Incoming Lines

[Elasomorph]

I have a 3CX server with 4 SNOM 300 Phones and a Patton Smartnode Gateway. Currently I have one PSTN line coming into the gateway which receives all calls. Outgoing calls are made using our Inphonex VOIP lines with 3 DID's. The problem I am having is with incoming calls. If our front office staff is on the line, and someone calls the same PSTN she is on, we want it to ring on line 2 of her phone. Does anyone know how to configure this in 3CX? I tried using the Que's within 3CX but they do not work the way we want them too. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[ess]

This may be a little complicated by the usage of that PSTN line. Can you please clarify your situation? When you say your front office staff is on the line, do you mean with an incoming call on the PSTN? If so, an additional inbound call to the PSTN number will require a rollover to your Inphonex Voip Lines. (Or call waiting, which I haven't had luck with)

This would be a similar situation to this post: http://www.3cx.com/forums/small-office-setup-7997.html#p40715

Please let us know.

 

[William400]

Hi

Can you confirm if your inbound lines are routed to ring groups?

If so ensure that the Snom phone extensions are set to 'Phone status' in the busy options AND also add 'allowUseBusyOptForGroup=1' to the [GENERAL] section of the 3CXphonesystem.ini .

 

[Elasomorph]

Thanks for your response, I will try to clarify. Here is an example of my situation.

1) Caller A calls PSTN line number one
2) The call gets routed to a ring group, which consists of two people (in case one person is on lunch)
3) The front desk picks up the SNOM 300 phone on line 1 which rings
4) While front desk is on the phone Caller B calls the same PSTN number which is in use

This is where I am trying to have the second line flash and ring, so our front desk can put Caller A on hold and answer caller B. Right now if Caller B calls when Caller A is on the phone with the front desk nothing happens. Obviously this is because 3CX doesnt know how to handle it. This is my concern. Hope that helps clarify a bit more.

 

[Elasomorph]

How can I set a rollover to one of my inphonex lines if the PSTN line is busy? And how would I tell the phone to ring that call on line 2, if it is not done automatically? I am running 3CX version 7. Currently if the ring group is busy I can forward to another extension, an outside number, and a couple other options, but I cannot forward to another line to set a rollover. Is that option available somewhere else I am missing in 3CX. Thanks.

 

[Discovery Technology]

Could it be that you do not have enough lines here to take multiple inbound calls?

If your single PSTN line is busy, (ie: Caller A dialled in before Caller B tried to call also) inbound callers would generally experienced an engaged tone.

Would you consider a second PSTN line with a rotary group setup at the telco level? This would then allow the second call to come in (which would in turn shuffle off to the second line which would also need to be connected via a gateway device) - this could then be routed to the same ring group and apply all of your internal routing rules for you.

 

[dmcomputing]

Just to clarify what others have said on this subject.

If you have only a single PSTN line, then it can only carry a single call at any given time. This is not a restriction in 3CX but in the way that telephone systems in gereral work. While your telephone provider may support services such as call waiting (you hear a tone to inform you that someone else is trying to call you), call hold etc., as far as 3CX is concerned, there is still only one call in progress. If call waiting is not enabled on your line, then any other callers will simply get engaged tone.

The possible solutions to your problem are
1. Install one or more pstn lines (connected to your voip gateway) depending on the number of simultaneous lines that you wish to be able to handle. Your telephone provider should be able to set-up hunting on these so that all callers can dial the same number with the exchange presenting the calls to you on the next available line.
2. Check with your telephone provider to see if you pstn line supports call forwarding on busy. If so, then you could try to forward calls to your voip number when your pstn line is busy.

As indicated by other posters, once you can receive additional calls, then the next issue is to configure 3CX to handle the calls in the manner that you want.

Hope this helps to clarify the options.

Des

 

[Elasomorph]

I do have a second PSTN line I could use. My telephone provider does allow a rollover so if the main PSTN number is in use, the caller automatically gets forwarded to the second PSTN line. What I am still confused about is how to get 3CX and the SNOM phones to take over from here. I have now setup two pstn lines on my gateway. Both lines get forwarded to my ring group (which again consists of two people). My problem still remains though, when the second caller calls in, line 2 on the phone does not automatically ring. I guess I am confused about the specific way to configure the lines on incoming. No matter what I do I can't get the second call to come in on line 2. I guess i might have to look at some other system. Thanks for your guys help.

 

[dmcomputing]

I havnt actually tested what you need for this but please see William's earlier post earlier. It appears that the allowUseBusyOptForGroup setting is necessary for multiple calls to extensions when they are in a ring group. If you are using 3CX ver 6, then this is stored in the ini file but is actually stored in the database for Ver 7 so it is not easily accessible.

If you are using Ver 7, then look at the following link http://3cxblog.worksighted.com/2008/12/how-to-enable-missing.html to see how to add this setting.

Some other things that you could try is to ensure that normal incoming calls from other extensions will ring on the second line if the extension is already busy. If not, then ensure that the busy option is set to use phone rather than the 3CX pbx.

I'm sorry that I cant offer any more assistance on this.

Des

 

[Elasomorph]

Thanks for everyone's response on this post. I was able to get incoming calls on line 2 if line 1 is busy, however I was unable to find a solution using the PSTN line. I think what I will have to do is transfer our PSTN main line to a voip line so we can get the system to work correctly.