Office Hours for Call Queues are neglected

[HermicusEN]

Hi togehter,
i am looking for a workaround for a customer, because Call Queues do not respect (in/or out-of)Office Hours, in my case out of global office hours.
My customer has a rezeption desk, which is managing all calls transfered to the call queue during the global office hours.
All other extension are directly available during their personal office hours (defined by inbound rules).
The personal extensions office hours exceed the presence of the rezeption desk (and also the global office hours)
If they direct extension is during their in-office time and global out of office time away or busy, the calls are transfered into the call queue and the caller waiting there endless, cause the rezption is not manned. (During the intersection of global and extension based office time, that`s so intended and working fine.
The customers requirement is, that the call queue (only managed by man in global office times) is giving the out of office message in case of transfered calls from direct extensions.
Manual options for those extensions to press Q (to be a agent for the queue out of global office times) or switch to an other status are no option for that customer.
i cannot find an automatic handling for that issue.
Thanks for your suggestions

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

You could utilize the extension profile status autoswitching. If you enable profile status autoswitching for the extension, when out of office hours are reached, it will be automatically switched to the DND status. You can have the DND profile status automatically log the extension out of the Queue and therefore the Queue will route all calls to it's set "Destination if no answer" which could be an IVR that plays the Out of office audio prompt.

You can enable Profile Status autoswitching under "Extensions >> Edit >> Forwarding Rules >> Auto Switch". Remember to also select the "Do not Disturb" in the "Forwarding Rules" tab and then select the "Log out from queues" checkbox under "Options".

Note: Do bear in mind that the extension will be automatically set to the "Away" profile status during break times.

 

[HermicusEN]

Hi Chris,
thank you i guess you missunderstood my german english explanation ;-)
The autoswitching option for that extension will not solve the problem in my eyes. I try to explain it again.

The affected extension is in office (inbound rule-->Set up Specific Office Hours for this rule -> to be available for direct calls when the rezeption is not manned and also when its out of global office hours ) and e.g. he is in a call.
His forwarding rule for "busy" is forward to the call queue.(when agents for call queue are there - its fine)
But to that time when my problem is present, the agents for the call queue are not anymore in the office.(the affected extension is never member of the queue - so the option log out from queues is not a solution for me.
To auto-switching to DND for the affected extension is making direct calls to him impossible, isn't it?
He wants to be direct available for calls during his own office hours, but if his forwarding target for busy---> call queue is out office- he estimates then the out of office message.
The call queue is always available and has no office times - thats my problem.

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I see, in that case I did understand the situation

I think I understood this time, so you have Inbound Rules that have specific office hours and that route to specific Extensions directly. The PBX also has global office hours that do not match those set on the Inbound Rules so there are times where the Inbound Rules are "In Office" while the whole PBX is "Out of Office". The call queue you mention needs to follow the Global PBX Office hours, meaning that, calls going directly to the extensions via the Inbound Rules should not then end up in the Call Queue due to Forwarding Rules on the extension level.

If this is the case, why not set Auto profile switching only for the extensions in the Call Queue and then have the call queue route all calls to an IVR with the message? If this cannot happen because you need the "Destination if no answer" of the call queue to be something else, or some extensions who are members of the Call Queue are also extensions that need to be able to receive direct calls, your best bet would be to use a dummy/routing extension.

You could for instance, create an extension and create two forwarding rule exceptions. The Caller ID to match would be an asterisk * to act as a wild card and therefore match all calls. The first rule will route all calls to the Call Queue "During Global Office hours" and the second one will route all calls to the IVR (Out of office message) "Out of Global Office hours". Then, all you will need to do, is change your current forwarding rules on your "Direct" extensions to route calls when busy to this dummy extension instead of the Call Queue directly. The dummy extension will then route the call based on the PBX's global office hours.

Hope I got it this time!

 

[HermicusEN]

Great workaround, the dummy and these 2 exceptions solved it.
The autoswitch option for all queue agents during office times, i already checked without sucess - before i tried my luck here in the forum.
My effect there was, if all agents were "auto-not available", i got a message "There are no available agents in queue at this moment"" -before the IVR (out of office mesage) was played.
For interest, is there a way to omit that message and transfer straight to "Destination if no answer". If no Agents available- there will no answer.

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

My effect there was, if all agents were "auto-not available", i got a message "There are no available agents in queue at this moment"" -before the IVR (out of office mesage) was played.

The "no available agents" message should only play if the Destination if no answer of the Call Queue is set to "End Call", since you are sending the Call to an IVR, it should not play the message.