Office closed voicemail best practice

[Edward Paine]

I have looked at the Manual but can't find a clear overview of voicemail with 3CX, only the following: https://www.3cx.com/docs/group-voicemail/.

We have a main number that goes to a ring group (80). I want to set up is a voicemail message (which allows leaving a message) to activate when our office is out of hours, and also when there is no answer from the ring group.

I am unclear where to record a general office closed message. At the moment the Digital Receptionist (which is where I assume I should be looking?) is set to the default HOL extension which doesn't seem to allow messages to be left?

I have set the group's "Destination if no answer" to the "Voicemail box for Extension", but can't see where to record the message for the extension (80) - it doesn't appear in the list of Extensions.

Any help/guidance appreciated.

Ed

 

[eddv123]

Hi Edward Paine,

The method of Group VM you are looking at means that an attachment is sent on an email to the entire group. The obvious downside to that is that it is hard to keep track of who has dealt with which email.

See this thread for details of some other work-arounds:
https://www.3cx.com/community/threa...eued-for-development.43939/page-2#post-203782

People who are not happy with that behavior have 2 other options for setting up Group VM, you can find them both in the thread above one of which Rod has already mentioned.

I am not sure what your issue is with the recording - please explain. All you need to do is import or record the prompt for the IVR within the IVR, or if you are forwarding to an extension with VM enabled then select the option "Record VM greeting from phone" from either the Management console extension settings or Soft-client.

FYI the format must be PCM, 8 kHz, 16 bit, Mono, Max size: 100MB if recording separate wave files.

 

[Edward Paine]

Just referring to the general office closed message question:
I assume I am right that I need to add the Prompt as a new wav file in the Digital Receptionist. Do I have to request that they press a key (e.g. 0) to leave a message (i.e. transfer to Voicemail I guess) or could I just set a Destination for no input within (say) 1 second, so it went straight to Voicemail?

 

[eddv123]

Or dummy extension where "If I am busy or my phone is unregistered, forward calls to" and then set to a Voicemail.

 

[dentalimaging]

Hi Edward

Just came across this thread whilst having similar issues of my own.

I have already done as eddv123 suggested, and created two different dummy extensions (using numbers not in the same range as the real extensions).

on ext 900, I have recorded a VM wav file with a message that is relevant to in hours - ie "we are busy assisting other customers and you are in a queue"

on ext 901, I have recorded a VM wav file with a different message to say that "the office is now closed" and to please leave a message for us to call back.

then on the inbound rules, I have set the in hours routing to go to a call queue, where they can press * if they want to leave a message. This action is diverted to voicemail for ext 900.

The out of hours action on the same inbound rule simply diverts directly to ext 901.

Both extensions have a common email address eg [email protected] and are set to email the wav file (and then delete from the mailbox so it does not get unnecessarily full). All relevant staff then have access to that common email box and can action accordingly.

If there are better solutions, I too will be happy to hear them.

Regards

Rob