Pickup Group specifies to which pickup groups an extension belongs. An extension can belong to multiple pickup groups. The call group and pickup group options allow users to pick up calls that are not directed to them by dialing a feature code (*08). Calls directed to any phone in a particular call group can be answered by any user who is a member of the corresponding pickup group. For example, a user in pickup group Support will be able to pick up any call directed to any phone in the Support call group. This can be useful for small office or home setups, where it is easier to simply pick up a call from another phone rather than forward that call to another extension. Note that a user can be part of a pickup group without being a member of the associated call group. For example, a senior staff member may be able to pick up any call directed to anyone in his department, but his department should not be able to pick up calls directed to the senior staff member.
General
- Description*, a description to identify the pickup group, can consist of numbers and names.
Extension Section
- Extension, any extension that you want to add to this group.
- Member, when enabled, indicates that the extension is a member of the pickup group.
- Allow Pickup, when enabled, indicates that this extension can pick up calls that are directed to this group.
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Ring Groups offer the possibility that a call to be received by more than one internal extension. The option is used most often for picking up calls received on a certain line (Inbound Routes) and sending them to a certain destination (Welcome prompt, IVR and ring groups). Also, the group can be accessed internally, calling the code assigned to it.
General
- Code*, number to dial to reach this service.
- Description*, short description to identify this ring group.
- Extensions, list of extension for this ring group.
- External Numbers, list of external number for this ring group.
- Ring Strategy, ring strategy of extension group.
- Ring Time, ring time in seconds, MAX 160 seconds.
- Class of Service, Class of Service to use for dial the external numbers listed in this ring group.
- Music on Hold, music on hold to play.
- CID Name Prefix, prefix to append to this ring group.
- Allow Diversions, allows you to define if the diversions defined for the different extension members will be applied or not.
- Mark Cancelled Calls as Answered, with this option enabled prevents the other phones to record a missed call when the call has been answered by another member listed on this ring group. This is a very useful setting when the ring strategy is set to “Ring All”
Last Destination Section
- Select Module, allows the user to choose from a drop-down list of available modules, which module should be activated.
- Select Destination, this is the call target to which the module should be routed.
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ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) is what distributes incoming calls in the order of arrival to the first available agent. The system answers each call immediately and, if necessary, holds it in a queue until it can be directed to the next available call center agent. Balancing the workload among agents ensures that each caller receives prompt and professional service.
General
Code*, number to reach this service.
Description*, short Description to identify this queue.
Strategy, this defines the strategy to ring this queue. Options are:
- Ring All: Ring all available channels until one of the members answers the phone.
- Least Recent: Ring interface which was least recently hung up by this queue.
- Fewest Calls: Ring the one with fewest completed calls from this queue.
- Random: Ring random interface.
- Round Robin Memory: Round robin with memory, remember where we left off last ring pass.
- Round Robin Ordered: Same as Round Robin Memory, except the queue member order from config file is preserved.
- Linear: Rings interfaces in the order specified in this queue. If you use dynamic members, the members will be rung in the order in which they were added.
- Weight Random: Rings random interface but uses the member’s penalty as a weight when calculating their metric.
CID Name Prefix, prefix to append to this queue, typically indicate to the agents from which queue the call comes.
Join Announcement, allowing you to define an announcement to be played to the caller immediately as they reach the queue.
Agent Announcement, an announcement may be specified which is played for the member as soon as they answer a call, typically to indicate to them which queue this call should be answered as, so that agents or members who are listening to more than one queue can differentiated how they should engage the customer.
Service Level, the idea is to define the maximum acceptable time for a caller to wait before being answered. You then note how many calls are answered within that threshold, and they go toward your service level. So, for example, if your service level is 60 seconds, and 4 out of 5 calls are answered in 60 seconds or less, your service level is 80%.
Join Empty, If there are calls queued, and the last agent logs out, the remaining incoming callers will immediately be removed from the queue, and the Queue() call will return, If leavewhenempty” is set to “strict”.
