Shared line appearance - can it be done and if so how?

[patrickmathews]

I own a retail pharmacy and I’m getting tired of trixbox flaking out on me. I’ve looked at 3cx for windows but it seems like a windows version of trixbox. I need a system that:

Incoming call rings all phones with a blinking light (or LCD) next to line 1,

I pick up the phone and say “Pharamcy how can I help you?” They respond saying they need to speak with the pharmacist, I say“hold on, let me get Phil for you”

I push the hold button and this makes line one button go blinky on all the phones

I then shout “someone has a question for you on line one”

Phil could be anywhere in the pharmacy would then reply “OK” and then walk over to the nearest phone and press the blinky line one button, pick up the call and talk to the customer.


We currently use a some minimal IVR, digital attendant, voice mail to email functionality so we would like to keep that as well. All of these IP-PBX systems don’t allow shared line appearance - they think in terms of phones belonging in cubicles and everyone sitting next to they’re extension all day long. That just doesn’t do it for us.

Can 3CX do this and if so how?

 

[STCJeff]

If 3cx supports the 'Bridged Line Appearance' feature of the Aastra phones (like the 6757i) then that would do it. Anyone know if 3cx can support that feature?

 

[leejor]

You've described an old "key system". One VoIP ATA line could be fed into such a system if you are currently using one. You could feed the single line into a 3 or 4 phone cordless DECT system, all would ring and some have a hold option to allow other phones to then pick up the call. the cost of an ATA and a set of cordless phones would probably be $200 or less, much less than a set of VoIP phones.

 

[N_G]

Its a very valid scenario, however the phones you use must also support shared line appearance. To date, accordingly to my knowledge only Linksys does.

You could also achieve this by parking a call, and then telling Phil to pick up the park call using *1 (you could always use same parking orbit)

But to answer your question - No, we do not support shared line appearance at this point unfortunately. It might be considered for future versions.

 

[STCJeff]

Nick, the Aastra 5xi series phones support it - they just call it bridged line appearance instead of shared line appearance. Everyone in my office is asking for this functionality.

 

[leejor]

If the manufacturer says it will work then I guess there is no reason to doubt them. Call bridging will be a feature of the phones and should work independently of whichever SIP provider you are using, 3CX, or otherwise. The user manuals for all their phones are available to download from... http://www.aastratelecom.com

 

[archie]

I'm sorry, but why not just transfer to Phil's phone? Is it really necessary to shout?

 

[5qg4]

Most of peoples are preferred one touch bottom to park the call with indicator on the phone and one touch bottom to pick the call.

Transfer call/Use *1 to park the call need press "Transfer" + EXT number / *1 with park slot number. The following step needs press over +4 keys. One touch or multi touch will be choose ?

 

[eug]

Most of peoples are preferred one touch bottom to park the call with indicator on the phone and one touch bottom to pick the call.

Transfer call/Use *1 to park the call need press "Transfer" + EXT number / *1 with park slot number. The following step needs press over +4 keys. One touch or multi touch will be choose ?

Is there a trick to make parking 1-or-2 button step on a Cisco SPA phone, while we're all waiting for SLA in 3CX v9?

 

[FBW]

I agree that shouting at a person would not really be the way to go :lol:
This feels more like trying to recycle an old system without features into a new system with all possible features of a top knotch PBX.

Why not just use the Hold and Transfer features? Won't that be more professional and easy to do?
1. You answer the phone. Customer asks for a certain person.
2. You check the BLF (if you can't see the physical person).
3. If the person's busy you keep the customer on hold (or parked) or take a message.
4. If the person's not busy, you put the customer on hold and dial the user's extension.
5. You announce the customer caling and the reason.
6. You transfer the call.

Isn't that the easiest and most professional way to go?

If you do want the requested feature, SNom phones support it as well:
http://wiki.snom.com/Broadsoft#Shared_Call_Appearance_Bridging

Hope this helps.
Diederik
http://www.fbw.be

 

[eug]

I agree that shouting at a person would not really be the way to go :lol:
This feels more like trying to recycle an old system without features into a new system with all possible features of a top knotch PBX.

Analog PBXes can do it both ways - you can either use line keys, or you can do it exactly the same way as you describe below. I would imagine a top-notch PBX should have more options than an old analog PBX, not less... especially a commonly-used feature that's present in a system it's meant to replace.

