Call Forwarding During Employee's Vacation or Absence

Vacation or sick leave of an employee is not a reason to miss direct calls to their number. Now it's possible to set the period of the employee's absence with just a few clicks, and then:

Both the manager and the employee can set up the absence.

How to Set Up Employee’s Absence

1. Go to the Employees tab. Click the employee's name.

2. The employee's profile settings will open. Scroll down to the Receiving calls section. In the Vacation or absence subsection, click the Set up button.

3. In the pop-up window, choose one of the two settings options:

If you selected the first option, mark the dates in the calendar, and specify the exact start and end time of the vacation below.

4. Choose how calls should be handled during the employee's absence.

Cloud PBX can:

For more details on setting up voicemail recipients, see the Voicemail article in the Employee’s Voicemail section.

5. Select what the customer will hear when calling the absent employee's workplace.

By default, Cloud PBX simply informs the customer about the employee's absence. However, you can create a custom notification in which you explain the reason for the employee's absence and inform until what day they won't be able to take calls. This way, the customer will be more understanding if a different specialist answers their call.

If you don't want to notify the customer about the manager's absence before transferring the call, select the No Message tab.

6. Click Turn on. Make sure you have correctly set up the employee's absence period. If you need to make any changes, click Set up again. If everything is correct, click Save in the profile settings.

Done! If the employee returns to work earlier than planned, go to their profile settings, click the Disable button, and save the changes.

Who Can Set Up the Absence Mode?

Employees with any access level can set up their absence periods themselves in Cloud PBX. To do this, they need to go to their profile settings.

How to Monitor Employees’ Absence Periods in Cloud PBX?

During the period of an employee's absence, a gray badge Doesn't receive calls will appear next to their name on the Employees tab. To find out when the employee returns to work, hover the cursor over this badge.

Also, in the department settings you can check which employees are not receiving calls.

How to Monitor Direct Calls to an Employee During Their Absence?

A missed direct call to an employee may be displayed in History differently, depending on the selected scenario in the If no one answers settings. Let's look at all display options for the settings of dropping a call, forwarding it to colleagues and forwarding to a voicemail.

1. When a call is dropped, direct calls to an employee's number will be displayed in History as calls missed by that employee.

2. When forwarding to a colleague or department, missed direct calls to an employee will be displayed in History as missed by this employee or the one to whom the forwarding is set up. For example, when Employee 1 is on vacation, Cloud PBX forwards their direct calls to Employee 2. In History these calls are displayed as follows:

3. When forwarding to a voicemail the display of the call in History depends on whether the customer left a voice message:

It's more convenient this way

If your employees work 2 on 2 off shifts or any non-standard schedule, we recommend setting up a personal schedule for each manager for several weeks or months in advance. You will no longer need to manually add employees to the department call queue and exclude them from it every day. An employee will receive calls according to their personal schedule: during working hours, Cloud PBX will distribute calls to them, and during off hours incoming calls will not bother them — Cloud PBX will forward these calls to other employees or to a voicemail. For details please see the Employee's Personal Schedule article.