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--- RE: ring group forwarding not working (http://www1.pbxes.com/forum/threadid.php?threadid=1258389725)

ring group forwarding not working

When trying to reach someone, we use ring groups. It first rings at the person's desk(s); if no answer, the extension is not connected or busy, the call should move to the next ring group. The next ring group is a broader set of extensions (colleagues). This may be continued with more ring groups, eventually leading to an 'this person is unavailable' message; we don't use voicemails.

Problem: until a few months ago, this worked beautifully. Since then, when someone is on the phone at an extension that is part of the initial ring group, the system misbehaves, either jumping to the last link in the ring group chain where the caller gets an unavailable message; or an error occurs that one tried an invalid extension.

The problem is fairly consistent across anyone that one tries to reach - if the person is on the phone, rather than bumping the call to another ring group, the caller gets a message.

Has someone encountered this before? Is there a way to get the system behave how it used to behave? Has there been a "feature" added that one needs to check now? Or is this a bug waiting to be resolved?

RE: ring group forwarding not working

So, in essence Ring Groups are used in a nested fashion. This can sometimes create call routing loops with unexpected results, which are really nasty to escape from.

Please consider using the "memory hunt" ring strategy on each Ring Group, since it does what you require based on your description, while it avoids call routing loops due to the fact it addresses individual extensions, rather than groups.

I understand each Ring Group has to be edited by hand, but this is a small price to pay for a stable phone system. Try this with a few Ring Groups, and notice if the issue is resolved.

If it does, and later on you need help with the conversion, we are here to assist you.

RE: ring group forwarding not working

We don't do nested groups (if nesting is a circular or recursive way of reaching extensions) and memory hunting does not address our needs.

We assign person A a ring group, say 100. Person A has 2 primary phones where it should ring, extension 1001 and extension 1002; we use ringall because we want the phone to ring simultaneously - say a home office in addition to the office. If no answer, we want to phone to move to ring group 101.

Ring group 101 will continue trying extensions 1001 and 1002, but may add additional extensions, say the analyst team he is part of. Goal for us is to have the phone answered as promptly as possible by the most appropriate person; as soon as the phone reaches, say, the analyst team, it should ring on the desk of all analysts simultaneously.

Memory hunting, in contrast, will move from one phone to the next. That's convenient only in some rather rare cases. We don't use any recursive calling of groups.

What seems to happen is that if a follow-up group calls an extension that is busy, the system gives up rather than looking for a free extension. That's the problem that needs to be addressed - is there a way of doing this?


We could take the position that if no one picked up the phone within the alloted time, the opportunity is gone and only others may pick up the phone. If that fixes the problem, we can try, but it wouldn't be ideal.

Update: we just tried this - removing the initial extensions (part of the first ring group) in the no-answer ring group. The problem persists: if an extension in the first group is busy, the system is confused as jumps to the menu item that no one is available.



Again, memoryhunt does not address this as we need to have a bunch of extensions ring simultaneously before moving to the next set of extensions (that preferably also includes the initial set)

RE: ring group forwarding not working

sorry, noob here - but maybe try turning on call waiting on all the extensions via pbxes? That way if one phone is busy it should continue to ring the others.

RE: ring group forwarding not working

yeah, we tried this. It enables call waiting which interrupts the current call like, well, call waiting does.
Issue is that the system used to work perfectly.
Operator: if you have the time to study our account, we will be glad to pay for the troubleshooting; what we can't afford is to keep the system as it is. Please advise whom we should be in touch with to open a trouble ticket based on this to have it resolved.

RE: ring group forwarding not working

The issue has been escalated, and we will look into it.

RE: ring group forwarding not working

Are you using any kind of call forwarding on the extensions that are part of the ring groups?

RE: ring group forwarding not working

PROBLEM SOLVED
It looks like we resolved the problem - and it's a case of 'mea culpa', but I share it as it may help others who have similar issues:
In brief, the problem arose because we included an extension that doesn't exist into a ring group.

In more detail: earlier this year, we added an extension 1100. I turns out that this extension is part of many 2nd level ring groups when no one in the initial ring group picks up. Well, we mistyped extension 1100 as 1110. It's as simple as that - the extension is not defined and the system has a problem with that.

Suggestion: when an extension is not defined, the ringall feature could be more benign and simply ignore it.
Similarly, if there is an easy way to trace this problem in the error log, please add for the archive to this post.

Thanks for your effort and patience.