Why not just use the Hold and Transfer features? Won't that be more professional and easy to do?
1. You answer the phone. Customer asks for a certain person.
2. You check the BLF (if you can't see the physical person).
3. If the person's busy you keep the customer on hold (or parked) or take a message.
4. If the person's not busy, you put the customer on hold and dial the user's extension.

And that's exactly where the problem is. Your method above works perfectly in a perfect office environment. However, not everyone works in that typical office setting. Sometimes the person answering the phone doesn't know where the recipient is. The person who answers the phone might have to run around the office to look for the person.

With your method, lets say the person who answered the phone finds the recipient one floor down in the kitchen. The recipient would then head towards the nearest phone, while the person who answered the call would have to run back to his desk and transfer the call over.

Call parking takes care of that, but having to train non-technical users to do a blind transfer (and not a regular transfer) to to extension *01 but only if they want to put a call into a parking lot, and to dial *11 if they want to pick up a parked call, is far more complicated than the SLA method - the recipient just picks up absolutely any phone and hits the line 3 key and is connected instantly. Simple 1-button operation - "Hold" to hold, line keys to pick up. No need to remember when to use "bxfer" and when to use "xfer", no need to remember if parking is *01 or *00 or *10.

Isn't that the easiest and most professional way to go?

Having to transfer a call can be much slower too. If a person's phone doesn't have enough keys, when transferring the call, they would have to hit transfer, Directory, pick the directory, scroll through the company phonebook (which has to be manually created by the admin) two lines at a time, look for the user and transfer the call. With the line keys method, just hit hold and tell or flash the line number with your fingers at the person, and it's done. Very quick and easy, nothing to remember as it's just one button each. It works very efficiently in smaller offices.

If you do want the requested feature, SNom phones support it as well:
http://wiki.snom.com/Broadsoft#Shared_Call_Appearance_Bridging

The Cisco phones support it too, it's just 3CX that doesn't .. at least not till version 9. I was just hoping for a quicker way to do the above while waiting for version 9 to come out.

I tried assigning *01 and *11 to direct-dial keys on the Cisco SPA phones, but transferring to them fails. Is there a way to get it to work?

 

[archie]

I told already - v8 has SLA implemented. There's just no documentation on it still.

 

[rodin1]

This is just my view as a partner/reseller of 3CX, but would it not be helpful to provide the basic instructions so that partners can setup SLA for testing?

I can say from our brief experience (only been a reseller since Dec 09 and only have a few live sites so far) that about half of our customers/prospects would love to have SLA. Giving us the opportunity to trial the functionality and test it with the various handsets we use would be very helpful.

 

[N_G]

Hi,

Thanks for all the feedback. Yes we are working on testing and documenting SLA but its something we will finalize for v9 since we require more time to complete it...

 

[avx]

SLA is something that would really be beneficial for small offices coming off of a more basic analog PBX (in my opinion). This is really something we are interested in.

Is there any way we can beta this feature, or can you point out how to enable/use it in the most basic terms? If it is there but undocumented I'm happy to attempt to figure it out on my own.

Thank you for adding such great features!!!

 

[N_G]

Thanks for your interesting to test this feature.

Its best we do the testing first, we dont want to send you on a wild good chase. But subscribe to our blog and you can try the earliest alpha/beta with the feature, should not be that long away...

 

[Fatboy40]

Hi,

Thanks for all the feedback. Yes we are working on testing and documenting SLA but its something we will finalize for v9 since we require more time to complete it...

Has SLA been completed and implemented in v9 now that it is available ?.

Also what handsets support it ?.

Thanks.

 

[mfm]

Hi,

As promised it has been implemented in the latest version of 9 and works will a supported phones. If you look in the provisiong settings of the BLF you will see you can now add SLP1 slp2 etc.

 

[Fatboy40]

Hi,

As promised it has been implemented in the latest version of 9 and works will a supported phones. If you look in the provisiong settings of the BLF you will see you can now add SLP1 slp2 etc.

Hi mfm,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you please confirm which phones (make and model) are supported with this feature ?.

Thanks.

 

[Fatboy40]

Hi,

As promised it has been implemented in the latest version of 9 and works will a supported phones. If you look in the provisiong settings of the BLF you will see you can now add SLP1 slp2 etc.

Hi mfm,

Thanks for the reply.

Could you please confirm which phones (make and model) are supported with this feature ?.

Thanks.

I've now got the BLF's / pickup working correctly on my Polycom SPIP 650 handsets, the SIP application needed to be updated to support this.

The handset was as shipped from the factory on v 3.0.4.0061, and I updated it to 3.2.3.1734.