All Ping

There are times we find ourselves in situations that we need to keep our phone in Silent Mode, for example in a meeting, a seminar or an important event. But there are calls that cannot be missed: the call to get to the hospital because your wife is in labor, the call from your kids who are studying in a different time zone or any calls from Mom.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep your iPhone on silent but have it ring only for selected individuals or a special group?

You can set this up with iOS6, under the Do Not Disturb feature. You will first need to create a group of people who can get to you regardless of your phone being on Silent Mode. Here’s how.

1. Create A Group In Contacts

To allow calls from only selected groups, first you need to create a group in your contact book. The group will consist of only the contacts that you want to allow calls from. For now, the easiest way to create a group is to create it on iCloud.

To start, browse over to iCloud and click on ‘Contacts’.

On the top part of your contact book you’ll notice a red ribbon. Click on it.

You will see your contacts on the right hand side and your groups on the left side. Click on the ‘+’ symbol at the bottom of the left page to create a group.

Name the group. In this example, we will use ‘Family’. After naming it click back to the ‘All contacts’ page.

To add contacts into your group, just select the contacts (press Ctrl for multiple selections) and drag it into the group you just created.

You can click on ‘Family’ group just to double check if all of your contacts are already in the group.

2. Customize Notifications Settings

Now on your iPhone, go to your Contact book and refresh it, just to ensure that your newly created group is in your iPhone.

Then, tap on Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb.

On the ‘Do Not Disturb’ page, tap on ‘Allow Calls From’ and choose the group you want notifications to come in for, regardless of the Silent Mode being on.

Note that you can only set to allow calls from only one group. That means if you have two groups that you want to let ring even in silent mode, you will have to pick only one, or group both of them together.

There is actually another alternative. You can put individual contacts under the ‘Favorites’ category, simply tap on the contact and select ‘Add to Favorites’. Then set ‘Allow Calls From’ to ‘Favorites’.

3. Activate ‘Do Not Disturb’

To activate this mode, go to the ‘Settings’ page, and turn ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature ON. Your phone goes straight into Silent Mode and will only allow the group you’ve selected to get through to you.