Ring Group No Longer Ringing Queue Agents

[JustinB-PedEnt]

We have a ring group set up as an "Emergency Backline" for one of our departments. Most members of this department are agents of a queue. It has always been the case that if a call came in through the backline RG, all member's phones would ring whether they were on a call, or receiving a Queue Call. If Line 1 was occupied, the call would come in on Line 2.

This seems to have recently broken. Ring Group extensions will no longer receive a call if they are currently on a call or if their line is ringing. The options for 'Allow Multiple Calls' and 'Accept calls from Ring Group' are enabled for these extensions.

Was this an intended change?

EDIT: I've found a couple recent threads citing the ALLOWUSEBUSYOPTFORGROUP parameter. I am assuming we've had this enabled for the last 5 years and were relying on that functionality. Can someone confirm that this would cause the change I'm describing and that it was disabled as an undocumented change in the most recent version?

 

[Charles_3CX]

This is not possible, I'm afraid. Multiple calls are not possible from Ring groups or Call Queues. You must direct the DID to the extension directly if you want to receive multiple calls.

The parameter you are referring to was never a supported solution. This was found, but with the disclaimer that if used it is done so at your own risk, and no support will be offered from the system.

If you would like to pick up a second call from a Ring Group, you will need first to park the current call using either a BLF key configured for a shared parking place or transfer the call to parking orbit, this will release the call from the extension, you can then pick up another call using the call pick-up feature (*20*) or BLF keys configured for extensions that are in the Ring Group and are ringing.

You may also put the call on hold, open a new line using the line keys, and then perform a call pickup to answer the new call.

You can not get audible representations of new calls while on another call from a ring group or queue. However, this is possible visually using the switchboard within a 3CX client or Webclient.

 

[JustinB-PedEnt]

Understood, and thank you @Charles_3CX
Can you confirm that the setting was intentionally switched off by the last update? I am trying to verify that it is the cause of the configuration change, as this isn't something we reconfigured knowingly.

For context - we previously used this strategy to allow doctors to bypass a Queue and reach our Nursing Staff in urgent medical situations. Agents knew to pick up incoming RG calls even if they were currently Busy. We may need to find a different solution, as the one you proposed does not notify the agents that there is a caller to the Ring Group.

 

[VoIPTools]

I concur with everything @Charles_3CX shared with you. You could have people monitor the queues/ring groups via the web client, but I think we all can agree that people are not going to be sitting there watching the client all day and another approach is needed.

I encourage you to take a look at our 3CX Queue Notifier tool. In addition to a web client, this tool now includes a Windows client application you can install on each PC. The client can play a "beep", pop a dialog on the user's screen, and use text-to-speech to "say" something similar to "You have 3 callers in the Sales queue. The longest hold time is 3 minutes 25 seconds.". It can also call your overhead paging system and play the same message. We provide both a visual and audible notification when a new call is routed to a queue or ring group, or if any existing calls exceed the thresholds you set.