Pickup transfered calls

[paragondie]

We are setting up a new implementation using 3CX and have run into a problem with call pickup. When someone calls an extension or if a call comes in on an outside line a user can use the pickup function to receive the call from a different phone. However if someone answers that call and then does a blind transfer to another extension, trying to pickup that call from a different phone fails. We need this function so the receptionist can transfer an incoming call to a phone and then page the person to pick it up from wherever they are in the building. This was suggested as a solution to the lack of call parking in another topic but it doesn't seem to work. Any help would be appreciated since this is one of the final issues keeping us from going live with the new system.

Thanks.

 

[nb]

So please correct me if Im wrong

You receive call inbound - comes to receptionist. Receptionist blind transfers to extension xxx. xxx is ringing. User that is on xxx is not there to pick u p the phone but is somewhere else. You send him a page "please Pick up phone from xxx". He receives page and goes to the nearest phone and picks up the call.

But how do you know that the user is not there? Or you send a page to everyone everytime a call comes in for them? Im assuming that the receptionist cannot know from her desk who is at the phone or no.

But its true - if you blind transfer a call first, you wont be able to pick it up after from another phone.

Are you able to pick up an incoming call without transfering first?
And does this happen with blind transfers only or even with attended transfers?

 

[paragondie]

There are two cases where this happens. Someone calls in for a shop employee who does not have a phone. In that case the receptionist blind transfers to one of the phones in the shop and pages to let the person know they have a call. That person may or may not be near that phone so they often pickup the call from another phone. The other case is when she calls the person's extension and the person is not there. Sometimes the person will tell the receptionist that he/she is expecting a call and to page if they are not at their desk. In that case the receptionist transfers the call to the extension and pages the person to pick it up. A call park feature would obviously solve both of these problems and I understand that this feature is being implemented. A temporary solution to parking that was posted in the forums was to set up a "bank" of soft phones to use to transfer calls then page the person to pick up the call from the soft phone extension. This is what we were trying to implement but it doesn't seem to work.

 

[nb]

Hi -
I requested a fix for this by the way ok. Just so you are informed. Your request will not be ignored.

I think the best solution untill we fix this is this:set extension to transfer to mobile number if no answer after 20 sec.
The Bank idea is more attractive than the above (to reduce the cost of transfer to a mobile call). Set this bank of phones on a ring group named COMMON example. If after 20 seconds no answer, the call is forwarded to COMMON group. The common ring group consists of 5 phones that are installed in specific places remotely around the company. Your staff will know that these phones will be temporarily used to receive calls when they are not at their desk.

The call is automatically transfered to the ring group COMMON and all 5 phones start ringing - either one after the other in hunt mode with short intervals or all at once - ring all. Mr X will answer it because the receptionist pages him and tells him to answer COMMON (whereever he is). Mr X knows at that instance that since he received the page message than that common phone is ringing for him.

You will inform your users that they can only pick up calls from common only if they are not at their desk AND with receipt of a pager message - "you have a COMMON" example or something predefined of the sort.

of course I may be wrong but I tried to give you a solution - here I am assuming that the BANK of phones is placed in places that MR X is PRONE to be when he is not at his desk. If you cannot assume where Mr X may be then you have to wait for the fix, transfer to mobile or page mr X to phone the receptionist on another line and inform her on which extension to transfer the call. In that case he will give her the extension that is closest to him at that particular instance.

 

[paragondie]

Thank you for your help. For now we will be using your last option and paging people to call the receptionist. She can then transfer the call to whatever extension the person is at. This is not the optimal solution but we think it will work in the short term.