Call Queues & Ring Groups

Introduction
Ring Groups
Paging
Intercom
Call Queues
Queue Login & Logout
See also

Introduction

With 3CX, you can create Ring Groups and Queues to handle incoming calls as a team:

Ring Groups allow you to route calls concurrently or sequentially to multiple extensions
Queues allow you to keep callers in a queue (if all agents are busy) until an agent is available

Ring Groups

To create a new ring group:

in the Admin Console, navigate to "Admin → Call Handling"
click on the Add Ring Group button

in the "Add Ring Group → General" tab:

the Virtual Extension Number field will be pre-populated with the next available number; you can customise this if you wish
use the Assigned DID number(s) drop-down to assign a DID numbers to the ring group:

incoming calls to this DID number will be routed to the ring group
you can specify multiple DID numbers if necessary

set a Ring Group Name for your new ring group
select the Ring Strategy for your ring group:

the Ring All strategy will ring all members of the ring group simultaneously until a member picks up the call, or until the Ring Time is reached
the Prioritized Hunt strategy will ring members sequentially from the top of the list downwards until a member picks up the call; keep in mind that for each call the first member called will be the member at the top of the list

select the Department the ring group belongs to; the ring group will follow the department's office hours
set the Ring Time to specify how long (default is 20 seconds) the call should ring before it is considered unanswered
set the Destinations for unanswered calls; you can set different destinations for:

out of office hours
break hours
holidays

in the "Add Ring Group → Users" tab:

click the Add User button to add a member to the ring group:

use the search box to find users
you can use drag-and-drop to change the polling order for hunting strategies

in the "Add Ring Group → Notifications" tab:

set the Voicemail Greeting to play
set the Voicemail Delivery Email Options to be:

delivered via email only
cloned into the voicemail box for each member
delivered to extra recipients only

in the "Add Ring Group → Options" tab:

set the Transcription settings to:

use department settings; OR
override the department settings

in the "Add Ring Group → 3CX Talk" tab:

change Your Link Name customize the link for the Talk URL
configure what information you will Ask customer for before the call is initiated
publish your 3CX Talk link to your website, email signature, and social pages to allow visitors to call your ring group directly

click the Save button

Paging

Paging is used to make a one-way announcement to a ring group via the phone speaker, without the called party picking up the handset.

Paging requires you to set the relevant dial code in "Admin → System → Dial Codes → Paging" (for example: *9).

Effectively, a Paging Group is a Ring Group configured with one of the Paging ring strategies:

the Paging strategy requires you to add the extensions to the group via the Users tab
the Paging Multicast strategy:

does not target a group of extensions
is suitable for large paging groups and requires phones supporting multicast
the phones in the multicast group must reside on the same local subnet as 3CX
requires you to define the target multicast address to send the audio stream to, and then use the provisioning configuration method to configure the IP phone to listen to this address

Intercom

The Intercom function enables you to make an announcement to a single extension with two-way audio, where the called party can respond without picking up the handset.

To call a user via the intercom function:

ensure that the Paging dial code is configured as for the Paging Group function
add the paging prefix in front of the extension number; for example, if your paging dial code is *9, dial *9101 to make an Intercom call to extension 101
the extension needs to have the Call Operations option enabled in the "Admin → Users → Edit User → View" tab

Call Queues

Compared to Ring Groups, Queues offer many more options on how a call should be handled. If a call cannot be handled immediately, it is added to the call queue; there are various ways of handling queued calls.

To create a new Queue:

in the Admin Console, navigate to "Admin → Call Handling"
click on the Add Queue button

in the "Add Queue → General" tab:

the Virtual Extension Number field will be pre-populated with the next available number; you can customise this if you wish
use the Assigned DID number(s) drop-down to assign a DID numbers to the queue:

incoming calls to this DID number will be routed to the queue
you can specify multiple DID numbers if necessary

set a Queue Name for your new queue
select the Polling Strategy for your queue:

