This is a question I have found so many posts on but nothing really has a comprehensive answer. Either I am over complicating this and looking at it from the wrong angle, or it’s not as common a requirement as I first thought.
We have 2 inbound SIP trunks to our FreePBX server. Each with a main inbound DID. We ant to have a BLF key on each SIP handset that has the ability to show an incoming call and the ability to answer that call.
The inbound DID is directed to a Ring Group, but users outside the ring group want the ability to take external calls, without their phone ringing.
I have seen posts where suggestions have been made to use dummy extensions in the ring group, but in all of these instances, these extensions have had to be registered to a device.
Surely there is a simple way to achieve such a simple legacy requirement…
A lot of our customers have an extension that is in the ring group, on their blf keys, then they call pick up off of that extension for the same effect. We’ve not even tried anything else because everyone has been happy with it so far.
Thanks for the reply. I understand this is the way around it for us, but I am trying work out if I can use a virtual extension or something along those lines to achieve the same.
We don’t want to have the BLF assigned to the main reception extension, as this will show internal inbound calls to BLF subscribers. We need an independent extension to achieve exactly what is required. The only way we seem to be able to achieve this is having an extension registered on a spare ATA, but this involves additional hardware and points of failure.