Multiple Extensions Same Voicemail Box?

[Darren Peck]

I recently migrated from Incredible PBX to the new PBX in a Flash 5 which runs on Debian and powered by 3cx at the core. Must say I am very happy with it so far.

I have read that the same extension could be provisioned on multiple devices, is this true for the same extension to be registered at the same time though on multiple devices?

I have 10 desk phones, each with separate extensions. On the old server I simply setup a symlink so that the extensions ended up sharing the same voicemail box, and this worked amazingly well. As soon as somebody left a voicemail message, all 10 phones lit up to show there was a voicemail message.

On 3cx however, using this same practice seems to still only affect the 1 extension where the voicemail box is actually setup.

How would one setup the same voicemail box for these 10 separate extensions? We like having separate extensions since a call may be transferred to another desk phone easily to move around the office and such.

Any thoughts?

 

[ALuisPV]

Hi Darren ,

as far I know, you only can have one mailbox per extension. But you can have your 10 SIP Endpoints registered with the same account.

I don't know if this solution can be valid for you, but you can have 2 accounts configured in each phone:

Phone 1: Ext 100 and Ext 200
Phone 2: Ext 100 and Ext 201
...
Phone 10: Ext 100 and Ext 209

You can use extensions 2XX to communicate normally and you can use Ext 100 only for voicemail purposes. You may have configured, for instance, all your forwarding rules to send calls to mailbox 100 depending on your needs. With this solution, you can access the same mailbox (100) from all of your phones (using SIP Account 100) and you can have different extensions too (using Exts 2XX).

Best Regards.

 

[Darren Peck]

Thank you for your reply. I am open to setting up the same extension on all devices. My only concern is that with other PBX systems, I have seen how an extension can only be registered on one device at a time. Is this the same for 3cx?

Let's say Device A registers extension 100, but then 2 minutes later Device B registers extension 100.

My prior experience with other PBX systems is that Device A would show to be registered, but not actually work since it was replaced by Device B. So if a call came in, not both devices would ring, just Device B.

If Device C were to come in then both A and B would do nothing, but C would respond.

So this is my only concern.

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

You can register up to 30 devices in one extension and all will be registered normally. Make sure you have the option "Accept multiple calls"
enabled under the forwarding rules tab in the management console so you can accept more that one calls if you need to.

 

[Darren Peck]

Oh awesome! Thank you! I just checked that option for my main extension. I will work on my provisioning files so that my main extension is on all of our desk phones, and then go from there! Thank you so much!

 

[iwatts]

Consider using a Ring Group with the Ring All strategy.. with some group email address for unanswered calls to the group. To each their own I guess.