• V20: 3CX Re-engineered. Get V20 for increased security, better call management, a new admin console and Windows softphone. Learn More.

A few annoying quirks

Status
Not open for further replies.

Camal

Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Hello,

I have recently bought and installed 3CX v12 (8 SC) for a small company. First, I would like to say I'm generally happy with how it works, but there are a few annoying quirks that I hope will get fixed at some point.

Most of them are related to call queues:

1. The intro prompt does not always play from the beginning when a caller enters the queue. This is a major bug IMO!

2. On hold music is played at the same time as the intro prompt which makes it hard to hear the intro prompt. On hold music should be completly muted when the intro prompt plays! Can't use on hold music because of this.

3. There is no way to disable on hold music and use regular ringback tones instead. The only way is to use empty.wav, but the complete silence makes the caller think something is wrong and hang up.

4. There is no notification that a new call has entered the queue when all agents are busy. This is a problem for a small business who may only have 1 person in the office answering the phones. This person is most likely also required to do other tasks, like outgoing calls (less important), while waiting for the incoming calls (more imortant, like orders). As you can understand it's not ideal if a customer has to wait 30 minutes i queue just because the one person answering the phones is busy chit-chatting with a colleague.
I found a workaround by making calls enter a ring group first and enabling "multile ring group calls". The calls to this ring group times out after 8s (enough time to notify agents about the call) and is then forwared to the queue. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

Please fix these quirks and 3CX will be the perfect solution even for small businesses!

Regards,
Andreas
 
Camal said:
2. On hold music is played at the same time as the intro prompt which makes it hard to hear the intro prompt. On hold music should be completly muted when the intro prompt plays! Can't use on hold music because of this.

I agree, as do others, that this is rediculous and very unprofessional sounding. This is one of those things where you're just like "I don't understand how it was ever implemented this way, how could anybody think this is OK?". But, it has been like this for as long as I can remember, so I wouldn't hold your breathe. That along with multiple voicemail greetings... multiple voicemail greetings has been a feature request (a highly requested feature request) since we started selling 3CX in v9 and it still isn't in there. Honestly I wouldn't even call that a "feature" any more, that is just standard stuff on most PBX's out there these days.

http://www.3cx.com/forums/queue-callback-recording-playing-over-moh-34464.html
 
It is unprofessional sounding only if you are not recording proper wav files in the proper format. We are justy playing wav files here. Nothing rocket science.

Queue intro prompts are played from the beginning. They are played together with the music on hold BUT the MOH is played at a lower volume.
Once the intro prompt is finished, then the MOH increases Volume.

If you cannot hear the prompt than it means that you are not recording it correctly. See this guide and make sure that it is recorded with these parameters:

3. Create New Audio Files

You can create new audio files (containing translated phrases from the base prompt set) by using a speech synthesizer or by recording audio with a microphone. You can then edit audio using your favourite audio editor.

When you create audio files:

The supported audio file format is: WAV, PCM, 8 KHz, 16 bit.
Try and keep the size of the .wav files as small as possible
Remove silence (more than 10-20 ms) at the beginning and at the end of prompts where possible
Avoid abrupt clipping of audio at the end of prompts to avoid audio artefacts (clicks) at the end of prompts.
Try to create prompts with similar audio characteristics, such as volume, pitch, voice timbre – so that combined phrases sound smooth.

This means that the intro prompt should contain introduction clean wording so the moh can complement as background music. Then the MOH comes in as the main stream so everything flows.

If the queue intro prompt is not played from the beginning than open a support request and make a wireshark capture plus logs. If there is a voip provider involved this may incur some delay.
 
Maybe the issue I brought up in the seperate thread is something different then. I don't see how recording the queue MoH differently would change anything.

1. I enter the queue, and hear the custom queue MoH (which has music and talking, as most do).
2. After two minutes the call-back recording comes on asking me if I would like to enter a number for call-back instead of waiting.

When the call-back recording comes on, the queue MoH continues to play at regular volume, so you have two people talking over top of each other. This should not happen. The queue MoH should get muted while the call-back recording plays.
 
nickybrg said:
It is unprofessional sounding only if you are not recording proper wav files in the proper format. We are justy playing wav files here. Nothing rocket science.

