Setting Up Ring Groups

An account wants to create an extension that when activated it forwards calls to multiple people in the account, such as a sales or support department.

What is a ring Group?

A ring group is an extension in your account that is mapped to multiple people. These are often used to ring a specific department in an office, for example, a support team or sales team. Within each ring group, you can define a succession of rings, where one extension is tried first, then the call is moved elsewhere, to another extension, or to voicemail.

From your SmartPBX dashboard, Select Groups

Select Add Group


 

Give your Group a name
Choose a name that helps remind you what the ring group is for.

Enter an extension
If you don’t know available extensions, click on “Find One”. It will list extensions already added to your account. Choose one that is not already assigned.

Drag User names from “Available Users” column to the “Selected Users” column

Select Create Group
You should now see your newly created group in the list.

Ring Group Settings
There are a variety of settings you can apply to each ring group. To view them, click on the space under the column header to the right of your group.

• Members
  Click on members to further define when a member in the ring group will start to receive the call, and for how long. Change the slider after each member to define this

Some considerations:

• Budget about 6 seconds for each Ring initially, then test. This can vary based on your account settings.
• The blue Distribute button will automatically sequence each member equally. In this case no ring will be set for more than one user.
• Big Boss may not want to be hearing the first call, and may be set as a last option.
• Overlapping sliders mean both extensions will ring for that call
• The far-right value is the longest a ring will last, past this value it will proceed as you define under the Group Features setting. To change the maximum time, select the value (defaults at 120 sec.) and enter a new value.
• You can Add a user to the group from this screen by selecting “Add User” at the bottom left.
• You can Remove a user by selecting the Remove button.
• SAVE! your changes
   
• Extension 
  You can add a second extension here, and/or unassign the existing one and change it.
   
• Phone Numbers
  You can assign a specific phone # to this ring group instead of an extension. You will be giving the option of assigning a spare number already in the system or of purchasing a new number. Make sure you understand your pricing model before you purchase!
   
• Group Features
  This option provides several options for the ring group extension.
• • Ringback Settings
    Enabling this option allows you to upload a media file to play back to the caller in lieu of rings. Hold music is a common to use here.
  • Next Action
    This is an important feature that sets a follow-up action for the call if no-one in the ring group can answer it, including sending the call to a voice mailbox.
    
    
     
  • Allow Call-Forward
    When enabled, this will allow the group’s users to press their device’s “Forward” settings to forward an incoming call to a different extension outside the ring group. If this is disabled, the ring group settings will be the expected behavior.
  • Caller ID Prepend
    This allows you to add a prefix to the Caller ID, either a number or a Name.  An example might be “Sales – xxxx” or “Spanish – xxx”