FOLLOW ME when unavailable not working correctly

[koreyb]

Hi there,

I noticed today that follow me when unavailable is not working correctly. As the note says below: "Call Forward When Unavailable will only forward calls when you are offline."

Today it's letting things ring locally until the point when the voice mail should kick in (after ring 5), then dumps the call to the call forwarding number instead of voice mail.

Sounds like a configuration issue on the server end.

[Liptonbrisk]

Refer to page 51 from http://forum.fongo.com/download/file.php?id=2065.


"The Call Forward When Unavailable (Follow Me) Option is confusing!

Indeed. What actually happens with "Call Forward When Unavailable" is selected is this: if the incoming call would otherwise go to FPL's voicemail, the call is forwarded. That has nothing to do with your ATA being offline or your number not working. Someone could simply not answer the call despite your FPL number working, and the call will still be forwarded.

Ring ring ring ring. Oh, no one is picking up.

I, FPL, would normally send the call to voicemail at this point, but I'll just forward the call. That's basically what happens. In other words, even when the ATA is online and registered, if the call would normally go to FPL's voicemail, the call is still forwarded. The trigger for "Call Forward When Unavailable" seems to be FPL's voicemail--and not the ATA being unregistered. FPL's voicemail system doesn't actually pickup though; the call is just forwarded at the moment that FPL's voicemail would normally pickup. The call is then forwarded to your follow me numbers. If no one picks up the call after all that, the call gets dropped, finally, to FPL's voicemail."



It's been that way for years.

[koreyb]

Odd... I guess I never noticed it before today.... Because based on the note at the bottom of the setup page, this should only be forwarded IF the ATA is offline... but it's doing it when the ATA is online instead of going to voice mail.

Surely this can be corrected as I'm assuming the service is based on Asterisk based on the prompts but perhaps there is no issue for most people because they have never set up this feature.

It would be handy to have so when the internet goes down you don't miss calls, but instead have them go to your cell.

[Liptonbrisk]

The trigger for forwarding when unavailable is simply whether the call would normally go to voicemail (before the call is forwarded), regardless of whether the ATA is online.
I had a conversation about this years ago with a Fongo rep. It's felt this is normal behaviour now. I took the same position that you are currently expressing.

I gave up.

Anyway, if you'd like to express your opinion, you can submit a ticket: https://support.fongo.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. Perhaps you'll have better luck than I did.
I suspect they'll just close the ticket.