After Hours Scenario

[craigreilly]

Incoming calls, after hours, goto an IVR.
1) Emergency Tech
2) Dial by Name
3) General Mailbox

Caller selects 2. They find their name they are calling and it calls user. User is setup on No-Answer to goto Receptionist. Receptionist is forwarded to IVR after hours. So, caller is back in IVR.

Is there a way to overcome this?
We can not set everyone to General Office Hours - because many people work late or on the weekend.
They could set their own hours - but they are not set in stone. They change.
Really - they need to rememebr to set their DND so it goes to Voicemail - but I know not everyone will do this.
So the caller right now - just gets returned to the IVR and in frustration hangs up.

Any ideas?

 

[gschwab]

This is what I would do.
Emergency tech ext. get s forwarded to his cell, home etc.

set receptionist ext to voicemail afterhours, period, it least now they can leave a message.

I personally never forward and extension back to an IVR, it just makes the customer mad, and mad customers tell EVERYONE how mad they are. In my opinion the system should be set up in such a way as to provide a simple and direct path to a PERSON during business hours and a means to at least leave a messsage during non business hours.

As for those who will not properly update thier status have you tried torture??? :mrgreen:

 

[paul.hadley]

May be return the call to another IVM that gives an apology that the user is unavailable and offers them the opportunity to try another user or return to the original menu.

 

[craigreilly]

If the user sets their phone to return to operator after 15 seconds of Do not Answer and do not change to DND at night - then the phone will go back to the operator which forwards to IVR after hours. There is no way to change that - so torture might be my answer.
Right now
DAY: Dial In --> Receptionst --> Route call
NIGHT: Dial In --> Receptionsit - forwarded to IVR --> (1) Emergency (2) Dial by Name (3) General Mailbox

 

[gschwab]

If the user sets their phone to return to operator after 15 seconds of Do not Answer and do not change to DND at night - then the phone will go back to the operator which forwards to IVR after hours. There is no way to change that - so torture might be my answer.
Right now
DAY: Dial In --> Receptionst --> Route call
NIGHT: Dial In --> Receptionsit - forwarded to IVR --> (1) Emergency (2) Dial by Name (3) General Mailbox

I have mine set up so that all incoming calls go to a Digital Receptionist. I have one for Business hours and one for after Business hours.

DAY: Dial in---> Digital Receptionist, (1)Sales A (2) Sales B (3) Accounting (4) Directory (0) Operator (Human Receptionist)
All extensions, if unanswered, either go to voicemail OR to Operator extension.

NIGHT: Dial in --> Digital Receptionist, Thank you for calling, our hours are blah blah, please leave a message at one of the following extensions
(1)Sales A (2) Sales B (3) Accounting (4) Directory (0) Operator
All extensions either go to voicemail OR to Operator extension.
Operator extension ALWAYS forwards to voicemail after hours.

 

[craigreilly]

Right - but we use a live person during the day automatically... and she forwards to IVR using DND after hours. So any extenstions that forward to receptionist go back to tree after hours.

I think people just need to be conscious and set their DND properly. And if person calls on the weekend and wants to leave them a message and has problems - we can explain it was their own fault

 

[gschwab]

If the user sets their phone to return to operator after 15 seconds of Do not Answer and do not change to DND at night - then the phone will go back to the operator which forwards to IVR after hours. There is no way to change that - so torture might be my answer.
Right now
DAY: Dial In --> Receptionst --> Route call
NIGHT: Dial In --> Receptionsit - forwarded to IVR --> (1) Emergency (2) Dial by Name (3) General Mailbox

I have mine set up so that all incoming calls go to a Digital Receptionist. I have one for Business hours and one for after Business hours.

DAY: Dial in---> Digital Receptionist, (1)Sales A (2) Sales B (3) Accounting (4) Directory (0) Operator (Human Receptionist)
All extensions, if unanswered, either go to voicemail OR to Operator extension.

NIGHT: Dial in --> Digital Receptionist, Thank you for calling, our hours are blah blah, please leave a message at one of the following extensions
(1)Sales A (2) Sales B (3) Accounting (4) Directory (0) Operator
All extensions either go to voicemail OR to Operator extension.
Operator extension ALWAYS forwards to voicemail after hours.

I guess what I 'm trying to say is why have the receptionist extension get the calls after hours?
Send 'em all through the IVR first that way callers can still dial an extension and if that person is there and answers all is well.
if not and they have not updated thier status the call will go to the receptionist ext. which you would set to always forard to voicemail after hours.

 

[craigreilly]

I guess what I 'm trying to say is why have the receptionist extension get the calls after hours?

All inbound calls goto extension 4000 which is the receptionist. After hours she forwards her phone to the IVR.

Send 'em all through the IVR first that way callers can still dial an extension and if that person is there and answers all is well.

This makes sense - except how do I send all calls to the IVR first? The only logical thing to me is that since the Receptionist needs to handle when to turn on the IVR After Hours is that all calls goto her, and she sets her phone to DND.