“joinempty” set to “strict” will keep incoming callers from being placed in queues where there are no agents to take calls. The Queue() application will return, and the dial plan can determine what to do next.
This setting controls whether callers can join a queue with no members.
There are three choices:
- yes – callers can join a queue with no members or only unavailable members
- no – callers cannot join a queue with no members
- strict – callers cannot join a queue with no members or only unavailable members
- loose – same as strict, but paused queue members do not count as unavailable (new in 1.6)
Leave When Empty, used to control whether callers are kicked out of the queue when members are no longer available to take calls.
Timeout Priority, this is used to control the priority of the two possible timeout options specified for a queue. The Queue (App) application has a timeout value that can be specified to control the absolute time a caller can be in the queue. The timeout value controls the amount of time (along with retry) to ring a member for. Sometime these values conflict, so you can control which value takes precedence.
Queue Timeout, this will cause the queue to fail out after a specified number of seconds.
Member Timeout, this specifies the number of seconds to ring a member’s device.
Retry, specifies the number of seconds to wait before attempting the next member in the queue if the timeout value is exhausted while attempting to ring a member of the queue.
Wrap-up time, the number of seconds to keep a member unavailable in a queue after completing a call. This time allows an agent to finish any post call processing they may need to handle before they are presented with the next call.
Queue Callback, when you have the Queues Callback add-on installed, here you can select the Queue Callback for this Queue.
Music on Hold, this option sets the class of music for this queue.
Ring Busy Agent, this is used to avoid sending calls to members whose status is In Use.
Record, record the calls in this queue.
Members section
- Extension, extension number for the Queue Member.
- Penalty, within a queue, we can penalize members in order to lower their preference for being called when there are people waiting in a particular queue. For example, we may penalize queue members when we want them to be a member of a queue, but to be used only when the queue gets full enough that all our preferred agents are unavailable. This means we can have three queues (say, Support, Sales, and Billing), each containing the same three queue members: James Shaw, Kay Madsen, and Danielle Roberts. Suppose, however, that we want James Shaw to be the preferred contact in the Support Queue, Kay Madsen preferred in Sales, and Danielle Roberts preferred in Billing. By penalizing Kay Madsen and Danielle Roberts in Support, we ensure that James Shaw will be the preferred queue member called. Similarly, we can penalize James Shaw and Danielle Roberts in the Sales Queue, so Kay Madsen is preferred, and penalize James Shaw and Kay Madsen in the Billing Queue so Danielle Roberts is preferred.
- Member Type, this decides if the member will be Dynamic or Static.
- Allow Diversion, decide if the member executed or not the diversions when called.
Final Destination*
The destination if the call is not answered after the “Queue Timeout”
- Select Module, allows the user to choose from a drop-down list of available modules, which module should be activated.
- Select Destination, this is the call target to which the module should be routed.
After Agent Hang-up Destination
This option is generally used when performing quality surveys for customer service. Once the call is hung up by the agent, we can send this call to someone to survey the customer or to an IVR tree with all the options. Afterwards, in the case of the IVR tree, we can use the IVR stats add-on to export the information based on the options selected by the customers.
- Select Module, allows the user to choose from a drop-down list of available modules, which module should be activated.
- Select Destination, this is the call target to which the module should be routed.
Announcement Settings
- Periodic Announcement, periodic announcement to provide to the caller. The system default message is “All representatives are currently busy assisting other callers. Please wait for the next available representative.
- Periodic Announcement Frequency, this indicates how often we should make periodic announcements to the caller. Bear in mind that playing a message to callers on a regular basis will tend to upset them. Pleasant music will keep your callers far happier than endlessly repeated apologies or advertising, so give some thought to:
- keeping this message short
- Don’t play it too frequently.
- Announce First User, if enabled, play announcements to the first user waiting in the Queue. This may mean that announcements are played when an agent attempts to connect to the waiting user, which may delay the time before the agent and the user can communicate.
- Relative Periodic Announcement, if set to yes, the Periodic Announce Frequency timer will start from when the end of the file being played back is reached, instead of from the beginning.
- Announce Hold Time, defines whether the estimated hold time should be played along with the periodic announcements.
