3CX Sim Calls - Call center setup

[MAhmed]

Hi All,
I need your assistance and guidance in understanding the number of sim calls for a 3CX setup. We have a requirement of setting up 100 call center agents plus 150 internal users and the call center will be working 24/7 with at least 100 active call center agents at all times. Requirement is to have the 3CX system always be available and it shouldn't say to the caller "The maximum number of lines has been reached, please contact your administrator" at any point of time for both external and internal calls/users.

100 call center agents and 150 internal users will also be calling internally and using it for conference calls on their respective extensions. Are internal calls also counted under sim calls?
We will also be setting up digital receptionists, ring groups and call queue (skill based) and many callers will also be in queue waiting to get connected to either call center agent or internal users, please clarify if this also counts under sim calls?

SIP trunk provider is providing unlimited sim calls from their end and there is no limit set at their end.
At a minimum we think there should be at least 1 line for each agent and extension and it never run out of available line for internal or external calls. Can we achieve this?
Does 3CX have an unlimited sim calls option either in subscription or perpetual model?

I couldn't much details in this regards, appreciate if you can guide me with the details. Thank you.

 

[SteveITS]

Internal calls are 1 SC (2 extensions = 1 call).
Conference calls are 1 SC per party, internal or external (2 extension + 1 external = 3 SC).
An external call is 1 SC, whether it's connected to a DR or queue or extension (or conference).

There isn't "unlimited" but 3CX has licenses up to 1024 SC on their price list. In most businesses not all internal users would be on the phone, so normally 192 or worst case 256 would be enough.

https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/simultaneous-calls.60755/
https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/call-queue-simultaneous-call-licensing.66589/
https://www.3cx.com/?s=simultaneous+call

 

[epodworksnet]

Licenses are by subscription these days, however, you are going to want Enterprise so you can have redundant PBXs and failover. 3CX is not extension based; it is based on the number of simultaneous calls. Any call outbound, inbound or to Voicemail or to Conference counts as license. Also, you are going to want enterprise server hardware so you can be "redundant" given that size. I would also choose the Linux Edition if you can and then run it Virtualized. The other reason to run Linux is your can run KVM for virtualization and not pay for OS or Virtualization licenses to VMware and/or Microsoft. Take all of those saved expense and beef up your PBX Server. You might even want to a second cold spare server ready to go. Virtualization gives you a lot of flexibility for redundancy, backup and restore.

https://www.3cx.com/blog/training/licensing/

With the Call Center Features you should never have a busy if you have enough simultaneous licenses and the bandwidth to handle all of those calls waiting. You also can implement call back strategies to get callers out of the queue and off the line. 3CX also has Instant Messaging and integrates with other like platforms if you are into multi-media.

Thus, you have to scale the platform appropriately. For the 150 internal users I would spec 4:1 between users and licenses so that is like 32 Licenses to be conversative unless the internal users are an extension of the Agents. The question you have to ask is how many agents will be busy and what the peak call-in amount for those agents. I would think 192 size subscription would handle what you need as the step down to 128 is likely too small.

The next thing to consider is everyone going to be in one place? 3CX includes Session Border Gateway (SBC) software for remote folks and hides the ugly networking issues of VoIP between NAT Remote Router and Server. The question becomes how the Gateway on the PBX side would scale. Therefore you might want to break up the PBX into groups -- agents vs agents skill vs internal users.

For Internal Users you may need less licenses say 32 License then 128 License for Call Center rather than 192 License if it one PBX. 3CX also has bridging to connect the two PBXs to make a "super" PBX. Calls into the Queue that get passed to internal callers are then bridged. However, bridging does cost 1 license on each side. It is all about the trade-offs.