Dynamic On-Call Destination

We have a situation where we use a call flow control to change between day and night mode and forward calls to an on-call cell phone. The problem comes when people change call over a weekend, and they can’t just pass the dedicated on-call cellphone to the other person. Is there an easy way to change who that call gets sent to without giving access to the FreePBX gui? The only way I can think of without having to implement some special code is to create an extension and setup follow me and change the destination in the UCP. But it seems like it might be possible to have a feature code that also accepts a variable at the same time, but I don’t know how to get that to work, or if it is possible. I found a few other questions regarding this same thing, and it didn’t appear that there was a good solution, but all of the questions seemed to be dated before 2010. Things have changed a little bit since then.

set up a secure ‘disa’ inbound.

Setup a queue password protect it, and don’t restrict login to dynamic agents.

Setup a hidden IVR and set option 1 to dial QUEUE* option 2 to dial QUEUE** have an audio playing to log in press 1 to log off press two. Once they try to login

They will have the option to enter their cellphone number, and remove it when done.

Of course, route the after hours calls to this queue, once everything is setup.

EDIT: I just tried on FreePBX 14 Asterisk 14, both features (Password protect and this way of singing in) don’t exist :disappointed:
We have this setup on older versions of FreePBX, maybe it is still here but you have do dig somewhere to find it.

Perhaps someone from the FreePBX/Sangoma team can answer this.

  • Set up an “emergency” extension on the system. Give the credentials to your on-call people.
  • Whitelist (or use Adaptive Firewall) to allow people to connect from the Big Bad Internet.
  • Connect to the extension using a WiFi SIP phone.
  • Using the CFW feature code (*whatever), set the CFW to the cell phone of the person that should be receiving the call. Remember the “#” on the end of the phone.
  • Disconnect from the WiFi (if you want).

Whether you stay connected to WiFi or not, as soon as the call comes in, the call will be diverted to the Call Forward number you specified.

The advantage here is that the thing can either be managed from GUI or from the phones.

Thanks for your response, sorry for my delayed response.

@cynjut From what I understand, you’re saying I should send after hours calls to this extension, and then allow softphones to be able to log in and change call forwarding for this extension and thus be able to route the call. That makes sense. However, you also mention being able to change CFW from the gui, but I can’t find that anywhere. The wiki also seems to state that it is only a feature code thing. Is that correct? What am I missing?

@dicko What would the person calling in to the DISA access that would enable them to change the external destination?

https://wiki.freepbx.org/plugins/servlet/mobile?contentId=28181382#CallForwardingUserGuide-Activating/DeactivatingCallForwarding

perhaps.

That is an interesting approach to this. can you explain more on how you did this?

So there used to be (still in FreePBX 13) a password field where you would be able to set a password which would be required to enter while attempting to login to the queue.
This is how it looks in FreePBX 13, not sure why it’s not there in FreePBX 14

image

The GUI (in FreePBX 14 as well) also says that there’s an option to dial QUEUE* to login and QUEUE** to logoff.

But when I dial QUEUE* or QUEUE** I get a response “Your call cannot be completed as dialed” (I’m on Asterisk 14, could be it’s a Asterisk 14 issue, I don’t have a Asterisk 13 or 15 machine I can test this now.)

Not sure if I have to file a “feature request” or bug report for these missing features.

Those feature codes have been deprecated in 14 (still present but disabled in Advanced settings in 13). If you see any help text references to these feature codes in 14, it needs a ticket to get fixed.

Hmmm… Why was it deprecated?

Any chances of getting it back? We have a few setups using these features.
These machines are still on 12 and 13… We really need these features in place.

As far as I know, the deprecated feature codes don’t do anything that the “standard” feature codes can’t do better. See the Agent Login note here:
https://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FPG/Queues+Module+User+Guide

I am well aware how *45 login/out works, but it doesn’t give you the functionality QUEUE* gave you.

I’ll explain:

Take OP’s request as an example - setting up a after hours Queue, which the person on call can log in and out.

We currently have the following in place:
Inbound route to IVR.
IVR Message: “To log in press 1, to log off press 2”
IVR Option 1 goes to a misc destination which dials QUEUE*
IVR Option 2 goes to a misc destination which dials QUEUE**

Say a caller presses 1, they will hear "Please enter your agent number followed by the pound key’
Caller enters 12125558855# or an extension with followme, or the manager enters someone else’s number
System says then, “Please enter your password followed by pound”
Caller enters password.
System says then “Agent logged in, with extension: 1-2-1-2-5-5-5-8-8-5-5” and hangs up.

Same process is when logging off.

I can’t think of a way how you can accomplish this with *45.

This is my use case as well.

I too hope to see a return of these features, or a proper alternative.

I guess the only way to get it back is by filing a feature request: issues.freepbx.org

If you do, please post the link here. Thanks

The issue with those feature codes is they could not setup the state information correct and advanced queuing requires the extension and device state. Having a agent as just a number breaks alot of that state info we need sich as no device state info.

Tony, sorry about the delayed response.

I understand what you say about having cellphone numbers in queues breaks the device state.

However, I don’t think this is an issue directly related to this feature code, it’s a general issue with adding cellphone numbers. - This feature code used to allow adding/removing remotely an extension (or cellphone number) but you cannot do that with *45.

Another note, you don’t necessarily have to use a cellphone number, you can also use an actual extension with FMFM.

To summarize: (Let’s forget about the state or cellphone numbers) There used to be a feature where you could add or remove any extension remotely, but it was deprecated and there’s no supported way of doing that now.

So back to the state issue, why isn’t there a warning that adding numbers other than extensions can break the state? Additionally, let users use that feature code, but clearly warn what features won’t work.

Many many companies are using FreePBX Queues + Cellphones to route Emergency/After hours calls, I think there’s a need for support for queues + cellphone numbers this.

There are at least four ways to connect a cell phone to a queue:

  1. Add the cellphone number to the queue using the ‘hash tag’ syntax.
  2. Add an extension to the queue which has been set up Find Me to the cell phone.
  3. Add a custom extension that terminates by dialing the cell phone.
  4. Add an app on the cell phone that logs into the PBX as an extension.

The problem with all but the last one is that they rely on the extension “failing” over to the cell phone, so state information really isn’t available.

The discussion isn’t about the issue of adding cellphones, I added that last line as a btw.

The issue is that there’s no supported way to log in remotely an extension. (QUEUE* and QUEUE** is deprecated)

How is this an issue? How many use cases do you have where you need this ability?