- Announce Position, defines whether the caller’s position in the queue should be announced. If you have any logic in your system that can promote callers in rank (i.e., high-priority calls get moved to the front of the queue), it is best not to use this option. Very few things upset a caller more than hearing that they’ve been moved toward the back of the line. Options are:
- No: The position will never be announced
- Yes: The caller’s position will always be announced
- Limit: The caller will hear her position in the queue only if it is within the limit defined by Announce Position Limit.
- More: The caller will hear her position if it is beyond the number defined by Announce Position Limit.
- Announce Position Limit, used if you’ve defined Announce Position as either limit or more
- Announce Frequency, defines how often we should announce the caller’s position and/or estimated hold time in the queue. Set this value to zero to disable. In a small call center, it is unlikely that the system will be able to make accurate estimates, and thus callers are more likely to find this information frustrating.
- Min Announce Frequency, this specifies the minimum amount of time that must pass before we announce the caller’s position in the queue again. This is used when the caller’s position may change frequently, to prevent the caller hearing multiple updates in a short period of time.
- Announce Round Seconds, if this value is nonzero, the number of seconds is announced and rounded to the value defined.
Others
Members Settings
- Auto Pause, this enables/disables the automatic pausing of agents who fail to answer a call. A value of All causes this agent to be paused in all queues that they are a member of. This parameter can be tricky in a live environment, because if the agent doesn’t know they’ve been paused, you could end up with agents waiting for calls, not knowing they’ve been paused. Never use this unless you have a way to indicate to the members that they’ve been paused or have a supervisor who is watching the status of the queue in real time.
- Penalty Members Limit, a limit can be set to disregard penalty settings when the queue has too few members. No penalty will be weighed in if there are only X or fewer queue members.
- Member Delay, this is used if you want a delay prior to the caller and queue member being connected to each other.
- Timeout Restart, if set to yes, resets the timeout for an agent to answer if either a BUSY or CONGESTION status is received from the channel. This can be useful if the agent is allowed to reject or cancel a call.
Other Queue Settings section
- Queue Weight, this option defines the weight of a queue. A queue with a higher weight defined will get first priority when members are associated with multiple queues. Keep in mind that if you have a very busy queue with a high weight, callers in a lower-weigh queue might never get answered (or have to wait for a long time).
- Queue Max Length, this value specifies the maximum number of callers allowed to be waiting in a queue. A value of zero means an unlimited number of callers are allowed in the queue.
- Reset Stats, it allows you to select a Cron Profile to reset the queue stats periodically.
- IVR, an IVR may be specified, in which if the user types a SINGLE digit extension while they are in the queue, they will be taken out of the queue and sent to that extension in this IVR.
- VIP Customer, List of VIP Customers, these customers have more priority in this queue.
- Autofill, the old behavior of the queue (autofill=no) is to have a serial type behavior in that the queue will make all waiting callers wait in the queue even if there is more than one available member ready to take calls until the head caller is connected with the member they were trying to get to.
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Here you can create dial restrictions rules. These can be associated with a class of services.
General
- Description*, short description to identify this “Dialing Restriction” – must be unique.
- Custom Rules Context, this allows you to include a custom context with your own advanced rules.
Rules section
- Rules (Pattern), allows you to create extension patterns in your dial plan that match one or more possible dialed numbers. The pattern options are:
- The letter X or x represents a single digit from 0 to 9.
- The letter Z or z represents a single digit from 1 to 9.
- The letter N or n represents a single digit from 2 to 9.
- The period (.) character is a wildcard that matches one or more characters.
- The exclamation mark (!) is a wildcard that matches zero or more characters.
- [1237-9] matches any digit or letter in the brackets (in this example, 1,2,3,7,8,9)
- [a-z] matches any lower-case letter
- [A-Z] matches any UPPER-case letter
- Allowed, allow/disallow this pattern.
- Announcement, you can choose an announcement associated with this pattern.
- Play Max Duration, play max duration only if max duration is greater than 0 or not in blank.
