I have a phone that is connected via the internet.
The user occasionally has internet outages and would like to be able to set call forwarding via his cell phone since he will not be able to access the ARI and the extension will not be connected.
Is it possible to send the *72 code to the switch from an inbound call or will I have to build something more complex for this user?
I have read a few similar forum entries but they all seem to go toward helping an on the road sales person with followme, which I really don’t think applies here. I am trying to find something simple to do for the customer as a hail Mary.
What is the user forwarding the calls to? i.e. do they want to set it up so that when their phone is offline calls ring on their cell instead? or what would the forwarding code actually control? In the majority of cases you can use follow-me or a ring group to pre-configure things so that the call gets forwarded automatically if the phone itself isn’t available… that way no user action is required at all.
Basically, the customer would want to send calls to his cell phone at times of his choosing. One case would be if the internet connection is down. Normally the calls would be answered by voice mail, which would be fine if the internet was down after business hours or for short periods of time but if he is experiencing a long outage during business hours he wants to be able to send calls to his cell.
The bottom line is, there is no algorithm that we can use to guess when he would like to send the calls to his cell phone. He needs to be able to do it on command.
I really appreciate you working with me on this issue!
Is this one possible throught the FreePBX interface or will I
need to do some coding?
Okay that makes sense. In that case since the person doesn’t have internet or SIP access the only other way to let them into the system is to setup either DISA, a hidden IVR option, or your own custom code for controlling the feature. You then tie your DISA/IVR/etc to an inbound DID that the person.
That way the person can call the DID from their cell/landline/whatever and be able to toggle call forwarding for the extension from there…
This sounds like a good approach. When I looked at the available feature codes in inbound routes they all seemed to be non-extension specific. *72 was not on the list of available codes. Is this something I would have to do with a config file modification?
Ok, check my understanding.
Set up a DISA, which is associated with a seperate inbound route.
The caller can call the phone number associated with that inbound route and hit *72 to forward it to another number.
I guess I don’t see how this allows the user to forward their company phone number anywhere, just the DISA itself. FreePBX does have an option to associate the DISA to an extension, not that I saw.
Yes, that is the puzzle I am trying to solve. How can the person use their cell phone to change call forwarding for their company phone number that is routed to an extension.
When you dial *72 on any phone that’s not part of the system’s extensions, it prompts you for the extension number that you want to activate forwarding on, as well as the number that you want it forwarded to.
i.e. Setup a DISA on an inbound DID
Call the DID, log into the DISA
Dial *72
System will say “What extension do you want to forward?”
Person dials their extension (say 222)
System says “What do you want it forwarded to”
Person dials their cell number.
Done. You can simplify the process further by having the inbound route point to a “set callerID” first. If you have the callerID set to the person’s extension name/number, then the system will use that instead of asking for it all the time.
The reason I recommended a DISA was that you can restrict it with a pin code. If you route the DID straight to *72, then anyone who calls in will be able to call forward any extension on the system to any phone number. Not saying it’s 100% likely to be found, but if anyone ever comes across it the potential for damage is very high…
If he is generally sending calls 1) to his cell if his internet is down or 2)when he wants, then can’t he:
Set up a forward on no answer to his cell
Manually set/cancel forward when his internet IS up?
I agree that this won’t work if he needs to constantly change the forward destination to other than his cell, or doesn’t want his cell ringing when he doesn’t answer the internet phone.
Normally it would go to voice mail, if the internet is going to be down for an extended period he would like his customers to have access to him during the outage.