Ring Group to Cell Numbers Doesn't Get Past First Cell Phone's Voicemail

Since I wasn’t able to get the Find Me/Follow Me to work for calls that come through a queue I decided to put the cell numbers of each user in a ring group and set it to hunt. The problem I’m running into now is that when it calls the first cell phone and the user doesn’t pick up, it goes to the voicemail for that cell phone and it doesn’t ring to the next cell phone in the ring group.

Is there any way to get around this?

FreePBX 13.0.195.4

Not without “Confirm=YES” set for the queue.

Without setting this, as soon as the call is answered by the phone, the call is routed to that phone. Experience with trying to do this is that many cell phones “answer” the phone immediately and play back the “ringing” sound. This fakes us out, thinking the call was answered by the phone when, in fact, it wasn’t. If the call is not confirmed, control of the call is not routed to the one(s) that pick up until the call is actually confirmed.

That statement is highly inaccurate and not how it works at all. On top of the fact that it would make any PBX/voice system that is waiting for the line to be seized (Answered) start to execute any programming in it that was designed for “When answered, do X”. That would make anything being done on the Asterisk side pointless as the destination would still be “ringing” until the user picked up or another status was returned (Rejected, Busy, etc) while Asterisk is executing dialplan/functions.

Additionally this logic would also mean that things like seizure rates and failure reporting would be impossible to sort out as every call would have been officially “answered”.

To answer the question the OP posed…
You can reduce your hunt time… or do a ringall instead of a hunt.

The issue is it’s ringing the cell phone longer than the timeout to go to voicemail; when the voicemail picks up, it is answered (by the voicemail) so your hunt process stops.

You either need to a) move to the next number in the hunt group quicker (in other words, it has to “give up” and start ringing the next number before the voicemail answers) or b) ring all the cell phones (if nobody answers, the first voicemail to pick it up will get the call)

Correct. In addition if you do not want a call to hit a cell phones voicemail you need to use Call Confirm. If the mobile device is off, the call will go straight to voicemail. I’ve also seen where when mobile devices fill up their voicemail either fully or to a certain amount the mobile carriers reduce the ring time.

@rnrstar So it really is going to depend on how you want the call to route for both a success (someone picks up) or no answer (no one picks up). Do you want missed calls to go to a general voicemail box all the callee’s (in the RG list or others) can access? Or do you not care if a random person in the list gets a voicemail that could go unchecked for some time?

OH… totally forgot that caveat. Good point!

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