We are converting a educational customer to FreePBX, and in their current setup, they can dial one of two numbers to reach an extension. If they call number A, the phone will ring audibly, and if they call number B, the phone will just visually ring.
For example, they can call 100 to reach classroom 100 where the phone rings, and they can call 1 and the phone will not audibly ring, but the visual indicator will go off.
They do this to not disturb the class, but if the teacher is at the desk and sees the call come in, they can grab it.
Any idea on how to do this? I realize that we can Do Not Disturb the phone, but that is an extra step that I would not like to introduce to the environment.
We plan on using Digium D50 telephones, and the System Builder Basic commercial module.
Depending on your phones buttons flexibility , you might want to look into blf “hinting” programmed on a button to indicate “state” on another “endpoint” possibly set with:-
Nice, but many “phones” don’t have an “alert info” that is silent, some don’t even support that concept (soft-phones) It is all very specific to the OP’s choice of hardware.
If you have a two line phone, you can assign the non-ring extension to account 2, and set the ring tone to silent for this account.
We do this with our Yealink phones, e.g.
I wanted to update you with what I ended up doing to solve this problem. Using FreePBX 13, I created a virtual extension, and used Follow Me within it to ring with an Alert-Info of “visual”. Interestingly, the “visual” was not a selected option… I had to type it into the field in order to make it stick.
I also found it handy to change the Follow Me destination to Voicemail of the “real” destination, so that the design would be complete, and that an an un-answered call would be properly dealt with.
I also discovered what the Account1 and Account2 were on the phones. I do wish the EndPoint Manager was better documented on how to use it properly.
