6.2 Groups

Overview

In this section, you will learn how to configure a group service.

A group service is the first of three services that enable you to distribute calls to a group of phone extensions, the other two being the queue and skill services.

A group service can have up to two purposes:

  • It can be a ring group

  • It can be a pick-up group.

At the very least, it will be a ring group, even if you haven’t configured an extension number or an inbound number for it. This is because, it’s always possible to dial a service target using a function code.

A ring group will ring all extensions that are a member of the group at the same time. It will also ring all devices that are associated to these extensions, so use this with caution. Furthermore, if the phone extensions configured in the ring group have call waiting enabled, the ring group will present calls to these extensions as well.

Please note that ring groups are not affected by the call forwarding settings on phone extensions that are a member of the group. This means that if one of the extensions was set up with a call forwarding always to voicemail, for example, it will ignore it and still make the devices associated with this extension ring, unless the devices on that extension are all on DND.

Please note that on the DFN cloud telephone system, a phone extension can be a member of more than one ring group.

A pick-up group allows users to pick up a call that is ringing on another phone extension that is part of the same group. This includes calls that are coming via the ACD (queue or skill services).

In this view, you can:

  • Add a new entry

  • Select one, several or all entries and delete them

  • Edit, clone, delete or edit an entry or copy it to a clipboard (you can also edit an entry by double-clicking on it)

  • Select how many entries you want to have on the page

  • Search for a group

TIP

You have the option of cloning a group if you want to duplicate the group with the same or similar settings.