[asterisk-users] agents and music on hold with autoanswer..

[Stephen Bosch]

MAS! wrote:
> 
> My colleague left our company, then I have to manage all our phones
> lines and asterisk: please, apologize me because I'm 'absolute beginner'
> about voip/asterisk!!
> 
> Well... all seems work fine; we have some queues and some agents; the
> "music on hold" works fine when the agent press the hold button on the
> phone (thomson); the agents have the 'autoanwser' flag on.
> 
> BUT if the agent have to go elsewhere for some minutes (coffe break, go
> to piss, and so on..), usually he press the 'hold' button on the phone;

Oh my word.

Does the phone have a DND ("Do not disturb") button? Are all the agents
trained to press hold when they need to go the bathroom?

If the answer to the last question is yes, you have more than a
technology problem on your hands. Perhaps this is why your colleague
left in the first place :)

> if a new call arrive, asterisk send the call to the agent's phone, since
> it seems 'free'; but the phone is 'on hold'; and the caller don't hear
> 'anything' (no music, nothing at all) until the agent press (of course)
> again the button (but usually the caller hang up since he don't hear
> anything)
> 
> there is a way to send the 'music on hold' to the caller even with the
> asterisk send the call to the phone (autoanswer on) but the 'hold'
> button is already pressed?
> 
> I have to search/manage the asterisk config or the phone one?
> 
> We are using asterisk 1.2.1 with Thomson ST2030.

The Thomson is the telephone set?

> this is the asterisk log:
> 
> (...)
>    -- Executing Queue("CAPI/ISDN4/********-ce", "coda_azienda|t|3600")
> in new stack
>     -- Started music on hold, class 'music', on channel
> 'CAPI/ISDN4/******-ce'
>     -- agent_call, call to agent '1005' call on 'SIP/barbaran-621c'
>     -- Playing 'beep' (language 'it')
>     -- Called Agent/1005
>     -- Agent/1005 answered CAPI/ISDN4/******-ce
> 
> [WARNING: in the truth the Agent is in hold mode now; there is the
> autoanswer on]

(!)

Why?

(FYI: Auto answer is normally enabled in the telephone configuration and
not in Asterisk.)

>     -- Playing 'wsa_from_coda_w' (language 'it')
> Apr 11 12:23:17 NOTICE[13534]: res_musiconhold.c:507 monmp3thread:
> Request to schedule in the past?!?!
>     -- Stopped music on hold on CAPI/ISDN4/*****-ce
> 
> [AND NOW THE CALLER DON'T HEAR ANYTHING    until the agent will press
> the hold button again]

Well, that's to be expected. The phone has answered the call!

A few bits of advice to start:

1. Agents shouldn't be using "hold" for bathroom breaks. Most phones
have a button specifically for this purpose called "Do not disturb".
Asterisk then treats the station as busy.

2. Queue phones shouldn't answer automatically. That's just inviting
disaster. What if somebody forgets to log out when they leave? Somebody
is going to get silence if they're unlucky enough to be connected to
that agent.

Fix both those things and you won't have to worry about Music On Hold
not playing for the caller :)

-Stephen-