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Dynamically changing a scheduled flag


andrewgroup

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A client normally closes at 5:00 and the night greeting begins.... Suddenly they wish to stay open and additional hour.

 

How would you create a service flag account that can be dialed that cancel the night message until another service flag is called to reinstate the night ring.

 

Any suggestions on this?

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Well the problem is that when you call after hours to turn it on again then the PBX would wait until the next morning...

 

Historically, the receptionist can hit a night button and toggle the night answering machine.

 

In PBXnSIP, we experimented with adding an additional manual service flag to the auto attendent, but for as log as the scheduled service flag was set, the manual service flags being set or unset had no affect on the auto attendant....

 

One choice might be to add the capability to manually call a schedule service flag from defined extension to toggle the service flag. If the user forgets, so be it, it's been that way forever in the real world.

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I'd have thought the way to do it would be that you can dial and change the state whenever, but the next time the off/on boundry is passed it goes off or on according to the schedule.

 

That's the way my central heating works anyway :)

 

Agreed, come the next scheduled time it resumes. Plus the receptionist in many cases has no PC, nor would we want to provide admin rights to the domain to a user. Maybe the service flag account should have a WEB access? Access a Simple WEB PAGE with password prompt, show name of service flag, hit set or reset button.

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No we are still struggling with other bulls*** like callback.

 

Sorry to hear that, but we are constantly being plagued by a few clients that decide at the last moment, Gee were gonna stay open late, or close early. In each case, they say something obvious like, "Our other phone system had a night button." We either educate everyone about the technical limitations, create great documentation and grant some flunky on the staff of the client ADMIN rights to modify flags, (assuming they have a computer and it actually works, or simply do it for them and continue to make excuses as to why we can't give them a night button to override the scheduled settings. We simply see no creative way to give them what they want. Have we overlooked the obvious in this regards?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Sorry to hear that, but we are constantly being plagued by a few clients that decide at the last moment, Gee were gonna stay open late, or close early. In each case, they say something obvious like, "Our other phone system had a night button." We either educate everyone about the technical limitations, create great documentation and grant some flunky on the staff of the client ADMIN rights to modify flags, (assuming they have a computer and it actually works, or simply do it for them and continue to make excuses as to why we can't give them a night button to override the scheduled settings. We simply see no creative way to give them what they want. Have we overlooked the obvious in this regards?

 

I allow the customer domain admin rights so they can change these kind of things. (i dont give them the admin password)

 

BTW asterisk does this with a *code that toggles the day/night. however you can not have schedules its purely a day/night toggle. This would seem easy to me. just a toggle service flag that says active or not active and has 2 different destinations based on the flag.

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  • 1 month later...

Based on the many key systems I have had experience with I like the systems that use an override mode. The extension would place a call to the Day Night service flag. They would then be prompted to enter 1 to override into day mode (temporarily until the next scheduled mode change). 2 to override into night mode (temporarily until the next scheduled mode change). 3 to permanently override into day mode, 4 to permanently override into night mode, and 0 to cancel any active overrides. The permissions could be set to only allow certain extensions to place a call to the service flag, or you could pin protect it. You could also utilize a "monitor extension button" to indicate if any of the overrides are active.

 

I have also had many issues selling this system simply because of many small details like this that have existed on traditional phone systems forever. People take them for granted, and don't care so much about the wonderful new capabilities a system like this can bring if they have to loose useful features that they have had for 20+ years

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...

Agreed, running 3.1.0.3043 (Win32)

created a test DAY NIGHT Flag assigned my extension to change / monitor

set time schedule for 8:00am to 11:59am, the service flag shows set,

calling the service flag I get a dual tone acknowledgement, but the service flag remains set.

I've never seen this feature work on any previous releases.

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Agreed, running 3.1.0.3043 (Win32)

created a test DAY NIGHT Flag assigned my extension to change / monitor

set time schedule for 8:00am to 11:59am, the service flag shows set,

calling the service flag I get a dual tone acknowledgement, but the service flag remains set.

