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Forward to Outside Number Problem

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cmsesan1

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I need to forward calls to an outside number if they are unanswered within say 10 seconds. This is because at times there is no-one in the office so calls are forwarded to a receptionist elsewhere.

We are just using 2 BT phone lines connected to the network via 2 SPA-3102 (gateways?). No VoIP providers are used.

I have a ring group with all 4 users within it. Within the ring group I tried setting 'Forward to Outside Number' to 901582438597, the 9 being what we dial for an outside line. Also I set the Ring Time to 10 seconds. This did not work.

I tried looking for a solution and saw that Settings, General, Global Options tab, 'Allow forwarding to external numbers in Ring Groups and Queues on/off' was not ticked. Therefore I ticked it. The result was as follows according to a person in the office

"We have limited success.

I’ve just called the office again and after 3 rings it transferred to the answering service but the line was very quiet so I couldn’t hear her or her me!

I said I’d try again but when I re-dialled it said the office line was engaged even though no-one here was on the line and it’s still not letting me ring the office number saying it’s still engaged!"

I notice that the 'Allow forwarding to external numbers...' option has a tooltip saying "...requires that the gateway must be able to and configured to accept a call ONLY when the callee has answered the call".

Does anyone know how to get this to work?

I would be very grateful for any help.

Thanks
 
I am thinking that since you are using analog lines then there is quite a bit of time spent on call setup. try increasing the time before forward. also with only 2 lines your going to run into issues alot. I would suggest getting a sip trunk just for outbound purposes for the forwarding and setup another outside dialcode that you can use to forward the calls through to use the sip trunk. the sip trunk will also give you caller id of the person that originally called in as well.
 
willow said:
I am thinking that since you are using analog lines then there is quite a bit of time spent on call setup. try increasing the time before forward.
Would the time before forward be set on the gateway? Where would I set that?

I would suggest getting a sip trunk just for outbound purposes for the forwarding...
They are keen to just make calls through BT and have 1 bill. They have a rubbish BT router and it seems a pain having to set up a VoIP provider just for the sake of forwarding an unanswered call. Ideally I could buy a good DrayTek router and set up a VoIP provider but they want to go the cheap route. The reason being that often there is only 1 person in the office, and sometimes no-one is in the office (which is why they want to forward to a cheap BT receptionist service).

4 Cisco 7940 phones are available, but they can manage with making 1 or 2 phone calls at a time. The first outgoing call is routed through the less used number to free up the main office number for incoming calls.

Is there a way to achieve forwarding with the existing setup for when there is no-one in the office?

Thanks
 
cmsesan1 said:
I notice that the 'Allow forwarding to external numbers...' option has a tooltip saying "...requires that the gateway must be able to and configured to accept a call ONLY when the callee has answered the call".

Generally, with a PSTN gateway, as soon as the digits have been sent, a message is sent back to 3CX that tells it that called party has answered, whether they have or not. In some rare cases answer supervision may be monitored through a current reversal but this option is not available to all subscribers and some PSTN gateways don't support it. The only way to insure answer supervision is through the use of a VoIP trunk.
 
Thanks very much for your help Willow and leejor.
 
I'm not sure whether it will help but try ticking on "Supports Re-invite' and 'Supports Replace' in advanced settings for your provider / gateway. I managed to solve similar problem in this way.

Regards,
Orlin.
 
I ticked 'Supports Replace' for the gateways and that worked the first time (thanks Orlin). I was told that the call went through to the answering service person. The trouble was that the call never disconnected. Gateway 1 showed an active incoming call, and Gateway 2 showed an active outgoing call despite the answering service person putting the phone down.

Any ideas?

I think the gateways have settings to disconnect the call after so many seconds silence, but perhaps that is not the best way to go about it.
 
The company partially achieved what they want to do by connecting a BT phone so they can dial
*21*
This I believe forwards unanswered calls to the BT receptionist number.

They originally tried this from the Cisco 7940s with and without a 9 in front for an outside line, and it did not work.

Is there a way to dial *21* from the Cisco 7940s without 3CX interfering with it? That would be the best answer as then the receptionist would just answer without them having to pay for an external call.
 
cmsesan1 said:
Is there a way to dial *21* from the Cisco 7940s without 3CX interfering with it?

You can, by creating an oubound rule.... dial 123, strip 3 digits, add *21*. That's not the problem. The problem is that the 3102 does not interpret either the asterisk or octothorp (*,#) properly. It ends up seeing them as hex (equivalent) digits (as I recall for my experience a few years ago). What you might look into, is if there is a rotary dial equivalent that still works using DTMF, as there is in North America (11 replaces the *)

cmsesan1 said:
I think the gateways have settings to disconnect the call after so many seconds silence, but perhaps that is not the best way to go about it.

They also have a CPC option that makes use of a momentary disconnect on the phone line if the called or calling party hangs up. You would need to check and see if your PSTN line provides this as not all do. There is also an option to detect a disconnect tone, this would need to be set for your region as the default, in the 3102, is for North America.
 
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