I am in a pickle… for years now, we run an exit poll call center where people call into us from poll locations to report results. in years past, we have just had a queue all our agents log into in the office. However, thanks to COVID, our agents are all working remotely now. A lot of these people are technically challenged, so trying to get this to setup VPN and softphones is not going to happen. I need an easy way for them to call into the PBX, log into the queue using their cell/home phone #, and our admin people onsite still having the ability to listen/whisper/barge.
So far, I have tried adding my cell number as a static agent in the queue, which didn’t work. I also created a virtual extension that follows me to my cell, and I did get the call, but then we can’t L/W/B to the call at my virtual extension, since it was forwarded to my cell.
An easy fix, if possible, would to switch up the queue so agents stay off-hook and connected, waiting for a call to come through. they would dial in, put in their ext# and then it would just stay there waiting for calls, but I don’t know if this is even possible…
For chanspy to work, you need an extension, so that’s required.
Set up your queue so that the agents are on ‘real’ extensions that Follow-Me to their cell phones. The tricky part there, though, is getting their here/away status right. Conditional logins for the queue are going to be the ‘hard’ part, but that could be done with a simple destination where they put in a PIN and their extension number. As long as FMFM is turned on for the extension (or unconditional Call Forward, for that matter), once they are “on duty” on the queue, it should get you close.
… or maybe not. It’s possible that the call does get completely forwarded away from the extension, in which case, you’d hear exactly what you heard.
Another experiment - set up a local extension that connects to your cell phone. I always get the pieces you need to set up to make it happen confused, but it seems to me it’s a custom extension that sets up a call to your cell phone. Drop that into your queue and see if the call can be monitored that way.
This is an unusual ask, so don’t be surprised if it ends up being hard and or clunky. Keep at it and keep trying different things. There are always 100 ways to skin a cat like this in FreePBX.