Recptionist history

[MikkelAnd]

Hi,

We are working with a potential client regarding switching them to 3CX, but they have a couple of questions regarding the recptions function/view

1. is it possible for the receptionist to view some sort of history. I.e. the same user calls in the following day and asks to speak to the same person
2. is it possible for the receptionist to have an overview of the calls from that day
3. is it possible for the receptionist to have a "non-CRM integrated" view of the previous times the caller has called before (i.e. showing the calls from that person over the last couple days/weeks).

Sincerely
Mikkel Andreasen

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

Hey @MikkelAnd , all the information you mention can be acquired by generating the appropriate reports from within the Management Console. That said, you can either provide Management Console access to the Receptionist extension and only allow them to generate reports:

Extensions >> Edit >> Rights



Alternatively you could schedule report tasks to run daily or with any frequency you want, and have them automatically sent to the receptionist email address.

I'd recommend first having a look at all available reports in order to determine if the data they present fulfill your requirements.

The "Reports" feature is only available in 3CX Pro and Enterprise editions.

 

[MikkelAnd]

Hi,
I'm aware of the reports feature (and they are looking at enterprise for other reasons), but for a busy receptionist/customer service representative that's too slow - they would like the recent history to be integrated into the switchboard view. Or at least easily searchable.
/mikkel

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

In that case, the next option that would be faster and also allow you to filter calls would be the Call log, again from within the Management Console. This however would mean that the extension in question would require General System Administration rights.

 

[MikkelAnd]

Yeah.... As that may be a solution to the the issues in my original post, it's pretty much a no-go.
Admin rights should definitely be closely guarded and while I'm sure the customer service department are perfectly nice people they will not be included as admins

 

[ChrisC_3CX]

I completely understand. You could also use the Call Data Records, but that would mean that you would have to find a way to process the data yourself. 3CX can write the CDR to a file or send them over TCP to another location. What is on the receiving end and how the data will be process will be up to you to figure out though. The simplest way would probably just have the data written to a file and have the user search through the file but since the data is raw, it would not be very user friendly.

 

[VoIPTools]

Building on ChrisC_3CX suggestion to use the CDR data, may I offer some suggestions? First, there is not going to be a way for the receptionist to see this information from within the web client. However, we could present the needed information in a separate tab in the same browser.

3CX can be configured to create a text file, one file for each call. These files contain summary information about each call including everyone that touched the call (call chain). Our 3CX Exporter tool can parse this information in real-time and put the data into a SQL database.

With the call information in a database, now it is just a matter of presenting the data to the receptionist in a useful way. It would not be that hard to display a searchable grid in a web page (in a separate browser tab). For that matter, it could automatically present relevant information based on the current active phone call.

True, we are talking about custom software development, but it is possible to do.