Forwarding out of hours calls to engineers

[leonp]

Hi,

As part of a support desk, our current PBX (asterisk) will receive the call, ask the user to input and then validate a pin and then assuming that customer has extended support, it will attempt to call the duty engineer (On that users mobile number), call that same duty engineer again, followed by calling a duty manager (again, on a mobile number), followed finally by being redirected to voicemail.

I know I can implement the pin part through CFD, however I'm not entirely sure about how to achieve the "hunt" as described above. Any suggestions?

Further to this, our current system relies on the recipient pressing one to accept the call, otherwise it assumes the call has not been answered. The reason for this is so that the caller is not redirected to the mobile phone voicemail of the duty engineer. Is there any kind of facility for transferring calls in this way?

Thanks.

 

[VoIPTools]

I encourage you to look at our 3CX On Call Manager add-on. Our tool allows you to create repeating schedules (say Joe is on call every 3rd week for example). The schedule is maintained using a web-based calendar. Notifications can be by phone, email, and SMS text. You can use 1st level queues, or the more traditional voicemail methods. On Call Manager will send multiple notifications, and at the appointed time escalate to additional contacts if the primary on-call technician doesn't handle the request. We also have a log of when calls came in, who was notified, how they were notified, and how the call was resolved. This is a handy way of monitoring SLA agreements, and whether employees are doing their job.

 

[NickD_3CX]

Further to this, our current system relies on the recipient pressing one to accept the call, otherwise it assumes the call has not been answered. The reason for this is so that the caller is not redirected to the mobile phone voicemail of the duty engineer. Is there any kind of facility for transferring calls in this way?

In the Forwarding Rules, there is the "Announce Caller (Rebound)" which does this.

 

[leonp]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the info - this is the first step in the process. The problem I have is that the call always ends at the extension voicemail if it is not answered, regardless of what rules I put in place.

Is there a way to change the behaviour, to be able to attempt to forward the call to another destination?

Thanks.

 

[VoIPTools]

If you use our tool, this is not an issue. By the way, you can adjust how quickly your cell goes to voicemail. If you use our 1st level queue approach, it can fail over to the 3CX voicemail before it ever gets to the cell voicemail. If the call goes to the 3CX voicemail, then we can escalate to others (up to 30 levels with multiple people per level).

 

[leonp]

If you use our tool, this is not an issue. By the way, you can adjust how quickly your cell goes to voicemail. If you use our 1st level queue approach, it can fail over to the 3CX voicemail before it ever gets to the cell voicemail. If the call goes to the 3CX voicemail, then we can escalate to others (up to 30 levels with multiple people per level).

At best, if your tool does what I need, I would only need one of your tools, not the whole suite which makes it an expensive option. Further to that - you only support windows where my installation is Linux based.

 

[VoIPTools]

We are working on Linux versions of our tools. It won't be long! We have cloud versions coming too. The cloud version will be significantly cheaper because there will be nothing to support. Talk to us about the cloud version!

 

[NickD_3CX]

Is there a way to change the behaviour, to be able to attempt to forward the call to another destination?

In the current implementation unfortunately not, if the call is rejected at the rebound phase, it will go to the VMail of the extension.