3CX in an Executive Suite environment

[jobe]

Hi All,

I'm evaluating 3CX for use in an executive suite environment. There are multiple independent companies that have all their calls answered by one receptionist. What I'm trying to do is get all calls routed to the receptionist extension, but also allow the receptionist to see which company was called so that they can answer and transfer appropriately. Also, when the receptionist is away, the calls should be routed directly to the company.

My other question is can certain features, like forwarding to an external numbers, be disabled per extension on the 3CX system? Or is this something that needs to be removed on the phone configuration.

Any information on these questions would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need clarification on anything. Thanks!

 

[KerryG]

I would route each DID into a ring group so the receptionist will see on her phone who the call is to by a caller id name prefix and set it so if she doesn't answer within x rings to send the call directly to the extension.

 

[abc123]

The first part is easy.

Have a seperate DID for each executive and route according to the DID via ring groups or queues, forwarding as necessary on busy.

Not sure why you would need to restrict forwarding per extension. There is no way you can do that per extension in 3cx. You can disable external calls for an extension but not forwarding to external per extension. What is the difference between dialing externally and forwarding externally?

Can you give an example of why you would want to restrict a feature and then we can maybe give you a work around. For example we have one customer who does not allow the assistant or myphone page to his users just to keep things simple for them.

 

[jobe]

I setup a Ring Group (virtual number 8002), and forward the DID to the Ring Group. I add both the reception extension and the user extension to the Ring Group and have it set to prioritized hunt. I have the DID ring to the Ring Group # 8002. I get the expected call routing behavior, but the reception extension only sees the caller ID of the caller, not the Ring Group being or called or the DID it's coming in on. I'm using the 3CX phone though, so perhaps that is a limitation of the softphone or maybe even the callcentric trunk im testing with?

As far as blocking the forwarding feature, this is something that we charge for. The difference between allowing someone to call externally and someone to forward calls to their cell, is that one uses 2 channels on the PRI and one doesn't. Since a channel will be used for both the inbound and outband call during the forward to cell, we charge a minimal fee for it (and enable it upon request).

Does anyone have any experience with the Hotel module? That seems like it may have some features that would be interesting in our scenario.

 

[RichardCrabb1]

Hi Jobe,
You need to go into general settings (on 3CX), go to the global options tab, then tick append group and DID names to caller ID checkbox. Then select the radio button for whether you want to prepend or append this information. This will then tell receptionists who the call is for. Just give the ring groups (or queue if you choose that) the appropriate name.

Kind regards
Richard Crabb

 

[abc123]

Hi Jobe

As Richard said, you need to enable the append/prepend of the ring group name in the settings and she will see it when it rings.

I see your point about the 2 ccs vs 1ccs for outgoing only. This isnt always the case with v9 as there is often a divert header for forwarding. But in those cases where forwarding to a cell will use 2 ccs' we found a better situation that was easier to managed and the users like it too. We just let them do it. But we had factored it into our pricing.

You probably have a number of external ccs' based on a factor of the number of users? e.g 0.75x number of users and then charge accordingly (e.g (base fee + pbx cost + .75x ccs cost) * markup%). Just change your charging model slightly to cope with some possible extra ccs fees. The number of "dual" ccs calls will be low (20% depending on environment - which you can monitor over time and get a much more accurate model). so change your per user charge to something like (base fee + pbx cost + .95* ccs cost) * markup%. Monitor it and fine tune over time. You can then "sell" your value add as you include the forward to mobile where others charge a fee etc. And you will cut down on some admin time as users can manage it all through their MyPhone and you dont need to "police" who is trying to bypass your system.

Hope it helps

 

[jobe]

Thanks for the help. I see the caller ID how I was hoping to now. What are you opinions about creating 80+ ring groups? Do you see any downside?

As far as the forwarding button, I've found this can be customized on the phone itself. On Polycom phones for example, the config file can be modified to disable the forward button. I believe this is also possible on the Cisco SPA phones.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a PRI gateway? We only need 1 PRI - at least to start out with. I was looking at the Sangoma A101D.

We'll also need to be able to provide analog lines for fax machines. We may end up with 30-40 analog lines for faxes. Does anyone have an opinion on the best way to do this? I was thinking of using an HT488 or something similar for each line and running it off the second port on the phone. If this was an asterisk system I'd probably look at a channel bank (Astribank), but I haven't seen anything similar for a 3CX system.

 

[jobe]

You probably have a number of external ccs' based on a factor of the number of users? e.g 0.75x number of users and then charge accordingly (e.g (base fee + pbx cost + .75x ccs cost) * markup%). Just change your charging model slightly to cope with some possible extra ccs fees. The number of "dual" ccs calls will be low (20% depending on environment - which you can monitor over time and get a much more accurate model). so change your per user charge to something like (base fee + pbx cost + .95* ccs cost) * markup%. Monitor it and fine tune over time. You can then "sell" your value add as you include the forward to mobile where others charge a fee etc. And you will cut down on some admin time as users can manage it all through their MyPhone and you dont need to "police" who is trying to bypass your system.

FWIW, I'm on board with this plan. But this might be a tougher sale to the powers that be - so having the option to restrict it would be good.