Hi, Quick question. With an old phone system a receptionist receiving a call has 1 button to push to transfer calls to a specific extension, with Asterisk, a receptionist would actually put the caller on hold, pick up another line, call the extension, ask if the person is available, hang up pick up the caller again and transfer. To me it's seems a long way to simply do a receptionist job. Is there a way we can program the system, or make an application, that would provide the same functionality ? I am currently looking at buying 4 pbx for my offices across Canada and this particular feature is preventing us from choosing Asterisk. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Alain Major, Directeur, D?partement de l'Informatique et des T?l?communications Manager, Information Technology and Telecommunications Department L. Simard Transport Lt?e Simard Transport and Warehousing 1212 32nd Avenue Lachine, Qu?bec, Canada t?l : 514-636-9411 email : amajor@simard.ca web : http:\\www.simard.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20050902/a5c4bdbc/attachment.htm
> Quick question. With an old phone system a receptionist receiving a > call has 1 button to push to transfer calls to a specific extension, > with Asterisk, a receptionist would actually put the caller on hold, > pick up another line, call the extension, ask if the person is > available, hang up pick up the caller again and transfer. To me it's > seems a long way to simply do a receptionist job. Is there a way we > can program the system, or make an application, that would provide the > same functionality ?Asterisk does what you are looking for. The process described above is a bit of redundant. "...pick up another line, call the extension, ask if the person is available, ...", just transfer the call, if that person is available he/she will pickup the line if not it the call will go to the mailbox, there is no need to check if the person is available. If you meant, to check if the person is willing to take that call is another story, and asterisk does that as well. Here is the scenario: You receive a call, press flash (puts the customer on hold) call the person's extension if he/she is willing to take the call if yes, you hang up and the call has been transfered, or if not, you press flash again and tell the customer that the person at extension "x" is not available etc. if you want to do it in a formal way with "ring". The person you called and he/she is willing to take the call, hangs up the call with you. You press "flash", again and tell that person to stay on line as you are transferring the call. Press flash again (to put the customer on hold) dial the extension of the person you are transferring the call to and hang up. The phone of the person you transfered the call to will ring. Is this what you are looking for? -- #Joseph
I can give you my experience: It was a hard hurdle to gain acceptance of Asterisk in my office (6 companies) simply because a receptionist position is a weak point in Asterisk. Old time receptionists used to Meridians hate learning anything new, even FOP is not acceptable. However, what *did* work and what my users love, is DID's. We now give a user a DID number and a DID fax number that those numbers will now follow them around for the term of their employment. Here's how we set it up: 1. Assign DID to user 2. Instruct user to tell everyone that the DID number is the *only* number that they can get ahold of them, so callers *always* call the DID 3. If the user does not pick up, an IVR menu kicks in asking them to press 1 to try the user on their cell or 2 for voicemail 4. Callers to the "main" number get an IVR menu asking 1 for sales 2 for whatever...and press 0 to go to the receptionist. 5. Transfer procedure for receptionist: Xfer key > Internal extension > OK. If the guy is on the phone, the IVR menu kicks in. 6. Receptionist has FOP on her screen for extension state This is a 4 way win: -Users love having their own "personal" number and fax number (faxes are emailed directly to them) -Receptionist loves it because her call volume has dropped 80%. Transfer is not too egregious so receptionist complies -Callers love it because they don't have to call a receptionist -Callers are screened automatically, anybody that you want to be screened you give the main number to NOT a did number. DID's are $24 per user per year. We are using Snom phones, transfer right out of the box. hth -----Original Message----- From: Alain Major/Simard [mailto:amajor@simard.ca] Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 12:05 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Receptionist Hi, Quick question. With an old phone system a receptionist receiving a call has 1 button to push to transfer calls to a specific extension, with Asterisk, a receptionist would actually put the caller on hold, pick up another line, call the extension, ask if the person is available, hang up pick up the caller again and transfer. To me it's seems a long way to simply do a receptionist job. Is there a way we can program the system, or make an application, that would provide the same functionality ? I am currently looking at buying 4 pbx for my offices across Canada and this particular feature is preventing us from choosing Asterisk. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Alain Major, Directeur, D?partement de l'Informatique et des T?l?communications Manager, Information Technology and Telecommunications Department L. Simard Transport Lt?e Simard Transport and Warehousing 1212 32nd Avenue Lachine, Qu?bec, Canada t?l : 514-636-9411 email : amajor@simard.ca web : http:\\www.simard.ca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20050902/e4226112/attachment.htm
It'd probably be wise to get an Asterisk consultant involved to come up with a dialplan that will work for your needs. In my case, I am using AMP with custom logic being handled by extensions_custom.conf. My dialplan is extensive, over 100K, so it's probably not of much use to you. However, I can tell you that the DID / receptionist part is easily handled by AMP. -----Original Message----- From: Gavin Spurgeon [mailto:gsp@leighctc.kent.sch.uk] Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 1:49 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Receptionist Hi Colin/List <Snip> 1. Assign DID to user 2. Instruct user to tell everyone that the DID number is the *only* number that they can get ahold of them, so callers *always* call the DID 3. If the user does not pick up, an IVR menu kicks in asking them to press 1 to try the user on their cell or 2 for voicemail 4. Callers to the "main" number get an IVR menu asking 1 for sales 2 for whatever...and press 0 to go to the receptionist. 5. Transfer procedure for receptionist: Xfer key > Internal extension > OK. If the guy is on the phone, the IVR menu kicks in. 6. Receptionist has FOP on her screen for extension state </Snip> I would love to see the conf files for this kind of setup... This is 'Exactly' what I am in the middle of trying to do... any chance of posting the conf files to a www some where ? (with any password and such removed of course...) Best Regards Gavin Spurgeon Assistant Systems Administrator gsp@leighctc.kent.sch.uk http://www.leighctc.kent.sch.uk Tel: 01322 620501 Fax: 01322 620599 IS HelpDesk : Ext 541 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by the Systems @ the LeighCTC, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation sponsored by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
We found that the inbuilt attended transfer in Asterisk solved all of our
problems in this regard.
(the receptionist presses # and the extension to be transferred to)
Sadly this is not entirely reliable going in and out of queues - it can crash
Asterisk.
PaulH
----- Original Message -----
From: Alain Major/Simard
To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 4:04 AM
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Receptionist
Hi,
Quick question. With an old phone system a receptionist receiving a call has
1 button to push to transfer calls to a specific extension, with Asterisk, a
receptionist would actually put the caller on hold, pick up another line, call
the extension, ask if the person is available, hang up pick up the caller again
and transfer. To me it's seems a long way to simply do a receptionist job.
Is there a way we can program the system, or make an application, that would
provide the same functionality ?
I am currently looking at buying 4 pbx for my offices across Canada and this
particular feature is preventing us from choosing Asterisk. Any info would be
greatly appreciated.
Alain Major,
Directeur,
D?partement de l'Informatique et des T?l?communications
Manager,
Information Technology and Telecommunications Department
L. Simard Transport Lt?e
Simard Transport and Warehousing
1212 32nd Avenue
Lachine, Qu?bec, Canada
t?l : 514-636-9411
email : amajor@simard.ca
web : http:\\www.simard.ca
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