question

Hi Trisha, just because you want it to exist does not mean it will.  Presence is the implementation that RC is using for this feature.  You could leverage other call routing or a call queue where when someone walks away from their desk they put their phone on DND then the call flow will follow what ever you program it to do.  If you had this feature with other VOIP companies then you should have done your homework before selecting a limited feature set phone.  You should not bash RC for not having something that you think is important or because you did not get the right phone up front when switching services

When using presence it works perfectly but you need the phone that support this.

Try a call queue, if a phone is not available it will ring at other workstations.  When someone walks away they could put their phone on DND or set the call flow to ring a few times at one phone and then automatically ring at others.  Or how about ring simultaneously and anyone could get it.  There are options you know....


Just so you know, this forum is for other RC users to help other RC users.  If you want support from RC you need to put in a ticket to get help from them.  

Not what you want to hear but there are options available to you

Chuck
Certified Ring Central Installer
630-975-1200

@Chuck  - thank you for taking the time to respond.

Please allow me to clarify:

1.  I have never bashed RC, not once.  In fact we are quite happy with the service with the exception of two issues, one of which is this one.

2.  I did contact RC directly and was instructed to post in the forum for an answer as no one that I spoke to at RC knew the answer.

3.  Call Pickup is a feature that every telephony provider offers - in the many years I've been in the telecom industry I have worked with every major, and many minor, providers including several VOIP providers.  This is the FIRST time I've encountered any problem with figuring out how to perform a call pickup.

4.  Presence and Call Queues are not the answer.  Presence-capable phones are more than 5 times the cost ( by the time you add enough sidecars to moniter each office phone) and NOT necessary for a simple task like Call Pickup, as we don't need the other benefits offered by Presence.  Call Queues will not work because if a call cannot be answered by the person it was directed to ( OR picked up using Call Pickup) we want it to go to VOICEMAIL, not a QUEUE.  Those are very different routing scenarios and one does not replace the other.  We use call queues for agents, not for managers.

In fact, I'm quite surprised that anyone actually thinks that's an acceptable answer.  Do you really think it's acceptable for a call to a manager or a VP or above to ring at a lot of different phones?  Or to go to a queue?  Seriously?

SO the answer is one of two things:
A.  RC offers it but no one knows what the star-key sequence is, or
B.  RC simply does not offer Call Pickup.

If this is a feature that RC simply doesn't offer, then they need to add it to their implementation schedule and offer it without requiring a business spend a ludicrous and unnecessary amount of money on presence-capable phones to get it.  It's a star-key sequence that is no different than using a star-key sequence to initiate call recording or call park or any of a number of other features.

Chuck, I sincerely and deeply appreciate your wish to help, your experience, and the fact that you take time to answer so many questions here in this forum.

But I can assure you, there is no acceptable solution that includes buying phones other than the ones we've already purchased (Polycom IP 335s).  We've already made a steep investment in new phones for our trial period, and we haven't even begun to migrate over most of our users.  For many of them we will continue to use existing VOIP phones and would just reprogram them to work with RC rather than buy new phones, so to find out we'd need new phones for a whole lot of users is just not something we'd consider.

But between this issue and the lack of granular control over User Permissions ( specifically the inability to block users from modifying certain settings without using very-far-from-ideal workarounds that prevent us from allowing users to have the desktop softphone app, a true shame as that was one of the features that sold us on RC ) we are now re-evaluating our plan to migrate our entire company from our current VOIP provider to RC.

We're currently conducting a 30-day test with 7 users, including myself, to work through any issues before we sign an annual contract and migrate the rest of our company.  At this moment, I am not convinced that we'll get past the 30-day trial.  Our current VOIP provider has this feature (it's star-9-8) as well as all other features that RC offers except for the softphone (we don't have that with our current provider).  The softphone app was a big draw for us, as well as the terrific ease-of-use with the Dashboard for setting up lines/users/phones etc.....it's much easier to use than our current VOIP provider and as I don't plan to do this job forever, I wanted something easier to train someone else to take over.

I'm really surprised to hear you say that you've not really come across a need for this Call Pickup (using a star-key) feature - this forum has many users asking specifically for this - a star-key sequence that doesn't involve Presence to pickup a ringing phone from someone else's desk - and it's been a requested and highly-used feature at every company I've worked for.   In fact, it's so common in terms of both offering and use that it would never have occurred to me to ask the Sales Rep who helped us the specific question "do you offer Call Pickup?".....honestly, I've worked with dozens of carriers, standard and VOIP, and all have offered it in their most basic, lowest-level packages.  It's a standard feature.   It would be like asking "do you offer dial tone?"

SO while I really am grateful that you'd like to help, the bottom line is that it's a feature that needs to be implemented......without requiring special phones to be purchased.  Any phone they sell should support this feature.

Thanks for the suggestion, but sadly we are not able to use the softphone, as it requires "logging in" ( something we don't allow because of the access to change settings - we don't want users to have the ability to change any settings at all).

We've had discussions with RC on the topic of User Permissions, and it's something they are (allegedly) working on, but until I or another Admin can disable access to user settings, we won't be using the softphone......which is a real shame because the desktop softphone was a big seller for us on considering moving to RingCentral. 