- Max Duration, maximum call duration associated with this pattern.
- Password, this determines if a password is required when using this pattern.
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Callback is a call target that will immediately hang up on a caller, call them back, and then redirect the call to another call target. This is most often used to avoid long-distance charges for remote agents who do not have access to a VoIP endpoint. This is especially relevant in the case of mobile phones where incoming calls are usually significantly cheaper than outgoing calls. The callback target may connect the caller with any resource on VitalPBX (such as an extension, the voicemail messaging center, or a queue), or it may be used in conjunction with DISA to give the caller a dial tone on the system from which they can call any telephone number they wish.
General
- Description*, short Description to identify this callback.
- Number, this is the phone number that VitalPBX will dial to reconnect with the caller after the call that initiated the callback is terminated. The number must be in a format that one of the outbound routes configured in the Outbound Routes section of VitalPBX can be matched with (for example, if there is no outbound route defined to match a 10-digit dialing pattern, entering 5551234567 for this field would render the callback configuration useless, as the outbound callback would never be completed). If the field is left blank, then VitalPBX will attempt to call back the caller ID number that initiated the callback.
- Dial Prefix, this prepends the prefix to the number to dial.
- Delay, delay before return call.
- Class of Service, Class of Service for making the call.
Destination* Section
- Select Module, to choose which module should be activated.
- Select Destination, to configure the call target that the caller will be connected to, once the callback dialog reconnects the caller to VitalPBX. Any existing call target can be used.
A few common examples of when a callback target might be used are as follows:
- A company where employees need the ability to check their voicemail from anywhere. Calling the toll-free company phone number costs the company too much money. A callback target could be set up to call back the incoming caller ID and be directed to the miscellaneous destination of *98. Callers would receive a call on the number they called from, would be prompted for their extension and their password, and would then have access to their voicemail messages.
- A company receives better per-minute rates on calls made through its VoIP trunks than calls made through employees’ mobile phones. Employees’ mobile phones have free incoming calls. A callback target could be set up for each employee with a mobile phone to call back the employee’s mobile number. The callback would be directed to a DISA destination to give the employee a dial tone on the PBX (allowing them to dial out using the company’s VoIP trunks without using any outgoing mobile minutes).
- A company that receives collect calls from anywhere in the world (such as a credit card company that needs to receive calls if a customer’s card is lost or stolen). The company reduces their costs if they use a VoIP trunk local to the country that the customer is in, rather than paying for the entire collect call at hefty international rates. A callback target could be set up to call back the incoming caller ID of the customer and be directed to a queue. The customer would receive a call to the number they called from and would be connected with a company representative as soon as one is available.
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A conference room allows a group of people to participate in phone call. The most common form of bridge allows participants dial into a virtual meeting room from their own phone. Meeting rooms can hold dozens or even hundreds of participants. This contrasts with three-way calling, a standard feature of most phone systems which only allows a total of three participants. For most phone systems, conference bridging is an add-on feature that costs thousands of dollars.
General
- Extension*, number to dial to reach this service. This is a number that internal endpoints can dial to reach this conference. Like the ring groups, this can be thought of as the extension number of the conference.
- Description*, short description for identify this conference.
- Max Members, this option limits the number of participants for a single conference to a specific number. After the limit is reached, the conference will be locked until someone leaves. Note however that an Admin user will always be allowed to join the conference regardless if this limit is reached or not.
- Video Mode, Options:
- None: No video sources are set by default in the conference. It is still possible for a user to be set as a video source via AMI or DTMF action at any time.
- Follow Talker: The video feed will follow whoever is talking and providing video.
- Admin: The first administrator who joins the conference with video capability is the only source of video distribution to all participants. If the administrator leaves, the next administrator to join after them becomes the source.
- User PIN*, this is a numeric passcode that is used to enter the conference room. If a PIN is entered in this field, no one is able to join the conference room without entering the PIN.
- Admin PIN, functions in the same way as the User PIN. The Admin PIN and User PIN should not be set to the same value. The Admin PIN is used in conjunction with the Wait Admin option explained further in this chapter, in order to identify the administrator or leader of the conference.