I've never seen this feature work on any previous releases.

I've just setup a workaround.

The day/night service flag I use is the 79, so I've created a manual service flag 78.

In the first auto attendant, pbxnsip evaluates first 78 and then 79.

78 Is normally clear, so 79 does its job most of the times.

But if I set 78 manually (using the phone), it jumps to the hunt group that usually answers, skipping the night flag.

 

Nicola

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  • 2 months later...
I've just setup a workaround.

The day/night service flag I use is the 79, so I've created a manual service flag 78.

In the first auto attendant, pbxnsip evaluates first 78 and then 79.

78 Is normally clear, so 79 does its job most of the times.

But if I set 78 manually (using the phone), it jumps to the hunt group that usually answers, skipping the night flag.

 

Nicola

 

Did you put two service flags the AA setup page?

Would you mind including a screen capture or the XML file for the AA?

 

Thanks

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Well the problem is that when you call after hours to turn it on again then the PBX would wait until the next morning...

 

Sorry to jump back to this 'old' message but i still do not understands why the PBX would wait until the next morning ?

I assume the Flag is set bij a 'status change message' with the desired state as optional parameter. I think this would the best way to program such a functionality. No matter how often or how much the status changes, it would do exactly what everybody would want it to do ?

 

What would be the problem in this setting ?

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Sorry to jump back to this 'old' message but i still do not understands why the PBX would wait until the next morning ?

I assume the Flag is set bij a 'status change message' with the desired state as optional parameter. I think this would the best way to program such a functionality. No matter how often or how much the status changes, it would do exactly what everybody would want it to do ?

 

What would be the problem in this setting ?

 

Well, AFAIK the latest state was: In automatic mode, the times define the transitions, not the state. In other words: At the end of the day, the service flags sets the flag - if if it not set already. That would cover the case where the secretary decides to home earlier. The same applies if she shows up early in the morning - if she shows up earlier she can anticipate the transition and turn the flag off before the service flag does that automatically.

 

The case where she stays longer is not convered. She would have to clear the service flag right after it switched on and then set it again manually.

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Well, AFAIK the latest state was: In automatic mode, the times define the transitions, not the state. In other words: At the end of the day, the service flags sets the flag - if if it not set already. That would cover the case where the secretary decides to home earlier. The same applies if she shows up early in the morning - if she shows up earlier she can anticipate the transition and turn the flag off before the service flag does that automatically.

 

The case where she stays longer is not convered. She would have to clear the service flag right after it switched on and then set it again manually.

 

This is exactly the behaviour i would like to have.... If she would forget to turn the flag back on (after staying late), it stays off till the morning. This is just a side effect that comes with flexibility.

 

To prevent it from being forgotten in the evening there might be the possibility to specify in the properties of the service flag an extra time interval 20:00-20:00 if that works ? to set it again at eight if she forgot ?

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This would all be great - we've never been able to make a scheduled flag flip from an extension. We have tested this on every version, included 3.2, since these many related threads were first started over a year ago. Screen captures or a wiki page would be great.

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This would all be great - we've never been able to make a scheduled flag flip from an extension. We have tested this on every version, included 3.2, since these many related threads were first started over a year ago. Screen captures or a wiki page would be great.

 

Hmm. We could introduce something that is a "manual override expire". For example, having something like "+1:00" would mean that a manual override would last only for one hour. Alternatively we could have a midnight event that just resets all manual overrides, so that at least in the morning everything is according to the plan.

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Hmm. We could introduce something that is a "manual override expire". For example, having something like "+1:00" would mean that a manual override would last only for one hour. Alternatively we could have a midnight event that just resets all manual overrides, so that at least in the morning everything is according to the plan.

 

I still think this is not what people want. What if people will stay 4 hours longer @ work, that means that they have to keep watching the Flag status and press it four times ?

 

What is wrong with my solution ? (previous post)

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