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Looking for a "Helpdesk Hotline" solution

I work in a distributed environment with 6 IT personnel in various locations and on different phone systems. I'd like to establish a single phone number for end-users to call in order to reach Helpdesk personnel. I figure there must be a relatively cheap 3rd party service to assist with this but I can't find anything. We could rig up our Avaya IP Office pbx to provide some functionality but it is not very scalable.

My requirements are:
-Must ring all Helpdesk techs logged into the group initially (2 techs)
-Techs may log into group providing either their desk phone number or mobile
-On no answer, we should have the option to have the caller redirected to either a voice mail box or to another employee/team/on-call.
-Ability to quickly/easily assign an escalation/on-call tech during and outside of business hours.
-Have a recording play for the caller while techs are being reached such as "Yes, our mail servers are down and will be up at X:XX, blah blah...".

Any ideas on something that could meet all or most of the criteria?

Thanks, Mark

luc_roy

That is one of the biggest issues with Avaya IP Office. One of the ways to fix this for free (just need an old computer) is to add a second PBX to the system. One of the things I do when I hit a brick wall with product limitations is to install trixbox on an old laptop or PC (http://www.trixbox.org/). It supports the Avaya phones (and most other).

Create trunk between the two devices (http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=7248) and add the “Help Desk” extension sending all traffic back over. The trixbox has full IVR, Ring Group, VMAL, VMAIL to E-Mail, etc…functionality It’s actually a great help desk tool.

In one case we even created a web app for a SIP phone showing what extension were in the QUE so we knew who was up next.

TheExpertTaker

the Avaya ip office can do this, no need for 3rd party applications. call to Hunt group - longest waiting but either twin the extension with an external number of use the intenal phone. Put One-X mobile on the phone to allow call control and be able to log into and out of groups. If you have good coverage you could just put a a SIP client on the mobile with 3G or Wirless.

calls to the Group would overflow after X seconds to Voicemail as you request and you could put an Announcement on with the optional messages.

Easily done...

mark-cooper

ASKER

Lets assume we don't have any IP Office units. My question is targeted at identifying a 3rd-party hosted solution for hunt grouping / call routing. Any thoughts on that, while meeting the requirements of the first post?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

luc_roy

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semowen