Straight to answer phone for external calls

[Phill]

Hi

I've set my 3cx system up so that all external are routed through an IVR. Say option one goes to ext 100, 2 to ext 200 and 3 to ext 300.

How can I make it that at certain times of the day external calls go straight to the voice box of the option that is chosen, but internal calls cause the extension to ring?

I've set up break times to divert to the voice box, but then internal calls are also diverted!

 

[Saqqara]

If you have Pro or Enterprise license you are probably better looking at CFD -
https://www.3cx.com/docs/manual/call-flow-designer-manual/

You can setup rules based on time -
https://www.3cx.com/docs/cfd-routing-calls-time-day/

 

[Phill]

Unfortunately we do not :-(
We're a charity with 7 physical extensions and a number of softphones.

 

[VoIPTools]

You could do this semi-manually. Forward calls to a dummy extension and set forwarding rules for this extension based on presence. When available, route to extension X and when unavailable route to extension Y. You can set breaks for this extension to have it change the status. Maybe something like that would work?

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Hello @Phill

I can think of a couple of ways to do achieve the desired functionality. The first is creating a second IVR for out of office hours. Set option 1 to forward the call to the voicemail of extension 100 etc.

For this work extensions should not Auto Switch during office hours so disable that option from the extensions. Your inbound rule should point to the second IVR during out of office hours.

So incoming external calls during office hours will be routed to the first IVR and then to extensions but out of office hours calls will be routed to the second IVR that will forward calls to the voicemail of the selected extensions.
Note that trunks and Inbound rules are not affected by break times so you should configure your office hours accordingly.

The second way is through exceptions found under extension settings / Forwarding rules. Again Auto switch on extensions should not be enabled so that they are always available. Then configure an exception for the specific hours you want the calls going to voicemail. If your incoming numbers are 10 digits for example you can set a rule for caller ID 0000000000-9999999999 and the hours you want.
This will send all 10 digit numbers to voicemail during the set hours. You can also set multiple exception so you can cover multiple digit lengths.
Internal calls will be routed normally.
Let me know if further clarification is required.