What is a Hunt Group?

A Hunt Group is a group of extensions banded together so that a call to a busy extension reroutes to an idle extension in the group. For example, a software company might want to set up a Hunt Group for the technical support department. That way, should a client dial an extension that is busy, the customer's call automatically seeks another extension in the group belonging to a person who can immediately take the call.

The way a Hunt Group works is that you assign an available telephone number to be the lead number for the Hunt Group and then designate a series of extensions to have access to that number. When someone dials that phone number, the hunting feature goes down the list of extensions in the Hunt Group and rings the first available extension.

Note: The Hunt Group feature overrides any specific call treatment set for an end user’s phone. So if a user has his or her handset set to ring to voice mail after two rings or to ring to a mobile phone, the hunting feature will override that setting, allowing the incoming call to ring normally before going on to the next phone number in the Hunt Group queue.