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Forwarding call queue to IVR instead of voicemail

Tags: call queues

Apr 29, 2020 at 6:21pm • 7 replies • 1 likes

tis-admin

I have a customer who wanted four staff members phones to ring simultaneous on incoming calls to their main number so I have set them up with a call queue. At times during the day the four staff members maybe on other calls, in meetings or away from their desks; when this happens I currently have it forwarding to the voicemail of one of the members as they don't seem to check the voicemail on the extension of the call queue. My customer has asked if calls go un-answered in the call queue could it be sent to an IVR instead of a mailbox, that way the caller might be able to reach the person they are looking for or at least leave a message in their mailbox instead of a general mailbox? I have tried to set up the overflow option in the specific call queue, have it flow to another call queue that I have called Overflow and then in the Overflow call queue added a custom rule to send it to the extension of the IVR. The only problem is that RC won't allow for the agents calls to be set at simultaneous only sequential or rotating which the owner is adamant the have all four phones ring at the same time.

Does anyone know a way that I could make this work?

Marge Hensley on Jun 18, 2021 at 10:41am • 0 likes

michel5476

This works for the user during office hours but after hours the option to route to a group is not avaialble. any ideas?

michel5476 this works but after hours doesn't have that option. Any ideas?

Phil Denton on Jun 13, 2021 at 5:07pm • 0 likes

This seems like a very common scenario for small businesses: Ring phones first, then if no one answers, send to the main auto-attendant. It's unfortunate that the only way to accomplish this is through a "duct-tape" solution like the one described above. RingCentral really should allow Call Queues to redirect to any extension type we want - user, group, IVR, etc.

Joe Cache on Jun 14, 2021 at 4:56pm • 0 likes

It's in there now - they need to ask their Rep to add the 'Call Queue to Extension option' - and it'll be on the pull-down under the Wait Settings tab:

michel on Jul 29, 2020 at 9:47pm • 1 likes

Yes, sorry I forgot to mention that for this work-around, we use a normal user extension for our call queue - does not have all the extra call-queue settings, but simultaneous ringing and forwarding back to the IVR using the "Connect directly to a Group" are available then.

We need RC to add the "Connect directly to a Group" and "Connect directly to a User" as Call-Queue options under the "If number of callers exceeds" Action.

tis-admin on Apr 30, 2020 at 6:51am • 0 likes

Thanks for the reply Michel. This is at the User level, would it not allow for messages left on that extension if a call came from the IVR directly to that extension or is someone called their DID?

2 Answers

Roxana Mercado answered on Aug 16, 2023 at 10:08am

Hello All!

I had the same issue recently and found a solution. My issue was centered around calls during business hours. We play an announcement post business hours so this was not an issue.

Context: We used a specific ext for all calls for a very long time. This had been part of our communications to clients and partners for a very long time too. We did not want to delete the ext but we did need clients to filter via our updated phone tree. The way this was solved it to keep the ext enabled and simply create a rule.

Rule: During X business hours, transfer all calls to an ext, under this option the IVR Menu was available. I choose the correct one and tested it. It worked! So all callers who route themselves to the specific extension, will be redirected back to the department's IVR Menu so they can be filtered.

Hope this helps!

michel answered on Apr 30, 2020 at 7:11am

Yes, it is just not very obvious, but this is how to do this:
- under the "Messages" section, unselect the "Enabled" check box so that messages are not taken
- set the "How to handle missed calls" to "Connect directly to a Group"
- press the "Select Group" button and select your IVR extension from the list.

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