, cancel anytime. Or read where your call data lives and how it compares to an answering service.