Hello out there!
It might be a quite specific need for my home PBX but I would be very pleased, if someone could help me out with this:
In my home I’ve got multiple phones (living room, kitchen, first floor, etc.). Their extensions are all member of a ring group, which is called if a external call comes in.
SIP-Trunk -> … (Time Conditions, Call Flow, etc.) … -> Ring Group 01 -> Ext. 1 & 2 & 3 & 4
I’m using a Ring Group, because I want all my phones to ring for being able to take the call at the nearest phone. I am using this setup since years now and it does it’s job. But there is and always was the problem of an coming in call, while someone already is on one of the phones. In this case, the caller gets a normal ringing signal - that’s normal behavior, because the phones are ringing indeed. But the caller doesn’t know, that his call isn’t answered because there is someone on the phone already. That is often annoying for my callers.
The possible solution:
If one of the extensions in my ring group is busy, it better should redirect calls to that ring group to an IVR then simply ringing the other phones. They won’t be answered, as I can’t be at two locations at the same time.
So, this would be what I want, when a call comes in:
SIP-Trunk -> … (Time Conditions, Call Flow, etc.) … ->
-> check if one of the extensions (1 & 2 & 3 & 4) in Ring Group 01 is busy
if busy -> go to IVR -> Announcement “person you have called is on the phone right now” -> press 1 to dial ring group 01 even / press 2 to leave a message / hangup and try later / etc.
if not busy -> dial ring group 01
I’m not very good in dialplan-programming. That may be the reason, why I’m using the great FreePBX GUI. But as I life with Asterisk and FreePBX for quite a time now, I can’t imagine, my request would be a hard thing to implement. Maybe this feature even could be integrated into the GUI… Of course the feature must maintain the functionality all the other features like caller-id etc.
Can please someone help me with that? I would be very glad!
Thanks!