Hi, I've got a small fun question. I've got a client who is running 3cx-latest, hosted on an OVH Public Cloud VM. It has been in service for about 2 years. The license of the 3cx is 'free small standard 4SC' version. Generally speaking it has worked very smoothly.
So, the new strange thing. I had an inbound call flow on the system, setup in ~March.2022 which basically had
5 x different DID (one main number plus 4 x legacy phone numbers mostly) >> All route inbound to the same basic flow
Basic flow was
Office hours > Hit a ring seek group > try ring reception phone first > if no answer there, dump to an IVR where callers may self-route their calls
Outside office hours > Dump direct to IVR and let callers self-route, so they can get voice-mail of phone extensions or even if someone is working late at their desk. But nobody at reception outside of office hours so don't bother ring reception.
The intent of this was to give callers the possible 'friendly reception user experience' during office hours, so that they would not just dump to the IVR self-service menu, but have a scenario where callers would talk to human at reception; and only if that person was away from desk, it would go on to the IVR etc etc.
What appears to have happened ?with a recent update? Auto-installed? in the last week or two? Client called me on Monday to complain inbound call flow was broken.
What we observed is that if I called the office during office hours > It rang at reception, and if there was no answer, the call was dropped. It failed to pass on to the IVR once the seek-group failed to get an answer on reception phone. But then a few more tests, it was not clear to me it was consistently failing. But most of the time? it was simply dumping the call if reception did not answer.
So
as a work-around I just changed call flow, removed the seek group, and route all inbound calls to the IVR. This works but it is not the preferred call flow client wants.
I wonder if it might be equally effective and simpler?
Inbound call > reception phone > if no answer ring to IVR. But then there is no easy way to leave voice mail on reception I think in this config, since I will have set 'on no answer send to IVR" as config for reception. I guess the other way to do it is setup a second "EXTENSION" for 'reception' which is never actually used, only as a service account for the voice mail for reception, and that way I could have a call flow,
INBOUND >> RECEPTION_REAL_PHONE_EXTENSION >> IF NO ANSWER >> SEND TO IVR >> and then in the IVR we make sure "leave message for reception" is going to "ALT_EXT_FOR_RECEPTION". > which then just delivers email VM to the reception@email address
which feels kind of klunky because this also means I can't have IVR > callers hit reception other than to leave a voice mail.
unless there is a method I can bind 2 x extensions on the one physical handset. Which I guess might be possible but feels kind of klunky
anyhow
I guess end of the day I am wondering if other people have seen any change to 3cx call flow working/breaking / related to an update recently maybe
I was not sure if the way free version license works has changed recently and maybe call seek is not a feature that is available (although it is not blocked from me in this 3cx so that seems weird if this were the case ?)
any comments or suggestions are appreciated
thanks
Tim
So, the new strange thing. I had an inbound call flow on the system, setup in ~March.2022 which basically had
5 x different DID (one main number plus 4 x legacy phone numbers mostly) >> All route inbound to the same basic flow
Basic flow was
Office hours > Hit a ring seek group > try ring reception phone first > if no answer there, dump to an IVR where callers may self-route their calls
Outside office hours > Dump direct to IVR and let callers self-route, so they can get voice-mail of phone extensions or even if someone is working late at their desk. But nobody at reception outside of office hours so don't bother ring reception.
The intent of this was to give callers the possible 'friendly reception user experience' during office hours, so that they would not just dump to the IVR self-service menu, but have a scenario where callers would talk to human at reception; and only if that person was away from desk, it would go on to the IVR etc etc.
What appears to have happened ?with a recent update? Auto-installed? in the last week or two? Client called me on Monday to complain inbound call flow was broken.
What we observed is that if I called the office during office hours > It rang at reception, and if there was no answer, the call was dropped. It failed to pass on to the IVR once the seek-group failed to get an answer on reception phone. But then a few more tests, it was not clear to me it was consistently failing. But most of the time? it was simply dumping the call if reception did not answer.
So
as a work-around I just changed call flow, removed the seek group, and route all inbound calls to the IVR. This works but it is not the preferred call flow client wants.
I wonder if it might be equally effective and simpler?
Inbound call > reception phone > if no answer ring to IVR. But then there is no easy way to leave voice mail on reception I think in this config, since I will have set 'on no answer send to IVR" as config for reception. I guess the other way to do it is setup a second "EXTENSION" for 'reception' which is never actually used, only as a service account for the voice mail for reception, and that way I could have a call flow,
INBOUND >> RECEPTION_REAL_PHONE_EXTENSION >> IF NO ANSWER >> SEND TO IVR >> and then in the IVR we make sure "leave message for reception" is going to "ALT_EXT_FOR_RECEPTION". > which then just delivers email VM to the reception@email address
which feels kind of klunky because this also means I can't have IVR > callers hit reception other than to leave a voice mail.
unless there is a method I can bind 2 x extensions on the one physical handset. Which I guess might be possible but feels kind of klunky
anyhow
I guess end of the day I am wondering if other people have seen any change to 3cx call flow working/breaking / related to an update recently maybe
I was not sure if the way free version license works has changed recently and maybe call seek is not a feature that is available (although it is not blocked from me in this 3cx so that seems weird if this were the case ?)
any comments or suggestions are appreciated
thanks
Tim
