asterisk users - Nov 2004 - Good ringing plans for small office

At the place I work we're using Asterisk to run our in-office phone 
system.  We have about 15 employees and a total of about 5 hard phones.  
Right now when asterisk receives an incoming call, it rings all 5 
phones, because we don't really have a "receptionist".  I was
wondering
if anyone has had a similar situation and might be able to suggest some 
better approach to ringing the phones?  I don't really know what I have 
in mind, just kind of looking for what other people in similar 
situations might have done.

Thanks,
Chris

-- 
Chris TenHarmsel
Software Journeyman
Atomic Object, LLC

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:11:42 -0500, Christopher TenHarmsel
<chris@atomicobject.com> wrote:
> At the place I work we're using Asterisk to run our in-office phone
> system.  We have about 15 employees and a total of about 5 hard phones.
> Right now when asterisk receives an incoming call, it rings all 5
> phones, because we don't really have a "receptionist".  I was
wondering
> if anyone has had a similar situation and might be able to suggest some
> better approach to ringing the phones?  I don't really know what I have
> in mind, just kind of looking for what other people in similar
> situations might have done.
We have a similar environment.  I ring 3 phones, but I use a different
ring so the employees know it's an outside call and can answer it
accordingly.  From my extensions.conf:

exten => 0,2,Dial(${USER1}r2&${USER2}r2&${USER3}r2,20,Tt)

In addition, if nobody answers the call, it goes to a separate
"global" voicemail box that is set to email a notification to a
supervisor.

John

On Wed, 2004-03-11 at 11:11 -0500, Christopher TenHarmsel
wrote:
> At the place I work we're using Asterisk to run our in-office phone 
> system.  We have about 15 employees and a total of about 5 hard phones.  
> Right now when asterisk receives an incoming call, it rings all 5 
> phones, because we don't really have a "receptionist".  I was
wondering
> if anyone has had a similar situation and might be able to suggest some 
> better approach to ringing the phones?  I don't really know what I have
> in mind, just kind of looking for what other people in similar 
> situations might have done.
Have you considered using an auto-attendant to pick up all incoming
calls?

Another strategy is to ring the phones of those who normally answer
first, and then fail-over to the remaining phones if nobody picks up.
If nobody wants to answer the call at all, let the auto attendant take
care of it.

Have a look at the AMP project (http://amp.voxbox.ca).  It gives GUI to
configuring call handling strategies like these.  It might be a good fit
for your organization.

Cheers

-- 
Ryan Courtnage
Director & CTO
Coalescent Systems Inc
403.244.8089
www.coalescentsystems.ca

On Wed, 2004-11-03 at 16:11, Christopher TenHarmsel
wrote:
> At the place I work we're using Asterisk to run our in-office phone 
> system.  We have about 15 employees and a total of about 5 hard phones.  
> Right now when asterisk receives an incoming call, it rings all 5 
> phones, because we don't really have a "receptionist".  I was
wondering
> if anyone has had a similar situation and might be able to suggest some 
> better approach to ringing the phones?  I don't really know what I have
> in mind, just kind of looking for what other people in similar 
> situations might have done.
In our last office we had a DECT phone on the main office line. The
phone can be passed around to whoever is designated to answer it.
As it sounds different to all of the others everyone knows when it is
ringing and can call pickup it from their phones. Seems a reasonable
solution.

Adam.