Check Other User's VM Box (Creating a shared VM Box)

[krossh]

I have an instance where users are migrating from Mitel to our 3cx.

They utilize shared mailboxes heavily and attempting to do something similar here if possible.

I was going to create a user extension that effectively is a VM box only. No phone assigned. Then create a speed dial on each phone that would get them to the VM box of that user, however, having a hard time figuring out how to do this or if its even possible.


I have seen in other threads I should be able to dial 999#extensionnumber to get to that VM box, however, having a hard time getting this to work on our NFR testing platform.

Any ideas on this or how to work around the system to achieve this? Any input would be greatly appreciated.



Thanks!

 

[CentrexJ]

You won't be able to make that work as a speed dial as you have to dial 999 (on 3 digit extension system) and then press # when it asks for the PIN# and then enter extension number when prompted.

We have some luddite customers who want this and the only way to make it work is a custom template where you use Account #2 and setup that voicemail box extension as Account #2 and apply this template to the users who share the mailbox. On Yealink phones its not too difficult.

My suggestion is to use voicemail to email and send the voicemail to a shared email box (not distribution group).

 

[paulodagraca]

Hello krossh,

You could create a ringroup with voicemail, and set this to "Deliver a new voicemail to all participants".

Would that be something you can use?

Paulo

 

[SteveITS]

@krossh Historically we've also used a shared email box and either the notification or attached voicemail goes there. That way it can be marked read so others know it was handled.

In 20u8 3CX added the shared voicemail as Paulo noted...it shows up with the ring group name on it, in each person's voicemail in the software client, and is marked "heard by..." when listened to.

 

[krossh]

@krossh Historically we've also used a shared email box and either the notification or attached voicemail goes there. That way it can be marked read so others know it was handled.

In 20u8 3CX added the shared voicemail as Paulo noted...it shows up with the ring group name on it, in each person's voicemail in the software client, and is marked "heard by..." when listened to.

Oooh, thank you guys. So its something somewhat in the pipeline. Coool. I may just go ahead and push to that update for now and test with this.

So each user in the Ring Group should get a VM notification directly via email and on phone as well? And should be able to reach the VM via their phone or web client too?

Not a big fan of the beta updates, but the customer is relying heavily on the shared VM box application. I'm having more trouble figuring something out than just pushing to the 20u8 and working with the release that implements the shared VM.


Thank you guys much.

 

[SteveITS]

So each user in the Ring Group should get a VM notification directly via email and on phone as well? And should be able to reach the VM via their phone or web client too?

Yes. We had a couple "common" phones in our ring group which we had previously disabled voicemail on, so had to enable it there, but it works as expected in terms of heard/unheard.

FWIW it's 4-5 manual updates to get to RC2. We also resist betas and yes it's a big update but I figured an RC2 should be sufficient for our internal usage...

Edit: would be great if we could forward a voicemail from the clients...currently can only be done via the 999 menu AFAIK.

 

[VoIPTools]

We took a slightly different approach with our 3CX Voicemail Manager. Like you proposed, we create a dummy extension with voicemail enabled. Voicemails saved in this mailbox are propagated to each member of the group (in their own personal voicemail box). This turns on the MWI for all the group members. Then, if any member of the group listens to the voicemail we mark all the copies of the voicemail as "heard". This turns off the MWI for everyone. Also, (optionally) if anyone in the group deletes the voicemail, we can delete the voicemail in all the other voicemail boxes.

This approach ensures only one person is handling each voicemail rather than having multiple people chasing the same voicemail. We handle managing all the voicemail boxes simultaneously. The goal is to provide multiple channels of notification (MWI and Email) and keep everyone informed of the status of each group voicemail.