After Hours Forwarding to Rotating External Numbers

[RHopkinson]

This client of ours has two technicians (external cell phone numbers) who rotate responsibility for after-hours calls on a weekly basis. Currently, we go in weekly and change the "Destination for calls outside office hours" on the 6 separate DIDs defined in the Inbound Rules section. Seems like there should be a way to automate this.

I found a couple of seemingly related threads in the 3CX forum, but they don't seem to address exactly what we're looking for. We also looked at the VoIPTools On Call Manager add-on, which seems like it would do the trick, but they only sell the entire suite, and this is the only feature this client would use. Considering that would only save us about 25 minutes per month, it's tough to justify the $89/mo fee for that suite.

I'm not averse to doing some funky customization on the PBX, as long as it works reliably once implemented. Any ideas?

Thanks, in advance,
Russ

[3CX Pro Annual 16.0.2.910 on Debian 9, hosted on AWS / 1 SBC on site]

 

[eddv123]

I was going to suggest the VoIP Tools On call manager also, it is a really great app. I get your comments on the purchase of the full suite of products (a lot of people say the same) however I think that they model it like this so as to get people using all tools.

 

[Saqqara]

Try this

Create a dummy extension, and point your incoming DDI to this dummy extension.

Give people access to the management console just for this extension , where there can change the mobile number and fowarding rules if required.

 

[RHopkinson]

Saqqara, that might work! I created the dummy extension and a group named "After Hours Maint" to which I added the dummy extension, as well as the extension of the manager who would maintain it. For the manager, I added his extension to 3CX Management with the only option to "Manage extensions in groups you are part of."

Would you recommend just keeping the dummy extension on Do Not Disturb and then forwarding external calls to the external number for that status?

Thanks!

 

[Saqqara]

As the extension will not be registered, I would change all the statuses to forward calls to mobile.

On available statuses where you have 'If I am busy or my phone is unregistered, forward calls to:' forward to mobile

 

[cct]

We assign a status to on call engineer and change the status of that EXT for whoever is on call.

Busy > send to Eng1 mob (Ext number)
Away > send to Eng2 mob
DND > send to Eng3

 

[Saqqara]

We assign a status to on call engineer and change the status of that EXT for whoever is on call.

Busy > send to Eng1 mob (Ext number)
Away > send to Eng2 mob
DND > send to Eng3

This is another way to do it.