Adding another business to 3cx, using same operators.

[greengriff]

3cx has been successful for us, so we want to add our other business (which currently uses a conventional landline) into our 3cx setup, using the same staff to answer calls from both. This raises a few issues we cannot figure out ourselves. We're just experimenting trying to make it work. Can it be done? These are the current problems we have:

We can get calls coming in to the main menu showing that they are from the other business, but once the caller selects a menu option, that information disappears and the person receiving the call cannot tell which business it is coming in from.

The businesses work different hours. Since we want the calls from both businesses answering by the same people, we cannot simply set extensions to out of hours and the 3cx phone system only allows global hours, so how do we stop calls coming through from the business that closes earlier at the appropriate time?

The 2 businesses are separate entities, so we wouldn't want the outbound calls made by one business showing up on the other business's phone bill. How do we stop this? Should we register another voip provider trunk?

 

[markshehan]

3cx has been successful for us, so we want to add our other business (which currently uses a conventional landline) into our 3cx setup, using the same staff to answer calls from both. This raises a few issues we cannot figure out ourselves. We're just experimenting trying to make it work. Can it be done? These are the current problems we have:

We can get calls coming in to the main menu showing that they are from the other business, but once the caller selects a menu option, that information disappears and the person receiving the call cannot tell which business it is coming in from.

The businesses work different hours. Since we want the calls from both businesses answering by the same people, we cannot simply set extensions to out of hours and the 3cx phone system only allows global hours, so how do we stop calls coming through from the business that closes earlier at the appropriate time?

The 2 businesses are separate entities, so we wouldn't want the outbound calls made by one business showing up on the other business's phone bill. How do we stop this? Should we register another voip provider trunk?

There are a few ways of doing all this.

Firstly you should pass calls to queues or ring groups for the business as you can then prepend/append the name to the caller id, that way your staff will know who to answer as.

Secondly either the DID can have its own hours so you can set the inbound rules there for the other business.

For the outbound caller id, you will either need to have separate outbound extensions with the other caller id on it (on a multi line phone you can configure one or two of the keys), or you will need a second voip provider (can be the same provider and trunk but different auth id - we allow multiple auth ids on our trunks just for reasons like this). Then your staff will need to dial a prefix so you can route it through the other caller id provider.

Let me know if you have more questions

 

[craigreilly]

Would be nice to set outbound caller Id on the outbound rules.
Then you could dial 8 for one business outbound calls, and 9 for the other.

 

[leejor]

Would be nice to set outbound caller Id on the outbound rules.
Ten you could dial 8 for one business outbound calls, and 9 for the other.

Or...all users could dial 9, and outbound rules could be set-up to the same rule pointing to a different trunk group, but based on a different extension range used by each business group. If one business has extension 200 to 299, and the other 300 to 399, it would make it easy to keep the outbound rules separate, and each only apply to one customer group.

 

[greengriff]

Firstly you should pass calls to queues or ring groups for the business as you can then prepend/append the name to the caller id, that way your staff will know who to answer as.

This is the bit we cannot make work. Currently the ring group is called 'sales calls' (or whatever). Do you mean we should rename it to 'Joe Bloggs PLC Sales Calls'?

 

[greengriff]

I just tried that and it didn't work. The call just came through showing the name of the operator on both the white and black 3cx clients.

 

[jpillow]

I would try pointing the incoming calls from company A to a ring group named Company A when that call comes in you will see on your caller id cal from COmpany a then the phone number the caller is calling from and handle the incoming call accordingly and do the same thing for company B. When the call is transfered I know it will show the clients caller id info but I'm not sure it will pass of the information which ribg group the call went to but if the receptionist is handling the calls he/she already has established which company the call was incoming for either company a or company b.

 

[markshehan]

I just tried that and it didn't work. The call just came through showing the name of the operator on both the white and black 3cx clients.

In the 3cx General Settings > Global Options tab there is a checkbox to Add Queue, Group and DID names to caller ID and then under that to append or prepend. Make sure that checkbox is checked. Then you will see the names

 

[sigma1]

I would try pointing the incoming calls from company A to a ring group named Company A when that call comes in you will see on your caller id cal from COmpany a then the phone number the caller is calling from and handle the incoming call accordingly and do the same thing for company B. When the call is transfered I know it will show the clients caller id info but I'm not sure it will pass of the information which ribg group the call went to but if the receptionist is handling the calls he/she already has established which company the call was incoming for either company a or company b.

Ring group is just about the worst way to handle this. The best is to set a name for your DIDs, this will be pre-pended no matter where the call ends up. Take a moment to carefully review the benefits/trade offs of Ring Groups vs. Queues. Queues are far more flexible, allow you specific music on hold (or marketing voice-over) and this is very important to keep this a "separate business". Ring groups will not help you at all.

 

[sigma1]

I am not your bro and I am please refrain from posting insults.

