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Four receptionist then answering service after X number of seconds
I have four receptionists that answer our main line. I need them to be able to see the presence of the other receptionist's extensions and be able to forward to an answering service if the call is missed. What is a good solution to make this happen?
Could the other receptionists be added to the presence of each receptionist? One receptionist would be able to then look at her phone or HUD in the desktop app to see the status of the other receptionists. For the call to go an answering service, that would be set in the messages and notifications for the main line.
I am a little unclear when it comes to presence. We need to be able to see ALL of the phones's status (not just the receptionist), so I need them all on presence, correct? When a client calls in, I need all four phones to ring simultaneously, if they don't answer, it goes to the answering service. A ring group seems to work best, but we loose the presence feature for the four of them when they pick up from the ring group.
You need visibility of all users? How many users do you have? What type of device are the receptionists using? I would recommend your receptionists using the RC phone app (not RC app) so they can use the HUD feature to be able to add/see all users. Have you thought about switching the ring group to a call queue for the 4 receptionists? This would show them as busy on the presence. The difference is that a ring group rings a person's device whereas a call queue ring's a person's extension.
We have a total of 18 extensions that everyone needs to be able to see who is on a call or not. Everyone is using Cisco CP8611. The app is not the direction they can go because their screen already has 10 other things open. A call queue cannot send the caller to our external answering service.
- CQ Route to Extension: Reach out to your sales rep and they can get this enabled. It's available but not released.
- Dial by Extension: You can dial by extension at any time in RC, as long as you're not on an active call (actively speaking to someone or leaving a VM message). You would have to dial the ext. and the system recognize it before the VM beep.
The way we have it going out from a call queue to an external line, is at the end end of the time period, it goes to a specific extension - that extension then has the Custom Rule to send to the external number.
We also have one extension that goes to 4 physical phones at the same time - just added the phones under the same extension - and in the call queue to ring at the same time. That way if anyone calls the one extension (not from the IVR but directly) - all four phones still ring at the same time. The VM email goes to a distrib group so they all see the VM.
As far as presence... yeah - RC has a ways to go on that. The HUD is the closest thing at the moment.
Let me know if you want screen shots.
@Joe Cache, we basically have the same set up minus the queue. We have auto reception call an extra user that has call handling ring sequentially. It first does a ring group of the receptionist's phones, then it does the external number.
The issue with the HUD is it shows the extra user picked up, not the actual person.
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