In Progress 3CX Night Mode Visual Indication

datatech1

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Hi Guys,
We have noticed that the 3CX system does not currently have a way of being able to visually see when the phone system is in day or night mode (Office Hours or Out of Office Hours).

This is a huge pain in the backside for all of us who come from a traditional TDM based phone system. We have worked on several traditional (digital and electronic) phone systems over the years and all of them have had this functionality as standard where you are able to program a button on the reception phone (or as many phones as is required) to allow the user to put the system into day or night mode, some system even offer a Day, Day2 and Night mode which can be very handy.

3CX have a very useful feature where you can program the systems office hours so it will automatically go into the night mode when the time is outside of these hours, but sometimes customers need the ability to be able to manually put the system into day or night mode.
Luckily the guys at 3CX have allowed the use of a short code which will allow you to force the system into day or night mode or put the system back into the default auto mode:-
  • *641 - force the system to use "In Office Hours"
    *642 - force the system to use "Out of Office Hours"
    *64 - force the system to use "Default Office Hours" (auto mode)
This is great, but there is still no visual indication on the IP Phones to show what mode the system is in.

I recently contacted the support department to see if there was a way of getting the developers to look into this as I have noticed there are lots of forum posts relating to this very frustrating issue and they advised me to post on the 3CX ideas forum and get it up-voted.
I even contacted out account manager at 3CX as well as their CEO (Nick Gelea) and they both advised me to do the same, so this is what I am doing.

I have heard from Nick and he said they may be able to do something on the 3CX client as it may be easier to implement, but I don't think this will suit most people's needs as we really need the phone system to be able to light a button on a phone or change the colour of the button if the phone supports that, so I have come up with a couple of possible ways that the development team could easily implement this on the system so that we can start to sell more systems as direct replacements for their aging TDM systems.

The ways I have come up with to get this working could be as simple as a global extension (say 799) as the older 3CX v14 used to show the system extensions (under System Status > System Extensions).

The global extension number could be programmed to be as follows:-
  • Available when the system is in Day Mode (In Office Hours)
    Busy when the system is in Night Mode (Out of Office Hours)
This would then allow us to be able to program that extension on the reception phone (or as many phones as required) and give a clear visual indication of what mode the system is in.

We use the Yealink T46G IP Phones in the office (or will do when we can finally get a visual indication for Day / Night mode) and they will show an extension as green when it is not in use or red when it is busy, we also have some clients who have Cisco VoIP phones and they behave in exactly the same way.

It would be even better if they were able to make the button have the ability of being able to show an extension status and being able to dial a short code to put the system into day or night mode like this guys has managed to do with the Asterisk phone system and a Cisco IP Phone:-
http://forums.kerio.com/t/28825/


I hope many of you will see this post and vote it up as I know there are a lot of us on the forums asking about this feature and requesting that it gets implemented as soon as possible as it would be a very valuable addition to the 3CX system and I am sure it will allow us all to sell more system to customers.
 
Upvote 249
Is there a log file that shows when this is turned on or off while we wait for BLF and/or web admin/client view of the status?
 
Is there a log file that shows when this is turned on or off while we wait for BLF and/or web admin/client view of the status?
I see now that the dial codes do in fact show up in the call logs. I didn't expect that, but glad to see it there. Hopefully the BLF feature "in progress" will be soon too (bonus if it does in fact include web admin/client view of the status too). I'm not sure why they don't have an option to make the force default back to the schedule when the next change hits and/or affect all parts of the system the same way that scheduled OOO works (like phones going in and out of DND), but hopefully that is being considered as well.
 
+1
 
Just saw a notification from Yeastar that they support the visual indication of "Time Conditions" on a Yealink T46 phone.

When a Time Condition is enabled the BLF turn from green to red. This works for both manual and automatic Time Conditions.

Hopefully this sets the path for 3CX to see how they have done that!
 
pff, +1 here too.
This is one of the main things a pbx should have these days?
And the posibility to switch some other settings as well with a visual (BLF) notification.
 
just bumping this one to make sure the powers that be see it's still needed...
 
