Hunt Group

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Purpose

A hunt groups forks a call sequential and parallel in order to locate an extension that can pick up an incoming call. If extension picks the call up, the hunt group will redirect the call to another account or an external number.

The typical use case is a central number that is being called in a company with the receptionist, secretaries and assistants on the different stages of the hunt group.

Settings

The hunt group names may be changed after the creation just like you can change the name of an extension (settings "Primary Name" and "Alias Names"). See the documentation about the Extension Identity.

The hunt group supports three stages. On each stage you can list the extensions that should ring during the stage and set the duration of that stage. If you don't need a stage, leave the fields empty. In these three stages, just list the extension numbers, separated by spaces. The duration of the stage must be specified in seconds.

If all extensions of a stage should be unavailable, the PBX will immediately move to the next stage. If an extension rings both on the old and the new stage, the PBX will just let this phone keep on ringing.

If all stages fail and the setting "Final Stage" is set, the hunt group will go to this destination. In contrast to the other stages, in this stage you can use only one number. Typically this destination will be an auto attendant that will ultimately give the caller the possibility to get someone one the phone. But the destination can also be an external number; therefore the hunt group has a selection field for the "Dial Plan for outbound calls" that should be used for outside calls.

You may select a ring melody that is used for the hunt group. Phones that support the SIP Alert-Info header will change their ring tones, so that you can hear by the tone that the hunt group is being called.

When a phone rings because of a call from a hunt group, the called person wants to know who is calling. There are three modes available:

• "Called Number" displays which number was called. This is typically the hunt group, but for redirected calls it can also be another number.
• "Group Name" always uses the group name of the hunt group, even if the call has been redirected to this group.
• "Group name with called number" shows both strings concatenated.

The setting "Additional Members of the Group" is used to list other extensions that are intrinsically allowed to pick up calls for this hunt group. They are never called directly.

Dialog Permissions are described in Dialog Permissions.

If you like to use "Night Service", you must define a "Service Flag" first. The hunt group will is the status of the Service Flag to determine where to send the call. If the flag is set, the hunt group will redirect the calls directly to the "Night Service Number", which can be an internal account or an external number.