We do not use global hours - since things change from time to time. So the receptionist has to be able to control if calls are going to her or to the tree. To do that, she forwards her calls using DND which sends calls to the IVR when the day is done. So - all inbound calls goto Receptionist x4000.

 

[gschwab]

I guess what I 'm trying to say is why have the receptionist extension get the calls after hours?

All inbound calls goto extension 4000 which is the receptionist. After hours she forwards her phone to the IVR.

Send 'em all through the IVR first that way callers can still dial an extension and if that person is there and answers all is well.

This makes sense - except how do I send all calls to the IVR first? The only logical thing to me is that since the Receptionist needs to handle when to turn on the IVR After Hours is that all calls goto her, and she sets her phone to DND.

We do not use global hours - since things change from time to time. So the receptionist has to be able to control if calls are going to her or to the tree. To do that, she forwards her calls using DND which sends calls to the IVR when the day is done. So - all inbound calls goto Receptionist x4000.

Ok, now I get it, didn't quite catch on that you don't use global office hours.
How about you go to the Advanced settings and set up an "emergency dial code" to force the PBX into or out of office hours and have your receptionist use this instead of DND that way you could set the PBX to send all calls to IVR after hours and have the receptionist ext. go to VM.

Setting all your ports to In Office hours
If the Administrator dials *641 (appends a 1 to the code), a prompt will be played stating that the “3CX Phone System is now set to IN OFFICE HOURS”. This means that the 3CX Phone System will disregard the current time, or day (even if it is a holiday) and set all the routes of the Gateways, VoIP Providers and DID/DDI’s to route to the In Office hours destination.

Setting all your ports to Out of Office hours

If the Administrator dials *642 (appends a 2 to the code), a prompt will be played stating that the “3CX Phone System is now set to OUT OF OFFICE HOURS”. This means that the 3CX Phone System will disregard the current time, or day (even if it is 10am for example) and set all the routes of PSTN Gateways, VoIP Providers and DID/DDI’s to route to the Out of Office hours destination.

Setting all your ports to default office hours operation

If the Administrator dials *64 (without nothing appended), a prompt will be played stating that the “3CX Phone System is now using the DEFAULT OFFICE HOURS”. This means that in this example, the 3CX Phone System will over ride the previous 2 commands and behave as follows – from 9am till 5.30pm lines/ports will be routed to In Office Hours destinations and from 5.31pm till 8.59am, the lines/ports will be routed to the Out of Office hour destinations.

 

[craigreilly]

Awesome. I'll try it.

 

[craigreilly]

Ok - almost there I think.
Incoming Call while on IVR - 2 for Dial By Name - persons phone rings for 20 seconds - returns to Operator.
Operator doesn't answer in 20 seconds so it goes to the Ring Group (Operator Backup).



Hmm.

 

[gschwab]

Ok - almost there I think.
Incoming Call while on IVR - 2 for Dial By Name - persons phone rings for 20 seconds - returns to Operator.
Operator doesn't answer in 20 seconds so it goes to the Ring Group (Operator Backup).



Hmm.

Hmm. indeed.
Lets see, first to check is Operator extension settings.
status = Available
General Tab: Voicemail Enabled
Forwarding Rules Tab: If no answer: Send call to my voicemail
Office Hours Tab: This extension uses global office hours (even though you don't use them)

 

[craigreilly]

Well - that mnight be the issue.
I can't set Operator to got to VoiceMail when noanswer.
It needs to go to the ring group so somebody answers the phone if she doesn't.

I might just be out of luck. The users need to use DND on their phones for this to work properly (or set their status in MyPhone).

 

[gschwab]

Well - that mnight be the issue.
I can't set Operator to got to VoiceMail when noanswer.
It needs to go to the ring group so somebody answers the phone if she doesn't.

I might just be out of luck. The users need to use DND on their phones for this to work properly (or set their status in MyPhone).

So how about when she leaves and forces PBX to out of office have her also change her status to away and set it to fwd to vm. when she comes in she sets PBX to in office hrs. and updates her status to available which you would set up to fwd on unaswered to ring group? she can change her status through the voicemail system....just follow the prompts.

George

 

[craigreilly]

I think we are going to jsut Burn 5 BLF's for this.
Button 6 - Receptionist Available - She can take calls
Button 7 - Receptionist Away - Send calls to Main-Line Ring Group
Button 8 - Receptionist Out of Office - General Mailbox for Night Mode to take messages
Button 9 - OverRide - System IN OFFICE HOURS
Button 10 - OverRide - System OUT OF OFFICE HOURS

I think this will be the easiest to maintain as any number of people might have to Enable or Diable Night Mode.

I only wish somehow - I could write an IF/THEN type statement and have the BLF light up.
ie:

If BLF10=="RED" then
    SpeedDial *641  //Goto DAY MODE
    BLF10=GREEN  //DAY MODE Indicator
else if BLF10=="RED" then
   SpeedDial *642 //Goto NIGHT MODE
    BLF10=RED //NIGHT MODE Indicator
end if