Flowroute issues

[admin1209]

Good morning hive mind!

I'm not new to PBX's but I am new to 3CX. We are currently using the SMB version as we only have 3 phones.

I have an account with Flowroute with 2 numbers currently (1 personal and 1 for an offsite office), and will soon be adding more if I can figure out how to make this work. I had been using SIP auth on both 3CX instances, but have odd call behavior with this. When I call the personal number the office will ring or vice versa. I contacted Flowroute and they told me I need to use Host-Based routes instead of SIP auth. but I'm not finding a way to do that in 3CX. Is this a possibility?

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Hi @admin1209

3CX supports only the SIP auth based Flowroute trunks so you cannot add a Host-based Flowroute trunk on SMB. Unfortunately Flowroute only has 1 set of credentials per account so you can only have 1 trunk per account.
You could set up a second Flowroute account a transfer 1 of your numbers there which will allow you to have 2 set of credentials and 2 trunks. You can add multiple DIDs per trunk but only 1 trunk per account.

The other possibility is to go to a dedicated 3CX installation and use the Generic template to set it up how you like.

 

[admin1209]

Hi @admin1209

3CX supports only the SIP auth based Flowroute trunks so you cannot add a Host-based Flowroute trunk on SMB. Unfortunately Flowroute only has 1 set of credentials per account so you can only have 1 trunk per account.
You could set up a second Flowroute account a transfer 1 of your numbers there which will allow you to have 2 set of credentials and 2 trunks. You can add multiple DIDs per trunk but only 1 trunk per account.

The other possibility is to go to a dedicated 3CX installation and use the Generic template to set it up how you like.

Yeah, I ended up setting up the free 2 month trial of Pro and adding it using the generic template with IP based authentication. So far it seems to be working! Do you know if there is a limit to the number of departments that can be created?

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Do you know if there is a limit to the number of departments that can be created?

Not really . But the more you create and the more extensions you have the better your hardware must be. How many are you thinking of adding?

 

[admin1209]

Not really . But the more you create and the more extensions you have the better your hardware must be. How many are you thinking of adding?

Well, at the moment, I've only got 2 setup, but by the end of the year, 30. Each would have no more than 3 phones. Planning to upgrade to the 24 SC plan.

I appologize for the continued questions, but I keep thinking of them along the way. I will want to assign each department its own DID/trunk since they are spread out geographically. Since I have to do IP authentication for each number, is there a way to differentiate the departments so that calls are routed appropriately through Flowroute? Essentially I have x.x.x.x mapped to one of my numbers, but that same IP will be eventually used for all of them...

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

30 Departments is absolutely doable just make sure your machine has enough resources for the users you will add.

Since I have to do IP authentication for each number, is there a way to differentiate the departments so that calls are routed appropriately through Flowroute? Essentially I have x.x.x.x mapped to one of my numbers, but that same IP will be eventually used for all of them...

You can have multiple DIDs under the same trunk and just assign a DID to each department. So whenever that DID is called the call will be routed to the assigned department. You do not need multiple trunks to achieve this. You can also do this with a registration based trunk (which we support) and have all your numbers behind one registration.

 

[admin1209]

30 Departments is absolutely doable just make sure your machine has enough resources for the users you will add.


You can have multiple DIDs under the same trunk and just assign a DID to each department. So whenever that DID is called the call will be routed to the assigned department. You do not need multiple trunks to achieve this. You can also do this with a registration based trunk (which we support) and have all your numbers behind one registration.

That does make sense, but Flowroute made me think that THEY would be the ones to route where the calls went. I'm also trying to avoid the possibility that if the trunk drops, all 30 locations aren't down at the same time. Ideally it'd be 1 trunk/did per department

 

[fortech]

Hi, just to chime in. For what it is worth.

Maybe if you are concerned about redundancy and fault tolerance, consider using multiple SIP Trunk providers. Split some of your DID across different SIP Trunk Carrier. And then bind the multiple sip trunk onto your 3cx instance. You may then easily do inbound routing > as per usual; and can setup outbound flow with (Primary and secondary, etc) to give some outbound call route failover capacity, in case your primary sip trunk provider is having a bad day and their servers are dead. This gives you ~partial inbound call functionality for the sip-trunk-carrier who is still alive / for DID on that carrier; and all your outbound calling will also carry on without drama.

Tim