Shared Parking Vs. Park Orbit
A question 3CX support often gets asked is, “What is the difference between shared parking and the park orbit?”. Overall, there are no differences in regards to what they both offer. Both are “slots” in which calls can be placed and retrieved. However, behind the scenes there are some vast distinctions between the two. Let’s untangle the cord.
Parking Orbits
Imagine parking orbits as “rooms” within 3CX. Calls can be placed into these “rooms” by transferring them from your IP phone or 3CX client. There are 10 rooms available and shared, unrestricted, between all users. A max. total of 64 calls can be placed into those rooms. Wait, 64 calls in 10 rooms? How does this work?
Get in
To park a call into a room press the transfer button on your SIP device followed by entering the number *0[0-9] (eg *00). The active call on your extension will be placed into room 0. The transferred party will be placed on hold.
It is possible to keep transferring more calls into *00, from your extensions or others, or to *01 even if there are calls in the room already. Don’t worry, calls held in a room cannot talk to each other, otherwise you would be in a conference call.
Get Out
To unpark a call which is parked in a room, create a new call from your SIP device to *1[0-9] (eg *10).
It is important to know that each and every extension in 3CX can unpark calls which have been parked by someone else. If the CEO parks an important business partner into a room, this call can be resumed by every other user of the system.
In the case that in a single room multiple calls have been parked, the call that was parked first will be retrieved first while using the matching dial code of the room (*10 for room 0). In case you need to selectively unpark a person from a room with multiple calls in it, you must use the 3CX client for Windows or Mac or the Web Client to do so.
Use Case I
I get a call from person A who needs to urgently talk to a colleague of mine. After an attempted transfer, I failed to get the requested colleague on the line. I decide to physically go and find the colleague in question. While I get up to go find the colleague, I place the caller into *00 and hang up my phone. Once I find the person I am looking for, who often happens not to be in their office, any SIP phone close to him/us will do the job. I dial *10 and hand over the call to my colleague. The result? A happy customer…
Use Case II
I have a SIP forked ID (meaning I have more than one SIP device on my extension) with a DECT phone and my 3CX client. I take a call on my 3CX client but I need leave my desk whilst on the call. So how do I transfer the call from me to myself? I transfer the call to *05 and then dial *15 on my DECT phone and I am good to go.
Shared Parking
Compared to the open parking space above, in shared parking the call flow is much more controlled. Firstly, there are 250 rooms and they are called SP[0-250].
These rooms can be provisioned onto a SIP device (3CX client and IP phone) which will give visual feedback about the state of the room (free or busy) on the respective BLF key. By simply pressing on the matching BLF key a call can be placed into a room and all extensions monitoring the same room on their SIP device will see that there is a call up for grabs.
There is also a limit of 1 person per room. Shared parking is a sort of replication of “shared line appearance” which you may be familiar with. Additionally, if you use the park function from the 3CX client or Web Client those calls will be placed into shared parking slots in an ascending free order.
Use Case
Assume that the reception has been tasked to distribute calls to the internal staff. For each member of staff a dedicated shared parking slot was allocated and provisioned onto their SIP device. On incoming calls the reception can monitor whether or not the requested person is available via the 3CX Switchboard. If not, instead of “terminating” the call, the call can be placed in the SP slot of the person. Once the person finishes their current call, the BLF on the person's SIP device indicates the next call to process which can be taken via a simple press of the BLF button.