Problem with Ring Groups

[Ecommerce]

I noticed a problem with Ring Groups...

I have one ring group setup with 3 extensions to call at once...

The problem is that normally one of the individuals is on the road, so all calls are set to forward to his cell phone.

If a call comes in to the ring group, the two extensions for the people in the office will ring, but it will not ring the forward to number for the 3rd person.

I then also noticed, when I setup a ring group for all of our sales staff which only use Cell phones, and have extensions with "Always forward" 3CX simply ends the call with busy signals when you call this ring group.

So it seems like Ring Groups only work with non-forwarded phones, which is a problem as not everyone has a desk w/ a phone. How do I get around this?

This feature worked fine with our old PBX system.

 

[Philco]

HI Ecommerce, try setting your line configuration in Edit VOIP Provider/Other options to 'pbx delivers audio'

Though my guess it wont work either, as its part of a ring group.

Phil

 

[Philco]

This may not really help much, but you could forward to a mobile on unanswered from a Ring Group as this does work.

Phil

 

[LLangston]

Just a suggestion for the ring group for your sales staff. You said they all have extensions set to always forward, take the always forward off and in the configuration for 'no answer' set the time to wait for 1 second and set it to forward to an outside number in this case the cell phone of the person who is assigned to that extension. This way when the ring group is called the extensions will forward based on the 'no answer' configuration. I hope this helps.

 

[Philco]

Thats a cool move LLangston, just tried that out of curiosity and it forwards the ring group to one outside number.


Phil

 

[LLangston]

Did you set up all the extensions in the ring group to forward on the 'no answer' or did you just test with one extension?

 

[Philco]

I think I tried two but only one rang.

I'll try again.

Phil

 

[Ecommerce]

As a paid customer, of a supposedly enterprise product, I should not have to make "work arounds" to get basic features to work correctly.

It is very simple, if I set an extension to "Always forward" then ANY call, from the outside world, another extension, or a Ring Group/Queue, it should always forward, in my case to an external cell phone.

 

[Philco]

You've hit he nail on he head as they say..

Phil

 

[Ecommerce]

Anyone from 3CX want to tune in and say anything... or should we all just ignore the problem and act like it does not exist?

 

[archie]

Since latest update you can change default behaviour. Edit your 3CXPhoneSystem.ini file and set
[General]
...
allowUseBusyOptForGroup=1

 

[Ecommerce]

I just upgraded (err... uninstalled, re-installed and restored) to the following version:
3CX Phone System Version5.1.4510.0

I then added the line you posted in the General settings, and restarted the server.... and nothing has changed, it still fails to call all the numbers. It just forwards to the fall-back setup.

 

[archie]

This option is provided to allow phone's busy detection method for a ring group's member. It will not allow to forward all calls from one ring group member.
Actually, it seems I've placed that my message above in this thread by mistake. It was answer to another question.

 

[BJReplay]

I agree this should just work. Provided your VoIP provider or gateway returns the right sip status while ringing the forwarded number, and doesn't indicate it is connected until you pick up the mobile, it should work.

However, one issue is that if you include a mobile in the ring group via an extension that forwards all calls (or after a short no answer delay forward), and the mobile goes straight to voice mail or goes straight to unavailable (is turned off, for example), then the forwarded call will be handled by the mobile, and the internal extensions won't answer - not really what you're after.

 

[Philco]

BJReplay does this actually work?

However, one issue is that if you include a mobile in the ring group via an extension that forwards all calls (or after a short no answer delay forward), and the mobile goes straight to voice mail or goes straight to unavailable (is turned off, for example), then the forwarded call will be handled by the mobile, and the internal extensions won't answer - not really what you're after.

Phil

 

[BJReplay]

BJReplay does this actually work?

Unfortunately, yes.

We had a ring group for our main incoming number that rang all extensions. I set mine to foward all calls to my mobile as I was going to be out of office for the week, but I wanted colleagues to be able to call me. Unfortunately, that meant that when I turned my phone off in a meeting, external callers to our company got my personal mobile's voice mail.

This was a while ago (possibly even V3), but I haven't re-tested lately.

We've worked around it - we're all using SPA 941/942s with multiple lines. Now the main company number rings an extension shared between all phones (same SIPID) using SIP forking introduced in V5, and everyone's direct numbers ring their extension, which in turn can be forward to their mobile.

Ring groups are not really being used any more because of this issue - except for an out of hours handling of our main number - which goes to a ring group that includes extensions set up to forward to just a couple of mobiles (the owners of the business) - we can live with out of hours calls going to voice mail in this case.

 

[Philco]

Ah, your right, it did work in the earlier version but not in the latest. I was getting the impression you had it working now, which was confusing me.

Thanks

Phil