A while back I wrote a freeware Vonage call dialer that would work with the Vonage API and allow you to place calls. I created a small tool that would recognize callto: links and place phone calls through Vonage. The Callto link was originally used by NetMeeting, now not many people support it (Skype does) however it’s really powerfull.

Interestingly someone recently contacted me about using Vonage and Excell as a call list to contact prospects and make sales calls.
They had a spreadsheet of calls to make:

Using a little Excell magic you can place a call now link into the C column and easily go down the list making calls. The code to place in Cell C1 would be:
=HYPERLINK(CONCATENATE(“callto:”,A1),”Call Now”). The sales person who asked about this was really excited so hopefully this is usefull to others as well.

Other experiments.

• You can use the same trick on Google Docs but the hyperlink function doesn’t seem to be implemented yet. The formula works but the hyperlink doesn’t show up when clicked.
• If you create an HTML file for the iPhone you can do the same thing just change the link to be tel: instead of callto: and the file will allow you to have a call list from your mobile phone. Unfortunatly links in Excel spreadsheets don’t work on the iPhone so you do need to output as HTML. More info on the iPhone call links is here.