Best practise for forwarding calls at lunch

[wes4]

We have a small, flexible workforce with a few specialist call queues. We would like to be able to forward all calls to another person in another department (queue) during lunch. There is no set lunch time, it varies from day to day depending how busy we are, so we need to be able to turn it on and off on the fly. We are using the Zoom app on PC with headsets.

For example:

Enquiries queue:

Person 1 (on lunch)

Person 2 (not working - day off, PC/app turned off)

Events queue:

Person 3

We want to be able to forward calls from person 1 to person 3, only for the lunch duration. We don't want to add person 3 to the enquiries queue or any sort of overflow on a permanent basis.

On person 1's PC app, when forwarding is turned on and directed to person 3, calls are not forwarded - I'm assuming it is still trying to call person 2. Person 1 finds voicemails in their inbox on their return from lunch. Person 3 never receives any phone calls.

Is there a way to achieve the above temporary forwarding?

[Eliot]

hi wes4,

ways to handle forwarding calls while out to lunch:

1.  Desk Phone - select forward all to person 3 extension on your poly desktop phone such as a poly vvx 450.  when you return from lunch, cancel the call forward all.  works in similar manner on cisco cp 8841, grandstream grp2615, and yealink sip-t54w

2. Mobile Client - go to settings->phone->forward calls.  when going out for lunch, forward calls to person 3 extension.  you can specify a duration.  when you return from lunch, turn call forwarding off.

Did my response answer your question? If so, please don't forget to mark the reply as an accepted solution.

thanks,  eliot

[wes4]

Hi Eliot,

               Thanks for your reply and your suggestions. Option 1 - we currently don't use desk phones, and want to avoid buying hardware if possible.

Option 2 - This does not work for us. No calls are forwarded. Calls ring out and end up going to message bank of person 1.

I should point out that we have one main incoming number, which uses an auto attendant to direct calls to each queue. Each person does not have their own phone number, just an extension. Is this why option 2 does not work?

Thanks,

[Eliot]

Hi wes4

One other approach involves adding lunch backup personnel to the call queues that they are backing up.  Normally, the backup personnel will be opted out of that queue and only opt in when requested by the person going out for lunch. It is easy for users to opt in or out of call queues using Receive Shared Calls.  When a call comes in to my A R Invalid Entry (demo) call queue and I have it toggled on, my windows desktop phone rings.  When this call queue is toggled off and a call comes into this queue, my phone does not ring.

Did my response answer your question? If so, please don't forget to mark the reply as an accepted solution.

thanks,  eliot

[Vinnie]

Hello wes4. The concept of Forwarding On-Demand calls in Zoom Phone is a bit "foreign" but Zoom provides other mechanism to accomplish similar goals. 

If I understand correctly you have several demands, and please correct me if I am wrong:

1) "Automatic" activate and deactivate a "forward" on a Call queue, which I understand to "handle the call differently, or to a different person or Queue during lunch hour.

2) Lunch hours varies from day to day.

3) You don't want to add this alternative person to original Call Queue.

The easiest, fastest, and flexible way (and I agree with the other reply) would be to add this person to the "Enquiries" and have that person Check-in/out during lunch hours, however, there is a little trick we use for people/teams when go on vacation and that is using the "HOLIDAYS" in the Call Handling and then pre-configure the alternative destination which will Automatically Start/Stop at the specified Day(s)/Time(s).

This option is not as flexible because you have to go to the Portal Queue Management and change the Date/Time every day, but other that, I believe it does what you need.

You can provide "Call Queue Management access" to the person(s) that needs to be in charge of setting this, and if you know in advanced the Lunch Schedule, you can configure multiple days in advanced.

It works like a charm in our use-case but I am not sure how practical would be if you have to adjust it on a daily basis.

In regard to the other comment about call not being forward from P1 to P3:  If you "Forwarded" or changed the Call Handling on P1, any calls into a Queue Member doesn't affects calls done to the Call Queue number, only calls done directly to P1.

Let me know if this unorthodox way to doing "scheduled call forwarding" works for you. 🙂