Trisha, I sympathize.  This seems like it should be really simple.  We've recently switched from ACN, VOIP, which was pretty excellent, to Ring Central.  Ring Central is okay so far, but I'm getting tired of running down the hallway answering the receptionist's phone when she isn't in.  I was a civil engineer in college, a long, long, long time ago, rather than an electrical or computer engineer, but a feature like this seems like a no brainer.  I can't believe it isn't in the menu somewhere.  Can we be the only two customers in the ring central universe that are interested in this feature?  ........., somehow, I doubt it.  Please keep digging, as I'm basically lazy, but would love to know the answer.

Actually Chuck, that's not correct.  If you visit the Polycom website, they do state (officially) that the Polycom IP 335 IS IN FACT capable of call pickup. 

It is simply that RC does not offer this as a star-key sequence - that is determined by the PROVIDER, not the equipment.

AND KIM - please - pretty much everyone here has ALREADY STATED that we/they are NOT INTERESTED in the "presence" option - that is NOT THE SAME THING as call pickup.

Hi Trisha, in the RC implementation the call pickup capability is built in to presence. With presence you know who is on the phone ETC but you need this configured to do call pickup.  It is all in the configuration.  Remember polycom phones are used in all sorts of back end systems so in RC's implementation it is not possible at this time.

So in the RC world you need presence and now you have the ability to pick up a call on a monitored line.

Hope this helps

Chuck

Chuck, as always, I truly appreciate your input.....your advice is valuable to many in this forum.

However, Presence is not an option for us, for several reasons.  Period.  I am tired of repeating this. I'm sure many others who want a simple star-key Call Pickup feature are in the same boat.  Plenty of others have asked for a non-Presence solution.

I've used Polycom phones in many installations, and have tested the ones we have now (IP 335's) with our Nextiva service, and Call Pickup works fine, just as it should by using *98 (that is Nextiva's sequence). 

The bottom line is this: For whatever reason, RingCentral is CHOOSING to NOT offer a star-key Call Pickup feature.   Clearly their employees are trained to push "Presence" as a solution - an expensive one, in my case way too expensive to even consider, rather than simply offer it along with the other star-key features they currently have.

And that bottom line is why I will NOT endorse RC as a viable choice for medium-sized businesses or small call centers.  It just isn't there yet with it's features that are necessary to many businesses, Call Pickup being just one of them.

AND every time someone suggests, or accepts the suggestion, that Presence is a viable alternative to star-key pickup, it reinforces what I see as an appallingly bad decision on RC's part to not offer it.

Scotty, what phone are you using?  Some do not support thie feature

Especially the Polycom IP 335 or 301

let us know

Chuck
Certified Ring Central Installer

Scotty see: Which phones are Presence-capable? 

Scotty you can keep looking all you want. Currently RingCentral does NOT offer call pickup as a feature, so EVEN THOUGH the Polycom IP 335 IS capable of it, it won't be available until RC pulls their collective thumb out of their a** and offer it.  MANY people are asking for it......our pleas just get ignored.

And if anyone else suggests to you that you should use "Presence", it is not the same thing, IT ONLY ALLOWS YOU TO MONITOR OTHER LINES, not answer them.... and it requires (not only) a more expensive base phone, but also one (or more) expensive sidecars (add on modules), how many depends on how many lines in your office/department you want to be able to monitor.

Scotty,   The IP335 is not compatible with the Presence feature. 

You are correct.....but EVERYONE in the department would then need to have a Presence-capable phone AND if the department is large, then you better believe it you have to have the (even more expensive) sidecars in order to monitor every phone......That is a major $$ investment to get a very simple, basic feature that EVERY OTHER provider offers..

SO what you are suggesting would - in my case - require me to put more than $15k into new phones....that is NOT an option.

And I would bet that for many others, it's also not an option.

I simply find it appalling that RC doesn't just add this feature - star-key-sequence call pickup.  It's simple to add.  The phones support it.  NOT doing it is just really, really poor service.

Hi William, in short it seems like the call flow you have setup does not work well for how you want to use your phones.  There are some limitations on how the ring central system works but in most cases we could get the call flow to meet your needs.

you stated that you use call presence today and can see a call when it comes in to the queue but you cant answer it?

I would like to work with you on your call flow to better meet your needs.  I am sure with a conversation we could figure out the best way to set it up

Thanks

Chuck Fuscone
Certified RC Installer
Chuck@yoritguy.com
224-220-9870

As it turns out we simply needed to use permissions within presence to enable each user to enable users to answer each others calls.  My wife was sent a response and the response to her enquiry made the problem simple to resolve. I'm happy to say now that in the office we can sit at the same desk talking on the phone, place that call on hold, click a green flashing light on the right side of phone and pick up 2nd incoming call.     

Correct Rob,  "Presence  does allow you to pick up calls on lines that you are monitoring"   Thank you for helping out. 

Okay, so riddle me this, we have Presence on our phones, but our main # rings to a call queue.  If I am on the phone and a call comes into the call queue group, I can SEE it with Presence, but cannot answer it.  We tried hitting the line with the blinking light, we've hung up and tried picking up the handset.  The system is set to have 0 delay for call wrap up which would tell you that the phone should start ringing with the call queue once the handset hung up.  Nothing works other than running to another desk to answer the phone.