Cell Phones as Part of a Ring Group

[gstreetmedia]

So I'm trying to create a ring group for after hours and here's what I'm doing.

I've created several extensions, call it 201, 301, 401 that ring to cell phone numbers when the phone is not registered. In this case, no phone will ever be registered as these are obvioulsy not SIP phones and exist outside of the network. In "Phone Unregistered" I set forward calls to the number of the cell phone number.

On my phone here (SIP and registered on the network), I punch in 201, 301, or 401 and presto! the cell phone rings.

I created a ring group for after hours that includes all our internal phones and these cell phones. The internal phones ring, however the external cells phones (ie unregistered phones) don't ring. Weird.

Next I tried creating a ring group that had just the cell phones in it. When I dial this ring group from my phone here (again, SIP and registered properly on the network) I get a fast busy. The server logging spits back:

10:10:34.490 CallConf:nIncoming [CM003002] Call(15): Destination not available for call from sip:[email protected] to sip:[email protected]
10:10:34.490 CallConf::Rejected [CM103005] Call(15) is rejected: Destination does not exist, or is not registered
10:10:34.490 CT_GroupRingAll::selectNextTarget [CM005003] No available destinatoions in group

So my question is, why won't 3CX follow the rules set for these unregistered phones when they are in a ring group?

Is there some other way to do this? We're basically trying to create virtual extensions if you will.

Thanks is advance.

--Andrew

 

[archie]

Forwarding rules are not used for calls to ring groups. Otherwise you will eventually stuck into situation when one member of the group forward it to voice mail on unregistered, switch his phone off, and all calls to that ring group will immediately go to his voice mail, before other members of the group will ever have a chance to answer.

 

[gstreetmedia]

The way we did this with Asterisk (which we are replacing with 3CX for a number of reasons) was that the remote extension had to press "1" to accept the call, otherwise all that would happen is the system would leave a voicemail message that said "You have an incomming call, press 1 to accept."

I'm guessing this is not functionality that 3CX currently has and I should perhaps post on the wishlist?

Thanks again,

Andrew

 

[SY]

The way we did this with Asterisk (which we are replacing with 3CX for a number of reasons) was that the remote extension had to press "1" to accept the call, otherwise all that would happen is the system would leave a voicemail message that said "You have an incomming call, press 1 to accept."

I'm guessing this is not functionality that 3CX currently has and I should perhaps post on the wishlist?

Thanks again,

Andrew

Group is extension 100 and extension 101.

Extension 100 redirects all calls to voice mail.
Extension 101 redirects calls to external number.

Which kind of decision are you preferring?

Any comments?

Thanks

 

[gstreetmedia]

I guess neither. I imagine a scenario more like this:

If it's after hours, my alternate ring group kicks in, the group that has external extensions. The external extensions could be land lines or cell phones (my home phone and my cell for example).

It would continue to ring all internal extensions, in case someone was still in the office after hours, it would just add these external phones.

I think you had a very good point about a turned off cell phone immediately going to voicemail. The only strategy I can think of to mitigate this is the external number must provide some affirmation that 3CX should transfer the call to that phone.

100 Rings (internal)
101 Rings (external)

20 seconds later

100 Doesn't Answer
101 Doesn't send back transfer code (say a number 1)

Route call to: the desitnation of your choice (a general voicemail box)

Our current workaround is just to have after hours voicemail route to a shared extension. An email of that voicemail is then sent to an email list. List members can see a call has come in, listen to it, and then decide if action needs to be taken.

The irony is that the listmembers (me and another person) are getting the email on our cellphones.

Thanks!

 

[rnoguera]

You meet a similar problem when a user has both a Desk Phone and a Cell Phone. Basically you would like that the calls to his extension are sent to the desk phone. If he is away, then to the cell phone.

But you can not setup a behaviour for the "away" condition, as it is basically the same as "busy". With DND you have the same problem.

Of course you cannot send calls to the cell phone if the desk phone is busy (the user is already talking in the desk line).

I tryed setting up a ring grup (hunt):
1.-Call the desk phone extension
2.-Call a second extension that has no phisical phone conected to it and is always forwarded to the cell phone.

But it does not work since 3CX does not call the cell phone in step 2.

 

[NMN]

Hi archie,

your considerations and reasons are well founded and I appreciate the thought that you put into it, but while there should be all sorts of disclaimers and warning of the scenarios you mention, it should still be at the discretion of the admin to get himself/herself into this kind of bind - if s/he so chooses.

As I was mentioning in my post about this subject in the general forum, Vonage and others offer this service (SimulRing) to their customers and they then are facing the same difficulties. I, for instance, simply got around the 'Ring Group to VM' problem by having the VM on the cell set to 30 sec. and the ring group/SimulRing to 20. Very rarely I still ended up with the call going to the cell VM, but that exception was still more than worth it.

Bottom line: Adding a flag to the extension setup screen (i.e. 'ignore registration status in ring group') should allow us to get ourselves in all the trouble we want ...

NMN

 

[rnoguera]

I agree with NMN. I would appreciate having this option.

 

[archie]

Theoretically and programmatically it is all possible and is not too complex to implement. Still, I think we need to do it neat (if to do at all). Mind that we're also providing support, and if we will introduce new features carelessly, soon we got stuck in situation with thousands requests about 'why my extensions in ring groups doesn't ring??', and we would spend thousands man-hours to find out real reason in each case, and in 90% of cases it will appear that mindlessly set forwarding option prevents normal (expected) RG behaviour.
So, in short, we're carefully study all feature suggestions and take those (in full or partially) which we can implement without risk to break balance between complexity, usability and range of features that we have now.

 

[rnoguera]

If you consider a user with a Desk Phone + Cell Phone, you will see that right now there is not a good (and straightforward) solution in 3X to deal with him.

You will agree that this type of user is very common today!!

 

[archie]

You can put conditional or unconditional forwarding (divertion) from desk phone to your cell phone if the phone supports that option. With version 4 it should work.

 

[rnoguera]

You are right. It works and this is how we do it. However it has a couple of inconvinients:

-Forwarding (at least in the Snom 320 phones we use) is not a "one Touch Operation".

-As it is based on the phone, 3CX will not be aware of it. If the user is in a Ring Group, maybe you don't want him to be called when he is out of the office.

 

[NMN]

Hi archie,

I am all for doing it neat and thinking it through.

A couple of thoughts about the 'forward from phone' scenario:

1. This would involve user interaction with the phone's menu system - a tall order for your average user.
2. It would not allow for business hours/after hours changes in call routing.

Either way, I hope you guys consider this option and provide us with a solution for centrally controlled cell extensions in ring groups soon. I believe the frequency with which this feature is being discussed and requested shows that is is needed.

THX

NMN

 

[dunng]

Find Me Follow Me

I am also interested in this feature... I have seen it as a find me / follow me where when you hit the VM system you would press an option to initiate it. From there it would ring your cell / home and give you the option to answer or decline based upon original caller ID (decline sends back to VM and says it could not find you)... Thanks!

 

[NMN]

That (user initiated 'follow me/find me') is already possible: Simply set up a DR with a menu point 'ring my cell' and direct that to an extension set to always forward to an external number (cell).

It is the simultaneous ringing, which would allow the feature to be completely transparent to the user, that is not implemented in 3CX for non-registered extensions, as members of a ring group are required to be registered.

NMN