Queue intro prompts are played from the beginning. They are played together with the music on hold BUT the MOH is played at a lower volume.
Once the intro prompt is finished, then the MOH increases Volume.

If you cannot hear the prompt than it means that you are not recording it correctly. See this guide and make sure that it is recorded with these parameters:

3. Create New Audio Files

You can create new audio files (containing translated phrases from the base prompt set) by using a speech synthesizer or by recording audio with a microphone. You can then edit audio using your favourite audio editor.

When you create audio files:

The supported audio file format is: WAV, PCM, 8 KHz, 16 bit.
Try and keep the size of the .wav files as small as possible
Remove silence (more than 10-20 ms) at the beginning and at the end of prompts where possible
Avoid abrupt clipping of audio at the end of prompts to avoid audio artefacts (clicks) at the end of prompts.
Try to create prompts with similar audio characteristics, such as volume, pitch, voice timbre – so that combined phrases sound smooth.

This means that the intro prompt should contain introduction clean wording so the moh can complement as background music. Then the MOH comes in as the main stream so everything flows.

If the queue intro prompt is not played from the beginning than open a support request and make a wireshark capture plus logs. If there is a voip provider involved this may incur some delay.

Thanks for the advice, but even if the intro prompt is perfectly recorded, wouldn't it be even clearer if MoH was not playing in the background? What is the benefit of having MoH play in the background? (I can't think of any)
Why not at least have an option to mute MoH while the prompt(s) plays?
 
But the MOH is playing at a really low volume. If we wait for the intro prompt to finish, then there might be a cut / gap in audio. Its like normal music. Normal music should contain gradual changes. It does not start and stop at high volume.
Starts low and goes up - a music dynamic known as "Crescendo" and goes soft at the end "diminuendo". I cannot see what the problem is.

I also cannot understand why the rest of the clients using 3CX that I know of (like schools, banks and other huge institutions in US and Europe are not complaining....). If this was a real problem, they would have hammered us by now.

Can you send me the intro prompt and the moh file you are using? I want to check and see.
 
Regarding MOH in queues, most of our customers also complain that the music is in the background of the prompts. It would be better to have it configurable so that one could choose how this should work.
 
My (humble) opinion is that MOH should not be playing in the background when announcements, of any kind, are also playing. i know a number of companies that "customize" their music on hold, mixing informational messages in with the music. in a situation such as that you could end up with two "talking" recordings(albeit one at a lower level),running simultaneously.

For some people, this can cause issues in understanding what is being said especially if information such as telephone numbers, addresses or office hours are being given.

I fail to understand the reasoning behind having the MOH playing at the same time. It should signify to the caller, that a transition has occurred, and that they are now on hold. I can't recall one customer (with, or without queues) that has ever requested that music play behind any of the messages.

If anything, make it optional.
 
Hi All - Agreed - optional will make sense.
Open this on our ideas page and vote for it.
 
nickybrg said:
Hi All - Agreed - optional will make sense.
Open this on our ideas page and vote for it.

Thanks, how do I do that?
 
https://apps.facebook.com/threecxideas
 
I wonder if the uploaded MOH files are being left as they are, which generally makes them way too loud, and dynamic.
I wonder if the voice prompts are being left as the are also.
Having a performing arts background can be handy when you what to mess with db output of files.
I always take those recorded files and run compression over them.
MOH files generally get a 2:1 hard knee at 20db then a 6db volume reduction.
Prompt files could be anything, but generally I'd normalise to get the gain up, compress to smooth it out. After that it really depends.

There are free tools all over the web to do it with. Try Audacity.

Andrew
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Getting Started - Admin

Latest Posts

Forum statistics

Threads
141,629
Messages
748,936
Members
144,742
Latest member
Steffen Ekerdt
Get 3CX - Absolutely Free!

Link up your team and customers Phone System Live Chat Video Conferencing

Hosted or Self-managed. Up to 10 users free forever. No credit card. Try risk free.

3CX
A 3CX Account with that email already exists. You will be redirected to the Customer Portal to sign in or reset your password if you've forgotten it.