the Ring All strategy will ring all members of the queue simultaneously until a member picks up the call, or until the Maximum queue wait time is reached
the Prioritized Hunt strategy will ring members sequentially from the top of the list downwards until a member picks up the call; keep in mind that for each call the first member called will be the member at the top of the list
the Hunt Random Start strategy will randomly choose the first member to poll, effectively distributing calls evenly to the members of the queue
the Round Robin strategy distributes incoming calls evenly among logged in agents, ensuring that each agent gets a fair share of calls
the Longest Waiting strategy forwards the call to the member waiting the longest
the Least Talk Time strategy forwards the call to the member with the least total talk time
the Fewest Answered strategy forwards the call to the member who has answered the least number of calls
the Hunt by Threes Random strategy sends the call simultaneously to 3 random agents
the Hunt by Threes Prioritized strategy forwards the call simultaneously to 3 agents at a time as prioritized in the Users tab
for Enterprise/AI edition and above, you can also select a skills-based Polling Strategy

select the Department the queue belongs to; the queue will follow the department's office hours
set the Ring Time to specify how long (default is 30 seconds) the call should ring on the currently targeted members before a new polling cycle starts
set the Destinations for unanswered calls; you can set different destinations for:

out of office hours
break hours
holidays

in the "Add Queue → Users" tab:

click the Add User button to add a member to the queue:

use the search box to find users
you can use drag-and-drop to change the polling order for hunting strategies

for Enterprise/AI editions and above, if you have selected a skills-based polling strategy:

you can tag each user with a skill level from 1 to 5
incoming queue calls are first assigned to agents in skill group 1
if no agents are available in a skill group, the call will be routed to the next skill group

in the "Add Queue → Notifications" tab:

set the supervisor(s) for this queue, who will:

receive general Queue notifications
handle voicemail left in the queue voicemail box

set the Voicemail Greeting to play
set the Voicemail Delivery Email Options to be:

delivered via email only
cloned into the voicemail box for each member
delivered to extra recipients only

for Enterprise/AI editions and above, you can also:

set the Queue Email Notifications that will be delivered to the supervisor(s)

in the "Add Queue → Options" tab:

set the Queue Language for the prompts for the queue
customize the Music On Hold for the queue if necessary
add an Intro Prompt if necessary
if you wish to Announce queue position to the caller, you can set the Announcement Interval
set the Transcription settings to:

use department settings; OR
override the department settings

in the "Add Queue → 3CX Talk" tab:

change Your Link Name customize the link for the Talk URL
configure what information you will Ask customer for before the call is initiated
publish your 3CX Talk link to your website, email signature, and social pages to allow visitors to call your queue directly

in the "Add Queue → Advanced" tab:

you can Allow call back to allow callers to hang up and be called back when an agent is available:

when the call back is Triggered on user request; OR
by accepting the Call back offered after an amount of time (default 600 seconds)
the queue will make the callback to the caller when an agent becomes available; if the caller does not answer, it is considered a failed callback for notification purposes

you can set caller options to Record Calls, allowing the caller to opt-in or opt-out of recording
you can set Chat Assignment behaviour, either by auto-assigning a chat to the first responding agent, or by allowing the agent to "take" the chat
Schedule Queue Statistics Reset:

you can clear the queue statistics daily, weekly, or monthly

statistics for the queue are visible through the "Agent Status" and "Queue Monitoring" sections on the “Panel” view in the 3CX Web Client

for Enterprise/AI editions and above, there are additional Advanced features:

set your Queue Preferences:

the Wrap-up Time allows the agent a number of seconds to wrap up before receiving another call from the queue
if the queue receives a call that exceeds the Maximum callers in queue, the call is delivered according to the Destinations set in the General tab
if you set the queue to be a Priority Queue, then agents will receive calls for this queue with higher priority than calls from other queues
the SLA Time for the queue is used:

for queue notifications
for reporting purposes, particularly the SLA Statistics and the SLA Breaches reports

Queue Login & Logout

Keep in mind that queue members must be logged into a queue to answer calls; you can configure queue member extensions to automatically log in and out from "Admin → Users → Edit User → Call Forwarding", and set the Log out from queues option for each status.

Call Queues & Ring Groups

Introduction

Ring Groups

Paging

Intercom

Call Queues

Queue Login & Logout

See also

20 Years of VoIP
Industry Leadership

Company

Solutions

Useful Links

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Call Queues & Ring Groups

Introduction

Ring Groups

Paging

Intercom

Call Queues

Queue Login & Logout

See also

20 Years of VoIP Industry Leadership

Company

Solutions

Useful Links

Learn More

Cookie Preferences

20 Years of VoIP
Industry Leadership