Since nowadays every one has a cell phone I think this would be the most economical and efficient backup, to have some thing like a setup in end user Call Forward or at admin lavel user xtension an option when the phone is unreachable or offline it should be forward to a number and this should be only for backup therefore it should ring even for calls within a ring group hunt list etc.
you won’t need pots lines for back up maximum internet back up
is there something like this around. is it all possible, or how it could be done
any thoughts
if the only issue is that it
if the only issue is that it hijacks the ring group/ hunt list than maybe it could be setup 2 types of backup 1 is an extension back up for the end user with its set up in web user portal or in extension setup page and the other one in for each hunt / ring group with ability to setup on the hunt list or ring group page if "ALL" the local extension (either chosen by user or all in the group) are going unreachable and or line congestion (which will avoid if just one or 2 phones are down or unplugged for whatever reason) the hunt list should ring a out side multiple phones with option either simultaneous or one after the other, about the cell phone voice mail pickup i spoke to Alex and he said that he might have a solution shortly which will need to be implemented in this feature as well
the only question is if a ring/hunt group could be completely rerouted based on losing only all the phones, which might be used for a multi office company to reroute a hunt group based on reachable status
the huntlist menu already
the huntlist menu already has the 'script to run when no one answers' option at the bottom of the page. Its not like you can have both calling off-site and a failback since there are so many cases where the call will be 'answered' and stop proceeding in dialplan. So you could just use that feature to call out if no one answers (like when everyone is offline).
Be careful, using a lot of chan_local calls (how calling out to off site phones) will have a significant impact on max load on the PBX. Thats why 1.6 is working to remove macro's and other chan_local usage. Its better to execute a GoSub or Goto(from-inside-tenant,number,1) than Dial(Local/number@from-inside-tenant). The difference between the two techniques is the difference between a 2 leg call and a 3-legged call. Sometimes call data doesn't always go from leg1 all the way to leg3. Trust me, I have lots of issues with call data not making it to pop-up urls as a result of chan_local and chan_agent.
Another thing to keep in mind that MTE and STE are the same code base so care has to be made that adding an obscure feature in MTE doesn't break STE. What may sound like a great idea for MTE could be a disastrous option to put in the code for STE. I think as the products evolve it will become apparent that two separate code bases will have to get maintained. For example, there's only one queue_log so MTE really can't be made to be a fully robust call center platform; all the while STE will want to really ramp up its credibility in the call center market.
While this would be possible on single extension basis; ring groups would be a huge problem. Ring groups ignore call forwarding to avoid hijacking. When the dial application calls multiple extensions the first extension to answer gets the call, but when a forward kicks in it stops ringing all the other phones and calls just the 1 device. Additionally if that forwarded device happens to be out of range and dumps straight to its voicemail, your dialplan is dead in the water. Another example of how this would hijack your entire ring group would occur when someone merely unplugged their phone, like moving offices, and suddenly the ring group stopped working because the calls were re-routed to the one guys cell phone.