BLF and Pickup for Ring Group

[roli8200 (Roland Käser)]

Hello

I have to implement a BLF-Function for the main ringgroup. Inbound calls for the main phone number go to a ring group which contains 3 phones. When all of the three phones are busy, the other employes want to pickup a incoming call to this ring group via BLF-Key. I tried it with call pickup enable which does not work, especially not with blf.

Then I created a virtual extension which is also member of the ring group and made blf key for this virtual extension, in the hope that the extension will ring on incoming calls to the ring group and that the call could be answered that way, which is not the case.

So I need a idea how to pickup/blf incoming calls to that ring group

Regards

Roland

[arielgrin]

I might be wrong here, but if I remember correctly, a ring group is just a bunch of extensions ringing together, which means that if all extensions are busy, the ring group will not accept any further calls, it will just send a busy signal.

[sorvani (Jared Busch)]

Don’t design around old key system functionality. There are not ringing “lines” anymore.

Sit down and work out the full desired callflow on a whiteboard or draw.io with the principals. Don’t use any FreePBX terms or anything. Just a flow of what they want the calls to do.

Then from that you can design the actual call flow through the PBX.

[BlazeStudios (Tom Ray)]

@roli8200

Then I created a virtual extension which is also member of the ring group and made blf key for this virtual extension, in the hope that the extension will ring on incoming calls to the ring group and that the call could be answered that way, which is not the case.

No it is not because Virtual Extensions have no “device state” that is changed when a call hits it so it will never generate the NOTIFY needed to update the BLF status.

[Starlifter (Andy)]

Hello Roland,

what you need, is routing a call based on device states. This feature is currently not included into FreePBX (but I hope, it will be in the future).

Maybe, this thread may help you: Call Routing on states. You’ll have to change my code a bit.

I would do a “gotoif” in custom context, if all of your ring group members are busy, to a second ring group or extension, which can be picked up via BLF.

A direct pickup of a ring group is possible - you have already mentioned the way to do it. To get a BLF for a ring group, you need to create a hint in custom context for your ring group.
I.e.: exten => 604,hint,SIP/900&SIP/901&SIP/918
where 604 is your ring group extension, and SIP/900 etc are your ring group members, which you want to monitor. Works fine for me!