Emergency Messages on Phone Lines

[jebsworth]

Thanks for any help in advanced.

Our customer has requested a quick way to implement an emergency voicemail message to add to all 5 of their main phone numbers at once, but I'm not sure how easy or quick we can do this, apart from going to each Inbound rule and redirecting it to the message.

The customer wants this for when the building has been evacuated in the event of a fire, to inform their clients of why they aren't answering the phones.

Does anyone have experience with implementing something like this? Given the circumstances this would need to be something they can implement for themselves in a few minutes

 

[Alphabetic]

Im not sure who's waiting around to record a greeting to say their buildings on fire? Surely their priority is evacuating?

 

[jebsworth]

My thoughts exactly, They dont want to record it live, they just want the quickest way to divert all incomings calls to a pre-recorded message

 

[Alphabetic]

just make a DNA after 10 seconds with a prompt that says:-

"Im sorry we couldnt answer your call, one of the possibilities could be:- fire evacuation, were closed, tornado, a bear came in, left the kettle on..." theres no quick way natively.

 

[TheodorosG_3CX]

I have to agree with @kieferschild in case of an emergency a generic prompt will cover all possibilities.

 

[VoIPTools]

Depending on how you route inbound calls, perhaps it would be possible to route all inbound calls to a dummy extension that normally routes the calls to the default IVR, but in an emergency situation this dummy extension's presence could be changed to "Away" and have it instead forward calls to the emergency IVR that has the appropriate prompt?

Then all you would need is access to the web client or a 3CX client on your mobile to change the presence from Available to Away. That can be done off-site.

 

[Alphabetic]

This would require all DIDs to be going to the same destination. If not, he's going to be switching the status on 5 dummy extensions whilst the fire creeps up the stairs

 

[VoIPTools]

If you can find no other workable solution, then it is always possible to change the route of inbound rules to the emergency IVR via the 3CX Call Control API (or using our REST API). Again, a web page that allows you to make the necessary change with the push of a button.

 

[VoIPTools]

This would require all DIDs to be going to the same destination. If not, he's going to be switching the status on 5 dummy extensions whilst the fire creeps up the stairs

That's why I prefaced my suggestion with "depending on how you route calls". You are absolutely correct. However, many businesses route all calls to a main number first, then allow callers to enter an extension number from the main IVR. "If you know your party's extension you can dial it at any time".