Converting from Ring Central?

[magicalproductions]

First, awesome product. Thank you guys very much for providing a free version and DEMO. These two things are what will likely get me to buy the product since I was actually able to really test it.

Now on to the meat... we are currently with RingCentral and I am continually disappointed in their horrible service and "customer support", if you can call it that.

We run a VMWare based hosting platform so I deployed 3CX on a spare VM Win2k8 R2. Literally up an running in minutes. It took a bit longer to figure out phone provisioning (mostly port/firewall issues) and get connected to CallCentric. However most everything else has been self evident and easy to setup.

One thing I'm not quite sure about is how to convert our call hunting from RingCentral to 3CX and before I spend a bunch of time trying out different scenarios maybe someone here has input.

Most of our extensions have several parameters to them. For example, my personal extension is setup currently to first ring my Home Office "digital line" (voip phone) as well as my actually office POTS line (we get horrible internet service at our office). If neither picks up then it rings my cell phone and after that goes to voice mail.

It seems that a scenario like this would not be possible with a single extension. I'm thinking I need to setup extensions for all 3 end results (home, office, cell) and use a hunt ring group to find them? Does that sound about right?

We also have (or will have) scenarios where both "land lines" are voip phones and would want them to ring simultaneously before a cell phone. Again, a single extension surely can't handle that so I would think the same scenario applies?

Finally, one last question... in reading about load balancing/failover/ha scenarios on the forum it seems like no issue to run two VM's and load balance them externally with a single IP address, we have a VM load balancer. Is there any way to sync/copy/distribute configuration settings? A shared central database? Copy of settings files? I'd rather not try to manually setup a second box if possible.

Thanks!

 

[leejor]

Most of our extensions have several parameters to them. For example, my personal extension is setup currently to first ring my Home Office "digital line" (voip phone) as well as my actually office POTS line (we get horrible internet service at our office). If neither picks up then it rings my cell phone and after that goes to voice mail.

It seems that a scenario like this would not be possible with a single extension. I'm thinking I need to setup extensions for all 3 end results (home, office, cell) and use a hunt ring group to find them? Does that sound about right?

You could use a ring group to try each in sequence, or ring all at the same time, depending on the option chosen. You could use the ring my mobile option to one additional outside line. You can pass a call to a dummy extension (no actual set registered) , which is in turn forwarded to one of you outside numbers. That extension number could be a part of a ring group.

We also have (or will have) scenarios where both "land lines" are voip phones and would want them to ring simultaneously before a cell phone. Again, a single extension surely can't handle that so I would think the same scenario applies?

You could try two dummy extension appearances, each forwarded to a different outside number, both a part of a ring group.

Finally, one last question... in reading about load balancing/failover/ha scenarios on the forum it seems like no issue to run two VM's and load balance them externally with a single IP address, we have a VM load balancer. Is there any way to sync/copy/distribute configuration settings? A shared central database? Copy of settings files? I'd rather not try to manually set-up a second box if possible.

Someone may have another solution, but, I suspect that most will involve the purchase of two licences.

http://www.3cx.com/blog/voip-howto/3cx-high-availability-system-active-active/

 

[magicalproductions]

Thanks on all accounts. I'm not worried about the licensing so much as the settings/extensions being copied over. I assume there are some settings files or similar (or a backup/restore) that could be done to move settings from one 3CX server to another?

 

[leejor]

Yes, there is an icon to access the 3CX back-up. You should be doing one after any changes you make, to the system. or even once a week. That's a good habit to get into.

 

[magicalproductions]

HA! Thanks.. didn't even LOOK at the program group... duh. Thanks!