 

[nb]

JPillow - You are absolutely not in a position to insult people on the forums - especially a great contributor and personal friend like Charles or Sigma1.
This is not your domain and we will not tolerate nor allow this.
You cannot hold the 3CX Professional tag in a 3CX forum and speak like that. I have deleted your comments.
Until further notice, your account is disabled.

 

[3CXfoxhallsolutions]

Coming into this late greengrif - But I'm wondering if you mean that your incoming calls are all coming in on the same trunk lines, but being 'steered' by an auto-attendant (you mentioned "caller selects a menu option") ... If you are using an auto-attendant, and don't have DDI numbers on your "conventional landline" (which I assume might mean 'analogue trunk'?), then I'd look at making the auto-attendant [Digital Receptionist] output to Ring Groups or Call Queues as suggested above. You can then tailor the names of the Ring groups / Queues to best fit with the displays on your phones (i.e. are they big allowing loads of info, or small showing not much??) - and as suggested, pre-pend the group / queue name to the caller ID.

I hope that's helpful ...

 

[nb]

We can get calls coming in to the main menu showing that they are from the other business, but once the caller selects a menu option, that information disappears and the person receiving the call cannot tell which business it is coming in from.

I set up a DID named COMPANY-A - FW to an ivr - I see on the phones COMPANY-A:11111111 where 1111111 is the incoming caller number. So you know like this which business it is coming from because calls coming in from COMPANY-A are of business COMPANY-A.

The businesses work different hours. Since we want the calls from both businesses answering by the same people, we cannot simply set extensions to out of hours and the 3cx phone system only allows global hours, so how do we stop calls coming through from the business that closes earlier at the appropriate time?

Open the DID page, Check on Office hours, Select specific office hours and enter any combination of office hours you like.

The 2 businesses are separate entities, so we wouldn't want the outbound calls made by one business showing up on the other business's phone bill. How do we stop this? Should we register another voip provider trunk?

There is no need. You can use one trunk. get DID's - Example 2 DID's. Lets assume they are 22222222 and 44444444.
Allocate 2222222 for COMPANY A and 4444444 for company B
Create 2 groups Company A and company B.
In the outboudn cid of each extension, put the cid per group. So if users 100 and 101 are in company a pit in their outbound CID settings 22222222222.
Repeat this with the CID of company B for the extensions that are part of the group Company B

Then configure 2 outbound rules - one for company A and another for company B.

Restrict these rules by groups and configure that only users in company A can use outbound rule A. Do the same for Group B.So At this point you have 2 groups A and B

Do not bother about costs for now. Let everyone make outbound calls from the same trunk.

THEN At the end of the month, open the webreporter, click on advanced and generate an call costs report by extension group. outbound call report by group. And there you have your costs PER group - which in this case will be per company.

This should give you everything you need without purchasing a second license / pbx.

 

[markshehan]

The 2 businesses are separate entities, so we wouldn't want the outbound calls made by one business showing up on the other business's phone bill. How do we stop this? Should we register another voip provider trunk?

There is no need. You can use one trunk. get DID's - Example 2 DID's. Lets assume they are 22222222 and 44444444.
Allocate 2222222 for COMPANY A and 4444444 for company B
Create 2 groups Company A and company B.
In the outboudn cid of each extension, put the cid per group. So if users 100 and 101 are in company a pit in their outbound CID settings 22222222222.
Repeat this with the CID of company B for the extensions that are part of the group Company B

Then configure 2 outbound rules - one for company A and another for company B.

Restrict these rules by groups and configure that only users in company A can use outbound rule A. Do the same for Group B.So At this point you have 2 groups A and B

Do not bother about costs for now. Let everyone make outbound calls from the same trunk.

THEN At the end of the month, open the webreporter, click on advanced and generate an call costs report by extension group. outbound call report by group. And there you have your costs PER group - which in this case will be per company.

This should give you everything you need without purchasing a second license / pbx.

This wont work for his particular scenario Nicky. He said in the original post that he wants the calls to be answered by the same people/extensions. So Company A calls are received by x100 and x101 and Company B calls are also received by x100 and x101.

So he has to have 2 outbound providers - one for each company with the called id on the provider. Then he can set a rule with a prefix (e.g 2 for Company A and 3 for Company B) and then x101 can use either outbound caller id.

Or he can have 1 provider trunk and have an outbound extension for Company B which they either configure as a second account on a phone, use a softphone or dial via the voicemail and that will show the correct caller id.

The two provider method will also break down his call costs that he wanted.

 

[nb]

Hey Mark - How are you mate

This wont work for his particular scenario Nicky. He said in the original post that he wants the calls to be answered by the same people/extensions. So Company A calls are received by x100 and x101 and Company B calls are also received by x100 and x101.

Ok this changes things.

So he has to have 2 outbound providers - one for each company with the called id on the provider. Then he can set a rule with a prefix (e.g 2 for Company A and 3 for Company B) and then x101 can use either outbound caller id.

Yes in this case he can do it like this. 2 outbound providers. Outbound rules for each.

The two provider method will also break down his call costs that he wanted.

Yes it will. Yes if the companies are completely unrelated, then this is the way to go.