PreFlow with Mobile Phone device

[FASTDEVICE]

When configuring a PreFlow with a callflow that uses a cell phone device, and that cell phone is off, the PreFlow stalls for the time indicated by "Ring this device for x seconds."

1. PreFlow-> CallflowA-> Cell Phone Device. (when cell is off: long delay before normal operations)

If I place another call element under the cell phone device, the off condition of the mobile phone is immediately detected and the callfow switches to the next call element without delay.  

2. PreFlow-> CallflowA-> Cell Phone Device-> MainCallflow. (when cell is off: no delay reaching the MainCallflow) 

Is there a way to configure item 1 to have no delay when a mobile phone is off? In some cases, clients hear 30-50 seconds of silence (no ringing) and then it moves to normal operations.   

[Darren Schreiber]

Does the mobile phone go to voicemail? This is 2600Hz mobile or something else?

 

[FASTDEVICE]

Cell Device, not 2600hz mobile, and I force "Require Key Press." This is for a client that needs to forward calls to a cell. 

[FASTDEVICE]

The person on-call forgot to turn the cell phone on, and now clients are hearing about 50 seconds of silence before it starts to ring the MainCallflow.

[Darren Schreiber]

This sounds right. It's a pre-flow, so it occurs before any instructions (such as ringing). That's right. Plus, it has to wait for the carrier to answer and figure out it's hit voicemail. So it's going to be silent during that time.

 

[Darren Schreiber]

Also this really isn't what a preflow is designed for, what use case do you have here? The preflow is really for things like turning on call recording across the board, or enabling DTMF or missed call alerts, etc. Stuff that exits quickly and would be done globally.

 

[FASTDEVICE]

Thanks Darren, makes sense. When it comes to cell phones, I'll make sure to add another call element in the event the battery dies or someone forgets to turn on the phone.

[Darren Schreiber]

No problem, still curious what your use case is though?

[FASTDEVICE]

Interesting, I was seeing it as a way to bypass all callflows and forward calls. 

[Darren Schreiber]

But why would you do that though?

[FASTDEVICE]

You have me thinking... but business is shutdown for whatever reason and the owner needs to forward calls to a service. PreFlow appears to be quick way to accomplish this. However, I see what you mean and it's intended usage.  

[Darren Schreiber]

Well that doesn't mean your idea isn't a good one. I'm fascinated by it actually :-) Very creative.

 

[tomas_]

A better idea to accomplish this might be to use Time of Day and/or Enable/Disable Time of Day?

[FASTDEVICE]

@tomas_ yep your suggestion is our common way to forward calls to after-hours services, but this was more of a quick way to forward every DID; main and all extensions assigned DIDs to a single forwarded number without having to insert time of days in each callflow.

I've done some further testing with PreFlow and it's not a good idea to assign it a callflow that is connected to a device. It can get quirky, so I'd stick to the intended usage of:

23 hours ago, Darren Schreiber said:

Stuff that exits quickly and would be done globally.