Perfect! I have just the solution for you and shared lines are not needed.
You need a Queue with Dynamic Agents.
Dynamic Agents can log into or out of the Queue. you can program the Queue to Skip Busy Agents (skip anyone on the phone)
It works like this,
Call 1 comes into the queue, the queue rings all available agents. Agent 1 picks up and the queue stops ringing other agents. Call 2 comes in, rings all agents except Agent 1. Agent 2 picks up.
This continues until no other agents are available and then you can have it fail over to a voicemail box or something.
As for your problem with sometimes needing people to answer incoming calls/seasonal, they can log in at anytime that they are needed to answer incoming calls, and log out when they are not needed.
The log in/out is a Feature Code # like *123. So I have it programmed as a speed dial on all my phones with the label “Hunt Group” and agents log in and out of it.
Here’s how to program it:
- Go to Application > Queues
- Create a new Queue
- Add ALL your extensions to “Dynamic Members” (or anyone who might ever answer an incoming call)
- You could select “Skip Busy Agents: Yes”, but this will not allow someone to take more than 1 incoming call at a time
- Set your Fail Over Destination (voicemail box or whatever if all agents are busy/dont answer)
- Go to Connectivity > Inbound Routes to send incoming calls to the Queue
To log into the Queue from one of your Dynamic extensions, dial “45QUE_NUMBER” for example, – dial 45199 to log in or out of Q 199
Also, I have my login/logout button on my phones programmed as a BLF - it turns red when logged in, turns green when logged out.
For your front desk agents, they can stay logged in 24/7 and just have your seasonal agents log in when they need to.