Bug with Holiday and all users Disable External Calls being set

[jroozee]

BUG In version 18.0 (Build 314), users that have "Block Outbound calls outside of Office Hours" checked under the Options tab in the user's settings, if we them go to "Configure Holidays" in the main settings and edit one of the holidays we have setup called "Meeting" that we use for 1 hour every week when we have a office meeting, it's updating all of those users option "Disable External Calls" to a checked state and that checkbox remains checked even after the 1 hour duration of the "Meeting" holiday, or even if we edit the "Meeting" holiday again to a different date. The only way for our users to make outbound calls again is to edit all users and uncheck the box for "Disable External Calls".

This didn't used to happen before. And I don't understand why that checkbox would be getting checked when "Block Outbound calls outside of Office Hours" should be sufficent to prevent outbound calls during our "Meeting".

We use this not just to stop outbound calls, but mainly to make inbound calls play a temporarily closed greeeting..

 

[jroozee]

*then

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I actually tried to reproduce this but couldn't, provided of course I understood the scenario correctly.

checkbox remains checked even after the 1 hour duration of the "Meeting" holiday

I too created a holiday, saw that extensions with "Block Outbound Calls outside of Office hours" got the "Disable External Calls" option checked and then it was automatically removed when the holiday ended.

if we edit the "Meeting" holiday again to a different date.

Are you perhaps modifying the Holiday while it is ongoing? If yes, then what you are experiencing is expected because by editing the holiday while it is ongoing you are also removing the trigger that will have the extensions switch back to in Office.

And I don't understand why that checkbox would be getting checked when "Block Outbound calls outside of Office Hours" should be sufficent to prevent outbound calls during our "Meeting".

The "Block Outbound Calls..." option actually utilizes the Disable External Calls to work. It's essentially an option that dictates that the "Disable External Calls" will automatically be applied during out of office hours.

 

[jroozee]

"Are you perhaps modifying the Holiday while it is ongoing?"
Yes - we modified the holday during the time window it was set for to be for our staff meeting next week. That may explain why since it's not triggering. However, this seems to be a new behavior of 3CX.

In any event, we typically will set the "Meeting" holiday for longer than our actual meeting incase the meeting runs longer than expected, but then if it runs normal length we'd want to be able to just change the date to the next week.

We've been having to use this feature for our staff meetings since there is no way to toggle "afterhours" on or off manually any other way.

So is the only work around to edit all users in bulk and unset the "Disable External Calls" checkbox every time? Seems like a sketchy way to do this.

We tried *641 / *642 in the past but it never did anything. In fact, when I dial this, i get "Not Found"
When I try *99* (which is configured for the dial code "Force 3CX Phone System to IN or OUT of office") all I ever get is a messge saying "3CX Phone system is now using the default office hours".

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

We tried *641 / *642 in the past but it never did anything. In fact, when I dial this, i get "Not Found"
When I try *99* (which is configured for the dial code "Force 3CX Phone System to IN or OUT of office") all I ever get is a messge saying "3CX Phone system is now using the default office hours".

Manually forcing the PBX to in or out of office hours will actually not trigger extension out/in of office actions such as Profile status auto switching or the "Block outbound calls.." option so this indeed won't work for you.

Deleting the holiday entry will not trigger the extension out/in office actions so that won't work either. They have to reach the end of the holiday entry so all I can recommend is:

When creating next week's holiday, first off, create a new entry all together instead of modifying the first one and also only create it once you know when the current meeting will end so that you can modify the existing holiday entry and set it to the correct end time. Leave both entries in there and when the next week comes, delete the old entry and rinse and repeat.

 

[jroozee]

So by editing the end time of the existing one, even if that end time is now in the past, that will trigger it?

So if its set to end at 11am, and its currently 10am, if wqe edit it to be 9:45am, will that trigger it to go back into office hours?

Then, next week we could just edit that same Holiday before our next meeting starts?

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

So by editing the end time of the existing one, even if that end time is now in the past, that will trigger it?

So if its set to end at 11am, and its currently 10am, if wqe edit it to be 9:45am, will that trigger it to go back into office hours?

No, you have to set an end time that has yet to be reached and actually wait for the PBX time to reach that specific end time.

However, you can just:

1. Create the meeting holiday.
2. Join the meeting and finish.
3. Modify the meeting holidays end time so that it's 1-2 minutes ahead (e.g it's now 11:30, set it to end at 11:31 or 11:32 to be safe)
4. Extensions will automatically switch to in office state in 1-2 minutes.
5. Once that happens you can modify the existing holiday for next week or just delete altogether and create a new one.

 

[jroozee]

Thanks....