Ignoring certain callers - but not all the time

General Help
1

OK, this is probably a strange question… There’s someone that calls us every so often to ramble on about nothing. Most days it’s 0 calls, but then we’ll get 10-15 in one day.

I’d like to set something up so when he calls, only every 2nd or 3rd call goes to the normal ring group. Other calls from his caller ID would simply go silently unanswered. Ideally we’d want to reset the counter in the morning, but not that fussed about that detail.

Another, similar question… Is it possible to have a button/feature code to “ignore” a call but not inform the caller that this has happened? Can we make an entire ring group stop ringing in this way too (one person presses the “ignore” button and all other phones stop ringing)?

And now the notes:
We’re using a DAHDI card with a PSTN line.
We currently direct all inbound calls to a single ring group - this is (mostly) a home setup.
We use SPA303 and SPA504G handsets if that matters to the second question.

2

No one has any answers to any of this?

3

There’s nothing in FreePBX that will do exactly what you want, but you can get close.

You could create an inbound route just for him that routes to a time condition, and then depending upon how the time condition is set, either to your ring groups or just to a terminate call: Ring forever. The TC has an option that lets you manually flip the condition using a feature code. You would program the TC to flip back at midnight every night.

Then if he calls too much in one day, you flip the time condition using the feature code and from then on, he gets the ring forever option. At midnight, the TC will flip back and he can call you again tomorrow.

4

You might create a special inbound route for this specific CID and use an Alert Info that silently rings the ring group. Your receptionist(s) can grab it when they happen to notice the phone flashing, otherwise ignore it.