Multiple Receptionists and Voicemail

[Frazer]

Hi,
I'm are currently testing 3CX and its features with Yealink phones and would like to do the following:
Receptionist 1 - Ext 100
Receptionist 2 - Ext 102

Internally dial 0 - Calls both receptionists until one of them picks up.

Externally, when someone dials our our main number/DID, 3CX should call '0' so that both receptionists can answer the external call.

At the end of the day when the last receptionist leaves, they can place Ext 0 into voicemail so that internal and external calls go to straight to a main voicemail.

The following morning, either receptionist can disable this and take calls as well as either of them checking the voice mail.

Currently I have this:
Ext 101 & 102 set up on 2 phones for the 2 receptionists
Ext 000 (no phone attached) has SIP ID of 0 and automatically forwards to Ring Group 001 after 1 second
Ring Group 001 has members 101 and 102
3CX Operator set to Ext 000 (or use 001?)

Is there a cleaner way to do this?
How would the either receptionists control the straight-to-voicemail at the start/end of the day?
How would either of them access the voice mail that accumulates out of hours / during holidays?
Thanks

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Hello @Frazer

Do you have to dial 0 internally or can the users dial directly the Ring Group number? If so your setup would be simplified.

The 2 receptionists would be part of the ring group which internal users can dial and you could point your inbound rule directly to the Ring Group.
At the end of the day once both receptionists are off they just set their extensions to DND and the Ring Group will automatically forward the calls to voicemail since no members are available in the Ring group. Once they come to work the next day and set their extension to available then the Ring Group can forward calls to them.

You can use the group voicemail of the Ring group which will send the voicemails as emails to the members of the Ring Group or forward the calls to a different voicemail of a dummy extension which can be accessed by both receptionists.

 

[Frazer]

Hi Yiannish,
Its not essential, I was just hoping to keep as many details the same as the existing system to avoid confusion.
However I think we would take the opportunity to simplify our phone list (especially introducing ring groups).

 

[Brian Cross]

Hi,
I'm are currently testing 3CX and its features with Yealink phones and would like to do the following:
Receptionist 1 - Ext 100
Receptionist 2 - Ext 102

Internally dial 0 - Calls both receptionists until one of them picks up.

Externally, when someone dials our our main number/DID, 3CX should call '0' so that both receptionists can answer the external call.

At the end of the day when the last receptionist leaves, they can place Ext 0 into voicemail so that internal and external calls go to straight to a main voicemail.

The following morning, either receptionist can disable this and take calls as well as either of them checking the voice mail.

Currently I have this:
Ext 101 & 102 set up on 2 phones for the 2 receptionists
Ext 000 (no phone attached) has SIP ID of 0 and automatically forwards to Ring Group 001 after 1 second
Ring Group 001 has members 101 and 102
3CX Operator set to Ext 000 (or use 001?)

Is there a cleaner way to do this?
How would the either receptionists control the straight-to-voicemail at the start/end of the day?
How would either of them access the voice mail that accumulates out of hours / during holidays?
Thanks

Why not have inbound calls route directly to a ring group of both the receptionist extensions.

Use Office hours to define start/end of day. You can set globally or You can specify office hours per extension so if they do not both work the same hours.

End of day set the calls to go to the operator extension which uses a mail distribution email that both receptionists are members of OR an additional mailbox they have full permissions to access (they could then see which emails have been read). The email is dependent on what you use IE. exchange vs another solution

To dial the ring group internally would just be the extension number you give that ring group.

 

[Frazer]

Hi Brian,
It seems stupid now I think about it - The 3CX initial setup wizard setup lead me to believe we needed to use the 'operator extension' (000) for incoming calls where DID's weren't assigned to an extension.
Creating a Reception Ring group, assigning a DID with the two extensions as members should be exactly what we need. We can then assign a group voice mail to the ring group.

I don't think the out of office hours will work for us. While we are regular in our open hours for 3-4 days of the 5-day week, we quite often have events/reasons to stay open longer (we are are a school). So its easier for the 2 receptionists to sign in/out with DND when they are starting/finishing.

https://www.3cx.com/user-manual/ feels like there's quite a bit missing for someone setting up on their own, but I guess this could be intentional so that you work with a partner (we are looking at this anyway)

Thanks