Ring Group and Start Extension Voicemail

[kbisignani (Kyle)]

Hello gurus,

I have an office where, if an extension is dialed and no one picks up, the call rings a group of other phones, and if they don’t pick up, it bounces back to the original destination’s voicemail box. I dug through the community here, found this post, but it looks like when this was answered 6 years ago, this wasn’t possible.

Is that still the case?

For those who are curious, the office consists of individuals each with their own specialized area, but should they be on the phone or otherwise unavailable, the call would bounce to others in the office to try to provide immediate assistance, and if that fails, it would go back to the original destination’s mailbox.

I’m on FreePBX 16.0.40.

The only way I can currently see this as possible is to create separate ring groups for each person in the office, use the Extension > Advanced > Optional Destinations to direct the call in to the individuals specific ring group, and that configure the ring group to bounce to the extension’s voicemail box should no one pick up. Ergo, if I have 10 extensions, I need 10 ring groups to identify their own voicemail box.

Thank you for any insight, or if there’s something obvious I’m missing!

~ Kyle

[Stewart1 (Stewart)]

Follow Me, by default, works as you desire. Set the Initial Ring Time to the duration you want only the initial extension to ring. Set Follow-Me Ring Time for the duration you want the whole group to ring. Set Destination if no answer to Follow Me → Normal Extension Behavior and with default extension settings that will be the original extension’s voicemail.

[kbisignani (Kyle)]

Thank you @Stewart1, I will test this; the way you describe it sounds like it should work. Honestly didn’t look at this as an option because of the “Me” in “Follow Me.” Didn’t even occur to me that I could use it to “Follow to Others!”

Appreciate the idea! I’ll give it a whirl.

[kbisignani (Kyle)]

Looks like this is going to be perfect for the situation. Thank you again and I apologize for not considering or even looking at this feature previously. Makes perfect sense that this could be utilized this way!