Please add this functionality, we have used this feature on other systems.
We have utilised BLF keys to identify this and manually switch from Day>Night>Day.

We have also needed a requirement for this to be done per DID, using different feature codes per BLF.
 
+1 here too, other IP Phone systems have this and have had for a long time.
 
This seems like a very simple feature request and I believe it would be a great quality of life upgrade for the user base.
 
+999

Ideal solution would be the ability to set a single BLF to toggle IN/OUT/DEFAULT and have the LED indicator light change GREEN/RED/OFF to give an immediate visual indicator. (Or SOLID/FLASHING/OFF on cheaper phones with only 1 LED colour.)

You should be able to assign this BLF at as many phones as you like and it replicates the status across all handsets. (I.e. Set it to ON/Green on any handset and this shows on all the others.)

Having the flexibility to change it to just IN/OUT on a single BLF would be awesome as it would allow for those who just want a purely manual setup.

Flexibility to just have IN/Default would be awesome for those who just occasionally want to be able to star/finish a little earlier/later than usual, but rely mostly on the automated settings.

Having the flexibility to change the LED indicator would also be good.

If it can't all be on a single BLF, multiple BLF's would also suffice. Set one to IN and one to OUT and the LED just lights up depending which you select.

They key thing is the BLF indicator light on the handset.

Would also be nice if some sort of RIGHTS could be setup where only certain handsets had the permission to change to IN/OUT/DEFAULT - meaning it would just be a status indicator for the majority of handsets.

Or just have a BLF option for "Display Phone System Status" that you can assign to staff handsets, just so they had a visual indicator of when the phone system was IN hours and know when to be expecting calls.

Just having this status-type indicator would be great, even for those who rely entirely on the automated setup as it would give everyone a quick and easy visual indicator on the status of the system.

----------

For those with Yealink phones, I came across this thread:

https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/day-night-mode-visual-indication.41566/

The posts from "vb3cx" is very interesting - he details a way he managed to get this working with a script somehow. The implementation is a little beyond my knowledge.
 
+100

this feature is long overdue.
the treat is saying "In Progress" so please 3CX, give some form of update
 
I have made an own solution, works only on Rapsberry Pi and a with Yealink phone.

Summary:

  • install webserver on Raspberry, works together with 3CX (I know not recommended)
  • XML script for changing LED color/flash and dial code for day/night
  • program URL key on Yealink for requesting webpage.

By pressing 1 key the system is set in nightmode and the color is changed to RED flashing. By pressing another key the system is set in daymode and the color is changed back to GREEN.

I need to do furhter testing, i'm not sure what happens with the LED status if the phone is
re-provisioned every night.

For more info please send PM
 
I have made an own solution, works only on Rapsberry Pi and a with Yealink phone.

Summary:
  • install webserver on Raspberry, works together with 3CX (I know not recommended)
  • XML script for changing LED color/flash and dial code for day/night
  • program URL key on Yealink for requesting webpage.
By pressing 1 key the system is set in nightmode and the color is changed to RED flashing. By pressing another key the system is set in daymode and the color is changed back to GREEN.

I need to do furhter testing, i'm not sure what happens with the LED status if the phone is
re-provisioned every night.

For more info please send PM

Sounds like you may be doing something similar to what vb3cx mentioned in this thread:

https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/day-night-mode-visual-indication.41566/post-180733

Would be awesome if you could share your findings publicly here, maybe everyone could benefit. :)
 
+1 this is needed.
 
+1
Just lost a sale of a mid sized 3CX install replacing a FreePBX system because this feature isn't there and i couldn't demonstrate a simple work around. :(
 
It's definitely a lack.
 
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+1
Just lost a sale of a mid sized 3CX install replacing a FreePBX system because this feature isn't there and i couldn't demonstrate a simple work around. :(

I've lost 6 potential sales as a result of this, attempting to migrate these off other systems but is a key functionality for these sites :/
 
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