I am trying to setup something such that a group of extensions would ringall for 60 seconds, if there is no answer the call would move to another group of extensions and wait forever. If any extension is busy, it needs to move to a third group of extensions that ringall for 60 seconds. I sort of have this working with a main queue using two other queues with a fourth used for the wait forever. However, if an extension is on an outbound call, a call that calls the first main queue goes to the failover of the first ringall queue.
My phone will not let me sit on a ringing line for more than 45 seconds. Almost all cell phones and many automated phone systems (like FreePBX) will limit you to less than a minute.
Even if I could, there is no way I would sit waiting on a ringing phone for three minutes. If you disrespected me like that and wanted my money, you would certainly never get it. I suggest you rethink your approach. There are lots of things we can do with the system that are less disrespectful of your caller’s time.
Can we talk about what you are doing rather than how you want to do it? I’m sure there’s a solution within this august body that will generate a less disastrous call experience.
One of the places that need to be looked at is your interaction with phones that are in use. If your queue doesn’t ignore busy phones, that’s probably the first step. That way, you can get a predictable outcome when the phone rings into the queue.
Second, I’d also look at using dynamic agents instead of static agents. If no agents are available, the call will immediately drop into the second queue rather than ringing a bunch of empty stations for a minute, only to be dropped into another queue with the same potential problem.
Finally, the choice of queues and ring-groups is important in this context. If you are actually using queues, there are many controls that you can exercise that should make it easier for you to route calls to actual agents. If (like one of my customers) you are using ring-groups and calling them queues, then we need to adjust the expectations of your ring-group. Still, busy phones shouldn’t be interrogated in this kind of cascading structure, since you’ll end up in a voicemail destination on the first phone that’s off-hook in the queue.
So, it sounds to me like the first step is that you need to actually look at why you are doing what you are doing and let’s see if we can’t brainstorm a solution that uses less resources and works better for you. If you’d let us help you, I’m sure we can come up with a structure that will work better for you and for the people calling you.