Recording calls made to a cell phone

[VoyantPhone]

OK. I know that to record calls to a cell phone, I have to create an extension where the cell number is setup as the "Mobile" number and set that extension to "Ring my mobile simultaneously."

I have a setup in a doctors office where there is one extension set to always answer the phone. We call that extension the inbound call router. There is no actual phone connected to that extension, but several PCs in the office have the 3CX app open to that extension so they can change whare the calls go. When the inbound call router is set to "Available," calls go to the standard ring group of receptionist phones in the office. When the call router extension is set to "Do not disturb" it forwards calls to the cell phone of one of the business managers. This is usually done after hours so the business manager gets any after hours calls on her cell phone. They now want to be able to record these after hours calls.

I upgraded the client to the Enterprise license, so recording is now possible. I created a new extension called "Away" that doesn't have a phone connected to it. I set that Away extension to "Available," set up the business managers cell phone as the Mobile Number, and checked all the boxes for "Ring my mobile simultaneously," "Accept multiple calls," "Log out from Queues," "Accept calls from ring groups," and "Accept push notifications."

When I set the inbound call router extension to "Away." it is now set to forward calls to the new Away extension, and the mobile phone of the Away should ring simultaneously. That's not happening. Instead, it follows the rule set if the Away extension is unregistered. Even though I do not have a phone connected to that extension, it shows up as Green in the list of extensions - which I thought meant that it was registered. I then opened a 3cx App on my PC that is set to the Away extension. It is set to "Available." Now the call gets forwarded from the inbound call router to the Away extension, and i's 3cx app rings on my PC - But it still does not ring on the cell phone.

Before I write an entire novel, does anybody know why the cell phone isnt ringing whether or not I have the 3cx app for the Away extension on or off? Or have a better suggestion to get this to work? Thanks!

 

[leejor]

I'm not entirely certain that a forwarded call will be recorded, as the extension, where the recording is done not involved in the call. So attempting to set it up as you, may not buy you anything anyway.

 

[VoIPTools]

If you forward a call to a cell, then there is no extension participating. In effect, this is how it looks to the PBX:

external inbound call --> PBX --> external cell phone

Because there is no extension participating in the call, it will not be recorded. If these calls must be recorded, then the doctor will have to use the 3CX app on their phone and have the call routed to their extension rather than the cell phone number.

 

[VoyantPhone]

Problem solved, and I am an idiot. Two very important items are required.

In the "Away" extension, under Options --> Restrictions, the box for " Disallow use of extension outside the LAN (Remote extensions using Direct SIP or STUN will be blocked) " MUST BE UNCHECKED.

And the stupider part - I never set up an Outbound Rule for calls from the "Away" extension. So the setup I had worked fine from the beginning, but when the Away extension tried to ring the cell phone simultaneously, there wasn't an Outbound Rule to allow the extension to make the call that would ring the cell phone.

Once these two items were taken care of, the calls go through and the recordings are made. Technically, there are two identical recordings made at the same time - one by the Away extension and one through the Inbound Router extension. That can't be avoided, but now I have a working setup with recordings.

Countless hours spent figuring this out. Hopefully someone else will read this and learn from my stupidity...

 

[VoIPTools]

Really?!! 3CX is now recording forwarded calls to a cell phone? Let me confirm:

external inbound call --> Internal extension --> forwarded to cell number

This call is being recorded?

 

[VoyantPhone]

Yes, you can record, but not exactly the way you have it.

An external (or internal) call comes in, and you forward the call to an extension that has recording turned on and also MUST be set up to ring the mobile phone simultaneously. If you answer the "simultaneously ringing" mobile phone, 3cx will record the conversation.

It actually records the same call twice - one time listed as the call from the outside to the original number, and one time as the external call to the forwarded extension. That does take up double the storage space, but better to have the recording than not. (If you want to be really fancy, you can create an app that runs daily and deletes the duplicates...)