Transfer to Voicemail when an extension is busy

[geomat]

Hello,

I would like to ask if it is possible when an extension is busy (already talking to the phone) to transfer its incoming calls to its voicemail. Currently, I observed that when an incoming call is received it is directed to the voicemail only when I reject the call (hit the hang-up button).

Thank you in advance,
George

 

[hfoster]

It's dependant on the handset. The feature is called 'Call Waiting' so if you wanted to disable it, on Yealinks for example, change the Default Setting: yealink_call_waiting to 0. Users can often turn this feature off themselves in basic settings on most phones too, as it's a personal preference.

I find the older users like Call Waiting disabled, and the younger users like it enabled.

 

[geomat]

@hfoster thank you very much for your reply.

If I want to implement this feature on my PBX shall I use the limit command in a dialplan? I also tried to set the 'Limit Max' variable in Extensions to 1 but it does not work.

 

[hfoster]

Don't ask me to explain the reasoning, but limit_max variable is only used when you get to the 890 ordered dialplan entry of 'local_extension', so if you had an outbound route at 100 (the default the form sets) then the limit_max variable will never get used. I think, if you change the outbound routes to order>900 then it should work.

I think I would probably apply the following 'limit' to the inbound routes:

hash ${domain_name} ${destination_number} ${limit_max} ${limit_destination}

I think that would work.

It's worth noting, limiting calls like this may have unintended side effects with features like transfers and ad-hoc conferencing so worth testing this out after you've got it how you like.

Personally, I think it's best to just leave it up to the user enabling or disabling it on the phone or via provisioning template.

 

[geomat]

Thank you very much @hfoster !