A small team needs a small help

[alex94]

Hello dear colleagues,

Long-story short I am having some close to middle IT background and I am going to take care of the infrastructure for a small team of 4 agents.
As option I stop my attention at 3CX SMB - Business solutions for a small teams, the price for year is just 195 Euro which is impressive. Also up to 20 users covers our use case just as it should.
So far so good, I've logged into the cloud 3CX have saw what I can configure at most, also installed the 3CX Softphone via Microsoft Store. However I want to address some questions as it is my first time that I will set up and maintain all of that.

1) I remember from the past when I was back office for another company we had a PBX system if that was the correct name - where you can check calls of specific agent, download them, or listen to them through the system pretty much it was that. I thought it was coming with the 3CX SMB plan. I cannot seem to find it if you can navigate me.

2) Do the system I managed above stores the call or we need to think of some local or online storage?

3) What are the most common issues you have run into so far? I want to be useful when it comes to fixing an agent issue related with 3CX.

4) Can we bring SIP trunk number to connect with 3CX from mobile operator or we should check somewhere specific?

So far I cannot think of anything else but would probably use this topic for further questions/discussions.

Thank you so much in advance for your time and support!

Kind Regards,
Alex

 

[AWS2P]

Hi,
well for my 2 cents,SMB20 PRO is a small instance with really few options, you don't need to admin something this is in 3CX hands.
So if you need more flexible solution or more administrable things you need to self host and install another release up to SMB.
But if you are only 4 people , SMB 20 Pro should do all the basics you need.

 

[alex94]

Hello @aws2p

Thank you for your swift response!
Yes, also as I went through the plans we are not likely to have more than 10 agents and the support for their smooth workflow will rely on me. I hope someone will have more input on my questions but as of the plan SMB20 PRO is more than enough for us!

Kind Regards,
Alex

 

[AWS2P]

Hi Alex,
well to try to answer your questions:

1. perhaps you need to go on user extension options and see there if recording the calls is enabled, you need to do that on each extension you want to record calls.
2. not 100% sure but with SMB you probably get a small disk quota for call storage, and as this is admin by 3CX you don't have access to the settings to change something. So even you need to register the calls outside of SMB this is not a setting you can change.
3. No really issues, but more limitations due to SMB plan.
4. I didn't really understood what is the question, you can use 3CX supported SIP provider and have of course the numbers you want on it, If the question is, is my mobile number able to be on the trunk? well in France it's not possible but where you are located I don't know.

 

[BoyanS_3CX]

Hi Alex,

Following the reply of aws2p I would like to add that we always advise recordings to be stored externally. This way you can also ensure you always have available space etc.

In regards to Q4, can you please clarify more?

 

[AWS2P]

Following the reply of aws2p I would like to add that we always advise recordings to be stored externally. This way you can also ensure you always have available space etc.

is that setting doable on SMB? if so where?

 

[alex94]

Thank you for the replies!

So far so good, I have saw pretty much all the basics that we need but I got a few more questions:

1) SMB20 PRO is giving us up to 20 agents. As I said it will be a smaller team so that's fine BUT I saw that there is something like Simultaneously Calls (SC) that is coming with separated price from the plan? Or with SMB20 itself will let the 4 agents to have a call at the same time? Please elaborate on the total price. I saw that SMB20 pro offers 1 year 195 EUR that cover all of our needs but SC is coming at another cost and if so how it is connected? I got lost there.

2) What are the good options to bring number to the SMB20 PRO? Like we need UK, US number etc. and how to switch them? Is there any option to build up let's say configuration file that it can be launched and to load the different number or we can switch it from the application of 3CX?

3) I saw in calls log you can download every call that you have recorded is that infinite? For how long 3CX keeps it? Let's say if I download the calls every day from 3CX (because they delete them after some time let's say) and put them on for example google drive is good way to backup them? I can even get an offline storage to store them thats none of an issue just tell me if the workflow is proper.

Thank you again!

Regards,
Alex

 

[AWS2P]

1) SMB20 PRO is giving us up to 20 agents. As I said it will be a smaller team so that's fine BUT I saw that there is something like Simultaneously Calls (SC) that is coming with separated price from the plan? Or with SMB20 itself will let the 4 agents to have a call at the same time? Please elaborate on the total price. I saw that SMB20 pro offers 1 year 195 EUR that cover all of our needs but SC is coming at another cost and if so how it is connected? I got lost there.

The number of SC you want need to be subscribed with your trunk SIP provider so if you want enough calls for your team buy enough channels, it seems to me SMB20 PRO licence include almost as many SC as users so may be 20 max . SMB20 couldn't be a reason to struggle the calls.

2) What are the good options to bring number to the SMB20 PRO? Like we need UK, US number etc. and how to switch them? Is there any option to build up let's say configuration file that it can be launched and to load the different number or we can switch it from the application of 3CX?

if numbers are new subscribe this to your SIP provider , if they already exist you need to port them to the Trunk SIP. On SMB20 you don't have text file import to set things as normally this is a small machine so it shouldn't be a lot to set up.

3) I saw in calls log you can download every call that you have recorded is that infinite? For how long 3CX keeps it? Let's say if I download the calls every day from 3CX (because they delete them after some time let's say) and put them on for example google drive is good way to backup them? I can even get an offline storage to store them thats none of an issue just tell me if the workflow is proper.

No idea on that one, probably recordings stay until the space disk is full and then perhaps oldest are replaced by the new one. Wait for someone sure on that point.

 

[alex94]

Thank you again for your swift response so if I got you right, this is only needed if let's say 3 people want to speak from the same phone number at the same time? We would not need that so just we get the numbers from the provider and as each agent will use different one we do not need additional SC thing.

YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING THANK YOU !!!!

Kind Regards,
Alex

 

[alex94]

The number of SC you want need to be subscribed with your trunk SIP provider so if you want enough calls for your team buy enough channels, it seems to me SMB20 PRO licence include almost as many SC as users so may be 20 max . SMB20 couldn't be a reason to struggle the calls.

if numbers are new subscribe this to your SIP provider , if they already exist you need to port them to the Trunk SIP. On SMB20 you don't have text file import to set things as normally this is a small machine so it shouldn't be a lot to set up.


No idea on that one, probably recordings stay until the space disk is full and then perhaps oldest are replaced by the new one. Wait for someone sure on that point.

Could you please check my previous message? Thank you in advance!

Kind Regards,
Alex

 

[AWS2P]

Well no matters how you use the numbers, they need to be on 3CX , so they need to be on a SIP trunk with enough SC according to your use.
What you do with the numbers and 3CX this is your call flow scenario.
Don't think a SIP channel is the same as a old pot line.
If you need DIDs to go directly to agent extension , no problem at all, but this is what you need to set on your 3CX SMB.