What is HOL? How do we use it?

[cfive]

Hi,

How is the HOL IVR used, or even accessed for that matter? I can't seem to find any documentation on this 'feature'.

Thanks, Les.

 

[lneblett]

I have not used myself as of yet and I agree that it does not seem quite as intuitive as the rest, but here is what it looks like to me (my opinion)-

3CX has an in-office and out-of-office feature. You can specify the office hours which tend to be repeatable week after week and when not in normal office hours..... it is assumed that you are out. However, the repeatability is interrupted by holidays. So in the Settings and general options there is a location to set the global office hours and additionally, the location to set holidays. Holidays are considered an out condition and override the normal settings.

The HOL IVR seems to be a system extension. You can change the wav associated to it to be what ever you want and this appears changeable using the edit digital receptionist screen or when configuring the holidays.

It seems that when you configure the holidays in the general settings and then optionally specify the wav file to use, it points to the HOL IVR for that period and ignores whatever other out-of-office handling that might be used. In essence, the holiday setting supersedes the normal conditions as it has a higher priority and is invoked until the (holiday) condition ends. If there is no wav file, then the other normal out-of-office conditions are used, but over the entire day and not just the out hours.

You seem to be correct in that I see no way to specifically point to the HOL IVR. Hence, why I believe that the wav points to its use should the date coincide with the Holiday setting.

Is simply appears to be an attempt to be able to define the holidays and apply a generic message (if a wav is defined) to minimize the amount of set-up as the year progresses.

 

[cfive]

Thanks, Ineblett - surely there's some documentation on this, somewhere?

With the holiday season almost upon us it would be nice to know how to use this ... otherwise a mistake in how we *think* it might work is going to mean having to revisit these systems once the holiday season starts to correct unintended behaviour.

Perhaps someone from 3CX could post a link to some explanation?

Thanks, Les.

 

[lneblett]

I played with it and got it working.

1. Define the holidays and create any messages needed/desired.
2. Go to system extensions and click on HOL and set up accordingly
3. Go to each inbound port and on the out of office settings, check the box for play holiday prompts on public holidays.

There is no documentation that I can find, but it is working.

 

[cfive]

Thanks, it would have taken me a long time to discover the tick box at the inbound ports.

 

[eagle2]

Well, HOL is more or less standard IVR extension (digital receptionist), you can change its greeting prompt if you like.

The only idea behind HOL is overriding regular office hours / out-of-office hours schedule and routing incoming calls to this specific IVR. For this purposes you need to define specific days as holidays in settings and allow overriding to holiday IVR in provider / gateway settings. This could be useful for extra holidays like Christmas, New Year, etc.

Otherwise you may need to change your office hours time schedules.

Regards

 

[cfive]

Hi,

I'm still a bit unsure of how this works.
I define holidays in General Settings.
There is a spot here to add a prompt for each defined holiday.

Q.1. What does the caller hear when a call is received on a defined holiday, and *NO* prompt is provided here? Where is the call routed to? Does it then go to HOL IVR? What does the caller hear - is it simply 'we are closed, please call again'?, and the call ends?.

Q.2. If a prompt is entered here, I presume the caller will hear it. But what happens to the call after that? Does it go to HOL IVR?

Q3. HOL IVR has no place to enter a prompt, so I'm presuming this:

1. Define holiday, and provide prompt.
2. Configure the HOL IVR to match the instructions in the holiday prompt provided.

Does that sound right?

(I don't currently have a lab installation I can test this on).

Thanks again, Les.

 

[cfive]

My mistake - HOL (out of office IVR) does have a spot for a prompt.

So, is this the procedure?

1. Optionally, place a prompt with the holiday definition, such as "we are closed for this holiday, and will reopen <whenever>. If no prompt is provided, the call will go straight to HOL.

2. Configure HOL with a prompt and menu actions.

3. Ensure the inbound ports have 'play holiday prompts' selected.

Thanks, Les.

 

[positron]

Yes, that's about right.

Starting with the basics: You can define "office hours" for the system, which allows you to specify different actions for incoming calls from trunks (or calls to extensions). The designation of a holiday date forces the system to use the "out of office" routing rules for the entire day.

Each inbound routing rule also has a check box labeled "Play Holiday Prompt on Public Holiday". If this is checked, and an incoming call uses this rule, and it is a designated holiday, then the system will play the audio prompt for the holiday (if assigned), then route the call the the "HOL" Digital Receptionist instead of following the "out of office" routing. If you want to have a special holiday menu, you can define the prompt in the HOL Digital Receptionist and menu options. If you just want to play the special prompt assigned to the holiday and transfer to a different IVR menu, then leave the HOL Digital Receptionist prompt blank, set the timeout to 0 and set the timeout destination to another Digital Receptionist.

 

[cfive]

Thanks - that's a clear explanation.