Ai agent is forwarding calls outside office hours

[Jinko]

Hi,

we just started to use the AI function! its very very nice!

But there is an issue, its great that the agent works 24/7 but when making diffrent departments with diffrent openings hours the agent should know this too, and not forward calls outside office hours, instead of that they can take a message.

and some departments, like an emergency department should be working only.

how can we do this the best way?

 

[KyriacosS_3CX]

Hi,

Just a few questions, are the destination extensions Available at these times or they go DND etc?

Is the setting to check if destination is Busy set? (Agent->Call Screening).

What AI models did you choose in the OpenAI config tab?

 

[Jinko]

Hi,

We use the recent ai manual setup of 3CX

Gpt-realtime

And tekst is gpt-5o

When ive set DND automatic for all users then it is panicking and will not work good, also even when users are available when office hours applies it should not forward. then the ai agent should only take call backs or make note. Also 7 out of 10 times when the ai receptionist is forwarding to my ai assistant the assistant is become silent when they need to make calll back or message to me

 

[Jinko]

Any news?

 

[nikolascx]

Hi @Jinko

your config is good. GPT-Realtime OK. 5o doesn't exist.. What text completion model do you have?
Put gpt-5-mini for now. We will announce the best tested models in SP 9 shortly.

You mention 2 problems:

Lets sort this first which is mentioned in another post. Don't expect the office hours to work when the transfers are not working.

Also 7 out of 10 times when the ai receptionist is forwarding to my ai assistant the assistant is become silent when they need to make calll back or message to me

It is silent because the tool is not being called. How many extensions do you have?
Could there be a name of a user that has some strange characters which could break the parsing when the AI is provided a list of users?

We need to see the logs.

About this

When ive set DND automatic for all users then it is panicking and will not work good, also even when users are available when office hours applies it should not forward. then the ai agent should only take call backs or make note.

When you say it panics, what do you mean?
What options do you set to control out of office hours?
DID automatic for all users you mean the Call forwardning status correct? So all extensions are automatically changed to DND.
This this case, the AI should get a list that the users in DND Are not available.
It should not transfer to these users. This part works.

I suggest you contact me in private and send the logs. Stop the service, delete the log file, start the service, make 1 (ONE) call that fails and send to me for analysis in private.

We should solve this if I see the logs. Cheers

 

[Jinko]

Hi,

Well its simple,, outside office hours the AI should not try to forward calls,, but instead only takes call back message or note to chat.. now even after office hours the ai will call extensions,, also the automatic DND not work... and when everyone is set to away it doesnt know what to do.

 

[KyriacosS_3CX]

Hi, did you follow through with:

I suggest you contact me in private and send the logs. Stop the service, delete the log file, start the service, make 1 (ONE) call that fails and send to me for analysis in private.

We should solve this if I see the logs. Cheers

 

[nikolascx]

Hi,

Well its simple,, outside office hours the AI should not try to forward calls,, but instead only takes call back message or note to chat.. now even after office hours the ai will call extensions,, also the automatic DND not work... and when everyone is set to away it doesnt know what to do.

You are receiving calls outside of office hours because the DID routing is configured to send calls there. Since you control the inbound DID routing / ingress, calls should follow the Out of Office (OOO) route during those hours.

For now, the OOO route should not include the AI Agent. Instead, it should route to whatever destination you prefer for after-hours handling.

In the future, AI Agents could be able to understand the current time and office hour rules/holiday schedule. Once that feature is available and announced, you will be able to run the AI Agent 24/7 and essentially open all gates and put the company always ON.

But this needs to come later. Its not a priority at the moment because an out of office agent the way you describe it is the same as voicemail box.

The way you want the AI Agent to behave in out of office hours, is very similar to a voicemail box.
So
1. keep the DID with In and out of office hours configured.
2. When in office -> AI Agent
3. When out of office -> Voicemail

 

[RoryJ]

You are receiving calls outside of office hours because the DID routing is configured to send calls there. Since you control the inbound DID routing / ingress, calls should follow the Out of Office (OOO) route during those hours.

For now, the OOO route should not include the AI Agent. Instead, it should route to whatever destination you prefer for after-hours handling.

In the future, AI Agents could be able to understand the current time and office hour rules/holiday schedule. Once that feature is available and announced, you will be able to run the AI Agent 24/7 and essentially open all gates and put the company always ON.

But this needs to come later. Its not a priority at the moment because an out of office agent the way you describe it is the same as voicemail box.

The way you want the AI Agent to behave in out of office hours, is very similar to a voicemail box.
So
1. keep the DID with In and out of office hours configured.
2. When in office -> AI Agent
3. When out of office -> Voicemail

We have a customer who has multiple departments in different locations. These departments have different opening times to each other and because some are in a different country they have different holidays also.

At the moment calls to the main number are answered by a Digital Receptionist. If a caller selects an option that routes to a queue which is in a department that happens to be on holiday, a custom prompt can be played.

The customer would like to replace the DR with an AI agent. I appreciate from the above that the technology isn't mature enough to have the agent understand and make routing decisions based on the various holiday dates so my suggestion for now would be to allow the agent to transfer to the respective queue as the DR does, then if the department is on holiday the custom holiday prompt will be played. Unfortunately the system seems to treat this as an internal transfer and doesn't play the prompt, it simply ends the call.

Is there any way around that?

On a related note, how do we configure a DID to route to a different destination during OOO if it's assigned to an AI agent in-hours? There seems to be no "When office is closed route to..." option in the agent settings as there is under normal Call Handing (queues, RGs etc.).


ETA:
Putting the AI agent into its own queue and pointing the DID to that queue instead of directly to the agent seems to solve both of the above issues. Is this good practice or is there any reason we shouldn't do this?

 

[nikolascx]

Hello dears
Soon it will be able to properly respect department holiday/OOO routing (like queues do), instead of calls being dropped when transferred internally to a closed destination.

Placing AI in a queue is perfectly OK! Absolutely.
Put them in a queue and let them work for you 24/7