How to keep extension off-hook after call finished

General Help
1

Hi all,

I have a unique requirement which almost everyone I have talked to has told me that its not possible. If anyone can share his expertise about this, it will help me solve a major issue I am facing.

I have Freepbx installed with 4 analog channels that call end-user extensions (IP Phones) from a Ring group on random. When a call comes, agent talks to caller and after caller is finished with details and drops the call, our agent keeps the IP Phone off-hook so that he can enter details in CRM and not receive further call until he finishes with data entry. Now, almost all phones are made on-hook automatically after 30-60 minutes by server (while phone is still off-hook) and then a new call comes in. This effects our process of data entry in CRM as our CRM is catching incoming call events.

What we want is to keep the Extension off-hook (essentially the IP Phone which is automatically made on-hook after some time) so that no more call is forwarded to this extension until further action by us. We are actively using Asterisk Manager in our .NET application.

2

Have you looked into Call Queues?

There is a “wrap up” feature in the call queue that will pause the queue for a set period of time before the agent is served up another call.

Additionally, if the wrap up time is highly variable, you could have the agent be a “dynamic” member of the call queue meaning that they could take the call, then log out of the queue while they disposition it, then log back in to start receiving calls again…

Those two suggestions come out of the box in Freepbx… you could also set up a macro as outlined here:

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3

@hwdevelopment,

Many thanks for getting to me on this.

At present, I haven’t implemented any call queues. There is only a single Ring Group that is set as destination for all inbound channels (the ring group has all 4 agent extensions as members). I have 0 knowledge about call queues and have no working experience with this. Will it replace the Ring Group?

4

No, it will essentially sit in front of the ring group.

You create a call queue, then you add users to it… much like a ring group.

here is a handy video to get you up to speed.

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5

No, it would not sit in “front” of the Ring Group. It would replace the Ring Group.

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6

Yes… Tom is correct. The members of the call Queue act much the same as the ring group functionality you are already familiar with.

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7

@kashifiqb, Functionally a queue is a likely replacement for your ring-group, The wiki link at the top will lead you to “non-zero” knowledge, wrap-up time or an individual DND request would be honored if well configured.
Whilst I suggest you digest the whole wiki, then

https://wiki.freepbx.org/display/FPG/Queues+Module+User+Guide

would be a “quick-start”, for your next question and a likely answer, start at the wiki :slight_smile:

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