Solved Parameters on Hosted

[Mark Adams]

Hi all, new partner here, just got my phone system setup, and hitting my first snag. I have ring groups setup for me and my tech, and just realized that if we are on the phone talking to each other, our phones do not indicate that another call is coming in. It goes straight to VM.

Tried turning on "allow multiple calls" no effect. Alot of online forums are saying to turn on a feature in settings>parameters.

I do not have parameters. I am using the hosted free 1 year option. Is there some other way to access the settings>parameters section that I am not aware of? I have terminal access if that helps.

Or is there any other way to make my phones ring when someone else calls into a ring group and we are both on the phone?

Thanks for any help.

 

[VoIPTools]

For ring groups and call queues 3CX will not give an indication that additional calls are waiting. You will have to look at either the windows or web client to get that information.

 

[Mark Adams]

Wait are you saying that if I have my Windows phone on my PC open then the Windows phone will ring when a call comes into a Ring Group and all members are on the phone?

We tried many scenarios yesterday but we never tried that.

 

[eddv123]

What @voiptoys means is that the "accept multiple calls" feature is for direct calls to an individual extension only. It does not apply to ring groups and queues.

See slide 10 on the academy slides for this:
https://www.3cx.com/3cxacademy/videos/intermediate/configuring-extensions/

FYI: if you are not already aware that setting if in place will take up 2 simultaneous calls if another call comes in. If you use it make sure you account for the extra calls when spec-ing the licence.

 

[Mark Adams]

Ok Thanks, any idea why I cannot seem to get to Parameters under Settings? I am on the free 1 year hosted, and I am trying to get to a setting called ALLOWUSEBUSYOPTFORGROUP but cannot find it.

 

[eddv123]

So if on your 3CX system you go to "Settings" you are saying there is no "Parameters tab" ?

Just a hunch (as I have never used the PBX Express version) but in earlier versions of 3CX (v14 Multi-tenant for example) it did not have the use of the firewall checker feature or parameters due to the fact that these features added a lot of extra resource to the system.

I am not saying this is 100% the case but it could be based on earlier versions.

 

[Mark Adams]

Yes exactly, no parameters, I compared to a local version I have running in a VM. On the VM I have 21 tiles unders settings. In my cloud server I only have 17.

I guess my workaround will be to setup a seperate extension in our Windows client just for our team meetings. Just means we will have to use headset instead of the physical phones.

I am just surprised that there is no supported way to make call waiting work on ring groups.

 

[eddv123]

I imagine that you are looking for the work-around in this string here:
https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/accept-multiple-calls-use-phone-status-ring-groups.20851/

I would agree with one of the comments from @leejor however "Generally, the idea of a ring group, is that there is someone else to take the call because you are busy."

 

[Mark Adams]

Yes that is the option I need, unfortunately I do not have access to custom parameters.

 

[eddv123]

No you are going to be a bit stuck - I can confirm (if you want to move your instance) it is there on a standard instance. I use 3CX on AWS (instance setup first and 3CX applied on top) and parameters and that setting are present - I think it is a PBX Express thing.

 

[Mark Adams]

Ok thanks good to know.

Do you mind if I ask how much the monthly hosting costs on AWS? I haven't gotten that far yet but I assume that is what alot of clients will want and I am curious to know what the monthly is.

I always have heard that AWS and Azure etc charge for "puts" and "gets" so I am assuming that the more phone traffic you have, the more the cost will be?

 

[eddv123]

There are pages like this one if you Google search: https://aws.amazon.com/emr/pricing/

I think they have a calculator as well.

Just be careful of extra hidden charges for things such as elastic IP'S.

 

[CentrexJ]

Are you logged in to management portal as admin or as an admin extension? Parameters only show when logged on as admin.

 

[3CXDude]

Try AWS Lightsail.

Plans start at $5 including IP and bandwidth.

 

[Mark Adams]

Are you logged in to management portal as admin or as an admin extension? Parameters only show when logged on as admin.

I use the user named "admin" that was sent to me in the "Your PBX is Ready" email I received from 3CX, so I assume that makes me admin.

 

[CentrexJ]

Yes. I guess 3CX hosted takes that away then. Pbxexpress has parameters under settings for Azure at least. Likely the others as well.

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Please note that the free 3CΧ hosted instances have hosting admin feature enabled as the user does not have access to the OS. This restricts some options from being available to the system administrator. https://www.3cx.com/docs/pbx-hosting-admin/

In order to have access to those options you will need to host the PBX to an instance you can control.

 

[Mark Adams]

Thanks for your help everyone. I ended up using my free Azure credits from my Action Pak to spin up a PBXExpress in Azure then migrated my settings to that. Once I did that I had the Parameters under Settings, and was able to turn on the setting that allows call waiting when using a Ring Group.

All is tested and working now.

 

[VoIPTools]

I have, for years, set ALLOWUSEBUSYOPTFORGROUP to 1 without any issues (that I'm aware of). So it came as a great surprise last September when I was at the 3CX Partner training event in Florida to learn that changing this setting is highly discouraged by 3CX Support and has known issues. On one hand, it's a must-have feature (in my opinion) for ring groups, and on the other you do take the risk of unpredictable side-effects. I'm just restating what has been echoed in other threads as well. I would suggest you consider other options (like changing business processes) as well. Maybe you can address the need to take multiple calls when participating in a ring group another way.

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

@Mark Adams

Glad to see the issue has been addressed and thank you for sharing your solution. Like @voiptoys mentioned though using this option is not supported by 3CX as it may cause other issues and i would not recommend using it.
Also if you are using the same FQDN on both Azure and the 3CX hosted instance please let me know so we can delete the 3CX hosted one as it will cause issues with the DNS resolution of the FQDN.