TRY THIS Remote Worker answering calls after hours

[completetech]

So as the title says I am looking to see if anyone here is using a calling service that they forward their calls to after hours or something similar.

What I am hoping to accomplish is once a certain time comes the system will automatically route the inbound calls to this new remote worker. Say 5PM is when they start. The inbound calls will get a greeting as they normally do and then they will automatically transfer to the remote worker. Then once their time is up answering our calls they will no longer be called and our phones will normally ring as usual. The one side note to this is, when our calls normally come in (as they are now) the customer gets the IVR and chooses an option, our internal extensions ring. If no one picks up it goes to a Queue and then calls the same internal extensions again as well as cell phones to who is "on call".

Any advice on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nathan

 

[rossiv]

That sounds like time conditions (In 2.10+ called Call Flow Control) IIRC would work just fine - point to the normal call flow for day service and for night service an announcement with an end destination of the desired user.

 

[completetech]

What would be the best way to get a remote worker instead added into the pbx. I am thinking of just a soft phone (yate). And a headset. This person would be. I am assuming, having a dynamic IP. I have never been able to get Travelin Man 2 to work for me with this type of setup and not sure I want to add them to the VPN.

 

[mainenotarynet]

If they have a phone at home (remote worker i mean) just add 2345678900# to your after hours (Night Service) ring group or you can create an extension (in case they WANT a soft phone) and have their home number,cell number, whatever and add the extension to the after hours list with a # at the end of the extension.

The # at the end of a 10-digit number (i.e. a phone on POTS) will call that number on an appropriate trunk. A # on the end of an extension will allow it to use the follow-me numbers, without it, it only calls the extension.

Now if you have rotating on-calls, this could be a nussance to go in and change the list all the time, so a time condition or some kind of logical routing may be required.

I am not a master coder here but say you have a person for each night of the week from 5:00pm-Midnight and a 2nd for Midnight-9:00am you might do something like:

If day=Monday & Time between 17:00:00 and 23:59:59 then call Person 1a
elseIf Day=Tuesday and time between 00:00:00 and 08:59:59 then call person 1b
elseIf Day=Tuesday and time between 17:00:00 and 23:59:59 then call person 2a
...
...
else send call to the office

This would check the day and time and if it falls after hours, then it would do what you tell it. The last line (after you finish Tuesday to Sunday (on Sat and Sun you may need adjusting for non-working hours)) would send calls to the office.

I don't know your level of experience or your business but this could be overkill but it is one way.

Good Luck