Call Divert Question

[stevendq]

Hi,

I have a customer that has multiple SIP trunks and Multiple ring groups, typically split up between different offices. They occasionally need to divert the PSTN number from the inbound SIP to elsewhere during extended office closure through trade shows etc.

At the moment we do this for them centrally in 3CX by just changing the sip trunk to go to an extension that is set to "forward to mobile".

They would like to be able to do this themselves but I can't see an easy way to achieve this. Has anyone else managed to achieve this?

Steven

 

[lneblett]

I am not sure that I understand the entire scenario.

I get that they have multiple SIP and ring groups split between different offices, so I will assume this to mean that they have 1 3CX instance running and the inbound rules define to which office the calls coming in over a given SIP trunk belong and these get routed to the appropriate ring group. Correct?

Where I need clarity is when you say "divert the PSTN number" during "extended office closure". Does this mean one calling number based upon caller-id, all calls coming in on a particular SIP trunk, or all calls from all SIP Trunks. Does the closure impact all offices? When calls come in during office hours, how are they handled - IVR, operator/receptionist, direct to ring groups, to extensions and how are they handled during standard non-office hours? You indicate multiple trunks, but then you indicate that when you manually do it for them, you change the SIP trunk (singular, not all?) to forward to a mobile.

Is the elsewhere where they need to divert always standard or does it frequently change?

I am trying to get the scope of the desire as there are various potential methods that might be useful

 

[jpillow]

Can you possibly give a better explanation of exactly what you are trying to accomplish, and exapmple or scenario of exactly what you want to happen with those calls.

 

[stevendq]

Thanks for the replies. To explain in a bit more details

3x SIP Trunks, each with it's own DDI number.

3x Ring Groups. (Each ring group is the extensions at remote offices that hang directly off of the 3CX system over a WAN link).

1:1 Relationship between one of the trunks and one of the ring groups.

Each ring group has between 4-6 Extensions.

As the business is primarily sales then staff can often be out and about and away from the office. While there is one or two people left in each office they answer all of the calls. Occasionally whoever is left in the office will need to leave (sometimes at short notice). To prevent the phones going unanswered they request their phones are diverted to a mobile number.

At the moment I do this by changing the ring group to send the call to the specified mobile instead.

The problem is that this request is typically quite short notice and the mobile number changes depending on who can handle the call best. Sometimes they want their number to actually just be answered by the other office, in which case I change the ring group to divert to one of the other ring groups when unanswered.

The customer has asked if there is a way they can set this themselves without raising a support ticket. I've looked at myphone, considered dummy extensions etc, but I can't see an obvious and nice way for them to do it.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[lneblett]

Well, the most efficient method is to do at the ring group level as you are doing and especially so since it seems that the endpoint may be dynamic - other office, mobile (and not always the same).

There are some ways of doing most of what you want and here is one, but I warn it does require discipline -

Preseumably all 3 ring groups are defined, so in the event that one group needs to be forwarded, it is just a matter of how to route to the one of the remaining groups to answer.

In this case you will need a dummy extension that is the terminating point for the ring group. This extension is not a member of the ring group, but where the call will be routed when all the other members have failed to answer the call within whatever time period was alloted.

When the folks of a ring group intend to be out, have them set their extension to DND (do not disturb). From a 3CX perspective this is essentially the same thing as telling the system that the extension is busy and instead of the system going the full distance with all the ring time thru all the extensions it will try each for just a split second (the phone may ring once or even only a partial as it does not know that the extension is "busy" until the phone responds back that it is).

This will cause the system to accelerate through the ring group extensions until such time as it hits the dummy extension as the terminating point. You then have a MyPhone app running at one PC that is set for the dummy extension and whoever is last in the office can then use the application to set the forwarding rule for the dummy to "available" and "busy" to whatever ring group, extension, mobile, Vmail, or external number needed. As this is a dummy extension and therefore not registered, it reacts to the busy or not registered rule set under available.

You should test the DND functionality using the particular phone set or softphone in use as not all may treat it the same.