We’re using FreePBX with Zoiper. Everything has been set up and working as expected, the only problem is that there’s no way to tell with Zoiper whether or not an external call is directed to you or if it’s calling the Ring Group that it’s in.
We’ve enabled calling extensions directly in the IVR so when you call us you can type the extension in and it’ll go directly to that person. The extension is also part of the destination Ring Group so it will call it too if you don’t put an extension in.
The problem is there is no way for the Zoiper user to tell if the call is going directly to them, if it’s calling the Ring Group or whether or not if someone else in the Ring Group is available to take the call. This also includes transferring calls to someone (I think that this may also depend on the method of transfer used in Zoiper though).
Is it possible for Zoiper to provide this information?
That is correct, there is no way to tell Zoiper anything but who/what is calling it. It will answer SIP or IAX2 calls ,and associate any callerid to that call, that’s all it can do
SIP’s method of adding additional info is to add ‘sip headers’ you can have as many as you want. I am not aware of any current offerings that support that flexibly, but there are many open source soft phones you could customize. As @Stewart1 said most folks just add such hints to the callerid
There is no way for any caller anywhere to know these things. All an Asterisk Ring Group does is give you a “shortcut” to direct dialing a bunch of extensions. Unlike a queue (which is a “thing” in Asterisk) there’s no such “thing” (from Asterisk’s perspective) as a Ring Group. Hence, there’s no way to query it to see if anyone else in the “group’s” status. There’s also no way to know that the Ring Group called you - it is effectively a direct dial from the system, just like any other direct dial.
Ring Group Caller ID Prefix is about the only way to alert the recipient that something is up.