- Language, here you can set the language used for voice prompts to the conference.
- Record Conference, when set to yes, records the conference call starting when the first user enters the room, and ending when the last user exits the room.
Conference Settings section
- Music on Hold, the music on hold class to use for this conference.
- Announce User Count, used for announcing the participant count to all members of the conference. If set to a number, then the announcement is only played when the number of participants is above the set number. Available options are yes, no, or a whole number. Default is no.
- Music on Hold When Empty, when this option is enabled on-hold music will be played if there is only one caller in the conference room or if the conference has not started yet (because the leader has not arrived). If this option is disabled, no sound will be played during these situations.
- User Count, when this option is enabled, the number of users currently in the conference room will be announced to each caller before they are bridged into the conference.
- Announce Join/Leave, when enabled, this option will prompt the user for a name when entering the conference. After the name is recorded, it will be played when the user enters or exits the conference.
- Announce Only User, sets if the only user announcement should be played when a user enters an empty conference.
- Wait for Leader, if this option is enabled, the conference will not begin until the conference administrator joins the conference room. The administrator is identified by the Admin PIN. If other callers join the conference room before the leader does, they will hear on-hold music or silence until the conference begins (what they hear depends on the MoH When Empty setting explained earlier in this section). If this option is set to “No”, the callers will be bridged into the conference as soon as they call the conference room number.
- Start Muted, when this option is enabled, all users joining the conference are initially muted.
- Drop Silence, this option drops what Asterisk detects as silence from entering into the bridge. Enabling this option will drastically improve performance and help remove the buildup of background noise from the conference. Highly recommended for large conferences due to its performance enhancements.
- Quiet, when this option is enabled, user introductions, enter prompts, and exit prompts are not played. There are some prompts, such as the prompt to enter a PIN number that will still be played regardless of how this option is set.
- Kick Users, enabling this option will kick out all remaining users of the conference, after the last admin user leaves the conference.
- Talk Detection, this option sets whether or not notifications of when a user begins and ends talking should be sent out as events over AMI.
- Allow to Invite, if enabled, all the participants could press “**” or “0” to invite other people to this conference.
The following codes can be entered by all conference participants:
- *1 – toggles mute for the user. When enabled, anything the user says is not transmitted to the rest of conference members. If the conference is being recorded, anything said by a muted user is not part of the recording.
- *4 – decreases receive volume. The user can tap this option to decrease the volume of what they are hearing. This does not affect what any other conference member hears. If a user is finding other conference members too loud, they can press *4 a few times to make the conference quieter for themselves.
- *5 – increases receive volume. The user can tap this option to increase the volume of what they are hearing. This does not affect what any other conference member hears. If a user is having trouble hearing other members of the conference, they can press *5 a few times to make the conference louder for themselves.
- *6 – decreases transmit volume. The user can tap this option to decrease the volume of what they are transmitting to the rest of the conference members. When this option is used, the user will sound quieter to all other conference members. If a user is much louder than the other members of a conference room, they can tap *6 few times to make their transmit volume quieter.
- *7 – increases transmit volume. The user can tap this option to increase the volume of what they are transmitting to the rest of the conference members. When this option is used, the user will sound louder to all other conference members. If the conference members are having trouble hearing a particular user, that user can tap *7 a few times to make their transmit volume louder.
- *8 – user can tap this code to leave the conference.
- In addition, the admin has access to additional codes:
- *2 – toggles the conference lock. When a conference is locked, no more callers may join. A locked conference must be unlocked for any new users to join. This option is only available to a conference administrator. If the conference does not have an admin PIN configured or the user has joined the conference as a user instead of an admin, this option is not available.
- *3 – Kicks the last user who joined the conference from the conference room. The user will hear a message informing them that they have been kicked from the conference and that their call will be terminated. Note that if a conference is unlocked, the user may rejoin. The best way to remove an abusive conference user is to eject them and then immediately lock the conference. This option is only available to a conference administrator. If the conference does not have an admin PIN configured, or the user has joined the conference as a user.
