[groundhog]

On most conventional pbx-systems you can switch between office hours with keys on the master-phone, some at any phone.
The status (in germany "day" or "night") is displayed on all phone.
Many customers are used to switch the office hours in this way and ask for this function.

[Patrickvanesch]

You`ve got a point.
80% of the companies are using it, switching between out of office hours, and office hours.

This feature will make the 3cx more attractive.

[KerryG]

This is probably something that needs to be handled through some form of XML service as there is no standard that could really be used handle it and provide a status light.

[vpwsys.net]

I agree - it should be possible to set "Office Hours" and "Out of Office Hours" in effect via some dialcode or button and not just by fixed "time" parameters.

(It wouldn't even be bad if you had to choose EITHER by time OR use "day/night" button.

This is requested *all* the time when I demo 3CX and stops people buying (well alongside other basic features missing).

[KerryG]

What other "basic features" are missing that are causing you to lose sales?

[LeonidasG]

On most conventional pbx-systems you can switch between office hours with keys on the master-phone, some at any phone.
The status (in germany "day" or "night") is displayed on all phone.
Many customers are used to switch the office hours in this way and ask for this function.

A button to change "night mode" is not a bad idea.

txu
Matt

If this is added, i can see people requesting a feature to do the Night Change Automatically because the user forgot to press the Night Mode button.

Why would you want a button to set Outside and Inside office hours? Isnt this being done automatically already by the PBX?
Just set the office hours and ditto...

[LeonidasG]

people use this.

Secretary answers phone when she is there but when she goes for lunch she wants a different ...
Let's say odd holiday hours...

Can you really call a Lunch break " Odd Holiday Hours"?
For that she can really just put her phone on Away Mode, you can do this on Normal Phones / VoIP Phones / Assistant, generally everywhere.


Just for the sake of the Argument, lets say there's a feature where you can add a new kind of "Office Hours" Function that is called "LUNCH".
Everyday from 1:00 to 1:30 there will be a lunch break for everyone in the office, thus the "LUNCH" rule will take effect.

What happens to the people who dont want lunch and want to stay working from 1:00 to 1:30?
For that you would need to go deeper and add a feature in every extension's Myphone Portal where they can set their Lunch Break Hours, so during lunch they wont be disturbed / called.


Just putting a Button to set rules globally always causes problems / conflicts with users who do not want those rules to apply to them.

[KerryG]

There are a lot of use cases where the company wants to manually go into "night mode".

Companies that have all-staff meetings and need to divert inbound calls from going to receptionist
Companies that often take everyone to lunch of to the movies on little or no notice
Companies that do not have a rigid start and end time
Companies that want to shut down during lunch time

For people that are still at their desk, they can still get calls via their extension but the main greeting may be "we are closed for lunch, if you know your parties extension you can dial it now".

Those are the most common ones we get get asked for and I am sure there are numerous other use cases.

[mhanson]

I agree that perhaps a feature code that can set Day/Night mode is a viable request and a nice feature...I know of other Voip systems that carry this feature so it is not out of the realm.

But in the case of the receptionist or "lunch" type changes, I see no need fora global setting, just use extension forwarding rules and different phone status.

[pjr]

So many clients have the ability to set "Night Service" on their traditional PBX it's untrue. It's a feature that people find very difficult to live without and for good reason (most of them already identified by Kerry).

In principal, automatically changing the routing of calls outside of these hours (as 3CX does well) appears to make night service redundant and solve the whole night service problem, but as people have already identified there are lots of other scenarios where people use night service other than when the office closes.

Automating it doesnt solve the problem entirely as there are always occasions where automating the change in call behaviour causes an issue

eg - an office may be waiting for an important call from somewhere in a different time zone so stays behind outside of normal hours to receive the call

The automated routing is great for some clients but doesnt cater for the real world situations that occur in most offices like Kerry has mentioned - please can we implement a dial code for a night service style function to account for these?

Even if you guys don't believe in it's value, it will be one less barrier to those of us who have to sell your software

Paul

[slickric01]

+1

Another example is in cases of inclement weather where an office needs to close early.

[jimmyC]

+1

[patrick.leemans@xs2t]

Hi,

See my post on this issue ... an alternative way to solve this issue -> Enabling/Disabling Ring Groups/Queues:

night-switch-or-dial-code-to-turn-on-after-office-hours-14744.html.

Patrick.

[FoxhallVoIP]

One way to do this is to enter todays date as a holiday (via Settings / General / Configure Holidays window). That will immediately put the system into Out of Hours mode ...
But you need to use the Admin login to do this.
Maybe a mechanism where this functionality was added to the 3CX user portal (for an admin designated extension), could be the way to go??

[davis]

I have used this in the past also on a PBX. It is handy when the receptionist has to leave the phone temporarily also. I wish I had this now. I have resorted to using the queues, which works good also. When the last one logs out, it goes to the destination set. I do wish there was a way to use the BLF button to indicate status (Could emulate an extension, ie solid green when OK, but red when away, etc) We can go on and on...