Paging Question

[Sara Marlar]

Hello,

I have a customer who we just set up a Fanvil PA2 for their paging system and it's working beautifully.

However, they want to also page all their deskphones at the same time. What is the best method for them to be able to press one key to page their warehouse + all the deskphones?

With a ring group, I can set the Page dial code to *9, then then would be able to dial *9+Ring Group Ext., but I'd love for them to be able to just press a BLF key, as they do that now for the warehouse, by just dialing the BLF for the Paging Adapter.

Thoughts?

 

[Sara Marlar]

Answered my own question again haha

We can set a custom speed dial with the *9+ring group extension and adding the paging adapter extension to the ring group worked beautifully

 

[NicholasP_3CX]

You can also create a paging group under the Ring Groups page. To page, you would not need to add the paging dial code, just the paging group number.

 

[VoIPTools]

Remember there is a practical limit to the number of extensions you can add to a ring group unless you implement multicast.

 

[jed]

Remember there is a practical limit to the number of extensions you can add to a ring group unless you implement multicast.

64 units, isn't it?

 

[VoIPTools]

In my experience, and I suppose that depends on your PBX hardware, the practical limit is about 16 extensions. The more extensions you add that are not multicast, the longer it takes for 3CX to setup all the calls and to receive the notification that you can start speaking. It can very quickly reach 15-30 seconds of wait time.

 

[NicholasP_3CX]

64 units, isn't it?

The 64 members is a soft limit, and not a hard limit, as any more than that will cause a noticable delay in getting the call open to the endpoints to page.

 

[VoIPTools]

I have not tested this in a very long time. In your experience @NicholasP_3CX can you make a large number of calls now?

 

[Fabian Jsn]

Hello,

I have a customer who we just set up a Fanvil PA2 for their paging system and it's working beautifully.

However, they want to also page all their deskphones at the same time. What is the best method for them to be able to press one key to page their warehouse + all the deskphones?

With a ring group, I can set the Page dial code to *9, then then would be able to dial *9+Ring Group Ext., but I'd love for them to be able to just press a BLF key, as they do that now for the warehouse, by just dialing the BLF for the Paging Adapter.

Thoughts?

Yes, use Custom BLF on the operator device to make group paging calls (Custom speed dial *11+group paging extension number, e.g *11 8000), this is a way to make it easier for the operator to do it, and don't forget to give the Receptionist access role to the paging operator extension.

 

[NicholasP_3CX]

when dialling a paging group you dont need to dial the paging dial code. That is only needed to activate the feature and in an INTERCOM scenario.

 

[VoIPTools]

Hey @NicholasP_3CX has something changed that now you can add as many extensions to a paging ring group as you want without using multicast? Last time I tried this I could not add more than about 16 extensions before the wait time to set up all the calls became unreasonable. In the conversation above is seemed you were implying that you can add as many extensions as you want (at least 64). If that were the case, then why bother with multicast at all?

 

[NicholasP_3CX]

Multicast is quicker and more efficient. It is just one audio stream to the multicast address.

 

[VoIPTools]

That is precisely the point I have been trying to make. Sure, maybe you could add 64 extensions in a ring group and eventually you would be able to page, but in my experience to set up that many simultaneous calls would probably take several minutes before you could start speaking. Using multicast means you do not need to setup 64 simultaneous calls so when you go to page, you can speak immediately.