How to make other Xtns ring in sequence if someone calls me & goes to my voicemail if no one picksup

[voice11]

Hello everyone, I have a unique situation (should be common for others I assume) & wondering if someone has previously come across & has a solution.
I installed 3CX Debian (V15.5) on VmWare workstation 14 Pro (14.1.0), running on WIN7 pro SP1. Everything seem to work just fine, I have multiple ring groups which ring simultaneously, for example sales have 4 xtns and all ring at the same time & then Tech support also has 3 xtns and all ring at the same time as well. So general xtns like sales (201) or tech support (202) are fine, all phones will ring at the same time & if no one in the group picks up it goes to team's (sales/tech support) common voicemail.

My problem is if someone try to call a particular team member's personal xtn (say xtn 209) and if he/she isn't able to take the call, I want that call also ring in sequence to next xtn (say his backup xtn 210). And if 210 also doesn't pickup it goes back to 209's personal voicemail.

 

[Saqqara]

You need to setup new ring groups per extension that send the calls to the correct extensions and goes back the correct voice mail

look at the forwarding rules, send internal calls to the ring group created above instead of extension voicemail

 

[Saqqara]

Instead of using ring groups for your incoming calls maybe look at queues - https://www.3cx.com/docs/manual/call-center-queues/

When a calls comes into a ring group, extensions are polled at the start of the call and if the phone is busy it will never ring when the call is finished where as in a queue the person finishes the call the phone will ring

 

[leejor]

if someone try to call a particular team member's personal xtn (say xtn 209) and if he/she isn't able to take the call, I want that call also ring in sequence to next xtn (say his backup xtn 210). And if 210 also doesn't pickup it goes back to 209's personal voicemail.

The problem with this, is that someone is calling an extension directly, so, you are limited to the forwarding options on that extension. If the call is sent to another extension, then it will follow THAT extensions forwarding options, which may be THAT extensions voicemail.

If the extension "relationships" remain static i.e. Ext 210 always picks up 209's calls, then you might consider a second line key on the sets so that they can answer someone else's extension before it goes off to voicemail. This also means that the caller doesn't hear an extended period of ringback tone, and perhaps "give up".

 

[voice11]

You need to setup new ring groups per extension that send the calls to the correct extensions and goes back the correct voice mail

look at the forwarding rules, send internal calls to the ring group created above instead of extension voicemail

Thank you. But I see two problems with this solution. A, for ring groups "sales" & "tech support" caller hit option 1, 2 or 3 as per IVR prompts. My question, how do you associate IVR prompts to Xtn 209 for example (which is a ring group now), because in IVR there are menu options 1 to 9. You could potentially set 1 for sales, 2 for Tech support etc, but how do you make a prompt or xtn 209 and have ring multiple xtn.
Second potential problem, You have only 1 to 9 prompts, you can get by setting couple extensions only as ring groups, but there are only 9 options. first 3 to 4 are taken by options like sales, tech support, customer service, dial by name etc....you are literally left with just a 2 to 3 prompts. I don't see it a practical solution.
Did I misunderstood?

 

[voice11]

The problem with this, is that someone is calling an extension directly, so, you are limited to the forwarding options on that extension. If the call is sent to another extension, then it will follow THAT extensions forwarding options, which may be THAT extensions voicemail.

If the extension "relationships" remain static i.e. Ext 210 always picks up 209's calls, then you might consider a second line key on the sets so that they can answer someone else's extension before it goes off to voicemail. This also means that the caller doesn't hear an extended period of ringback tone, and perhaps "give up".

Thank you. Yup that's the only practical workaround I could think of and have configured that only. But this isn't really a good answer. Reason I say that is by setting up second line key both phones ring at the same time & if call is for 209 and 210 can pickup call before 209 is able...sometime without even knowing the call was actually for 209.
For general ring groups like "sales" "tech support" etc having multiple xtns ring & who ever picks up is ok. But if someone calls a specific xtn, say 209, in that case 209 should have first shot to pick & should go to their voicemail. I just want to have another (backup xtn 210 for example) also ring in case 209 is out.