As part of our FreePBX systems, there is an ability called feature codes, these codes allow for certain functions to be called by dialling a number, one such feature allows you to toggle your out of office messages on or off.
What is required to use this feature
Most phone systems have been set up with an office hours time condition and a holiday time condition, a time condition is a prerequisite for this as this is what we would be toggling between office hours and holiday hours. You will also require the feature code for your time condition, as these are unique and different to each time condition it would be best to reach out to our team here and we can provide this information to you.
How this works
On most systems we would have your trading hours and days stored, for example, Monday - Friday 9 am - 5 pm, additionally, we would have a holiday time condition over the top, this can be populated as required or if this is left blank would always point to the trading hours until this is unmatched. In order for this to be unmatched we would use the feature code, an example of this would be *234 and when dialled you will hear a voice prompt advising you that this is temporarily unmatched. This would last until the next scheduled time change.
For example, if it was 4:00 pm on Friday and you were leaving early for the day, you would dial the feature code for the trading hours which will temporarily override the condition and send calls to your outside office hours conditions. This will last until 5:00 pm when the next scheduled change will take over keeping the calls in the unmatched mode as per the schedule.
Using the above example, if you were to apply this to your holiday condition this should turn all calls to your holiday condition until this is turned off or the next scheduled change for this condition occurs.