Change Digital Reception based on time

[TCF]

Is there any way to change the digital receptionist based on the time? For example our Office closes at 4 but Customer Service is open until 4:30 so I would like a different Auto Attendant from 4:00 to 4:30 to let people know Customer Service is still open and give them an option to connect to our Customer Service Que by pressing 1.

 

[leejor]

I suspect that you will have to create a second DR, then route calls to it based on either office hours, or, possibly, through a time based, forwarding (dummy) extension.

 

[TCF]

Leejor,

That is what I suspected but how do you route based on time? I know I can use Inbound rules to route certain numbers to a digital receptionist but it seems like things will get very complicated if I have to use them to do what I'm trying to do.

 

[leejor]

Depending on the 3CX version you are using (there may be more flexibility in some versions), you should have the ability to set office hours, and determine where call will route.

http://www.3cx.com/docs/manual/inbound-rules/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KeYBJY__kw
http://www.3cx.com/docs/extension-manag ... lv3mqgdxxl (see office hours scheduling)

A lot of what you can do, will be determined on how you have incoming calls set-up, and the fact that you seem to want three different options...daytime, a short period after the main office closes, and after hours. That may be where the forwarding options, available if calls route through a dummy extension, could prove useful. Take things one step at a time.

 

[TCF]

Thank you. It seems that I'll have to be creative, I understand what you're saying about the dummy extension and the route I'll have to take. It's too bad there isn't a straight forward feature in 3cx that allows you to reroute based on the time of day or do different things with the office hours, what I'm trying to do seems like it would be pretty common for businesses. Maybe in the next version.

 

[Steven Aleman]

Yes, I think you should create a second extension of digital receptionist and then route calls for it. Nowadays people are mostly hiring virtual receptionist service like http://www.serviced.com.au/virtual-receptionist for their business. Because of customer service people like talking to a person more than automated machine. Hiring virtual receptionist will gives 24*7 hour service so there is no need of auto attendant for customer service.

 

[Ek Sips]

Hi TCF,

We encountered this exact issue. We are using the 3CX Version 15 Enterprise edition and had a need to have multiple primary inbound lines with different office hours. To be consistent in every case, we created a dummy extension in a logical numbering range (for us 1000-1999). We assigned the primary DID for our main line to this extension. We would then set specific available hours on the "Fowarding Rules" page. During the "Available" status hours, we would permanently forward this dummy extension to a Digital Receptionist IVR, or directly to a queue. Outside of business hours, the dummy extension would automatically flip to "Do Not Disturb" mode. For this status we set forwarding rules either to another queue, or IVR with out-of-hours options for the caller to choose from. We would then place an option in the out-of-hours Digital Receptionist to transfer to voicemail of the dummy extension. This extension is populated with the email address of where would like the voicemails to be sent to. We change the voicemail options to the dummy extension to send voicemails directly to email and skip the voicemail box.

This all sounds complicated, but when you understand the workflow it actually gives you a much greater degree of control.

Send me a PM if you'd like to chat more about our scenario.

Thanks,
Erik