3CX call forwarding to Terva
Use this if your practice number rings on 3CX. You need access to the 3CX Admin Console, or ask your 3CX provider. These steps follow 3CX Version 20; older versions can differ.
Your phones ring first, so the front desk gets the first chance to answer. Terva answers when nobody picks up.
Enter it once and every code on this page uses it. Copy works once it’s filled in.
Turn off voicemail first
Voicemail or a recorded message that answers first stops the call reaching Terva.
Find the last step of your main number’s call flow when nobody answers. If it’s voicemail, a recorded message or night mode, replace it with your Terva number.
Turn off any “press 1 to accept” or call confirm on forwarded calls, or Terva can’t answer them.
Choose when Terva answers
We recommend When no one answers, left on all the time. The rest are optional.
Aim for a 15-second ring time. 10 to 20 seconds is fine. If calls enter a queue, set the caller’s total wait to about 15 to 30 seconds.
Ring group
In the Admin Console, open Call Handling, then the ring group that receives your practice number.
Set Ring Time, then set the destination for unanswered calls to your Terva number as an external number.
Queue
In Call Handling, open the queue that receives your practice number.
Set Maximum queue wait time to 15–30 seconds and the Destination if no answer to your Terva number as an external number.
Check with your provider
Some 3CX systems need forwarding to external numbers allowed for ring groups and queues first. Multi-company 3CX may not offer an outside number for unanswered calls at all. Ask your 3CX provider.
In Call Handling, open the queue for your practice number.
Set Maximum queue wait time to 15–30 seconds, then set Destination if no answer to your Terva number as an external number. This is the caller's total wait, not the Ring Time for each agent.
A ring group has no queue. Set its no-answer destination under When no one answers instead.
In the Admin Console, open Office hours. Choose the department that receives your practice number, set your opening days, hours and breaks, and check the time zone. Add holidays.
Under Call Handling, open the IVR, ring group or queue that receives your number and check its Assigned DID numbers.
Set its out of office destination, and its break and holiday destinations, to your Terva number as an external number.
Check your outbound rules let 3CX call an Australian external number.
Ring time
Set the no-answer ring time to 15 seconds where you can. 10 to 20 seconds is fine. For a call queue, set the caller’s total wait to about 15 to 30 seconds.
A 3CX ring group rings for 20 seconds by default. Set Ring Time to 15 seconds; 10–20 seconds is fine. For a queue, use Maximum queue wait time to control when Terva answers. Agent Ring Time only controls each polling attempt.
Check it works
- From another phone, not one on your practice line, ring your practice number.
- Don’t answer at the practice. Let it ring out.
- Terva answers.
- Do it again once after hours. If voicemail, or someone carrying the practice phone, answers first, the call won’t reach Terva.
Ringing your Terva number directly doesn’t test forwarding. To test When busy, keep another call going on the line first. Test the after-hours route after closing.
Signed up to Terva? Press Check it works on Phone line, and Terva rings your line for you. How the check works.
Turn forwarding off
Remove Terva from every office-hours, break, holiday and unanswered destination you changed.
Ring your practice number again to check calls stay with your team.
Someone else looks after your phones?
Copy this, fill in the [brackets] and send it. It has your Terva number once you enter it above.
Whoever runs your phone system
3CX, Maxo, Teams, Zoom, RingCentral, TIPT, hosted desk phones, or an IT company that manages them.
Hi, we’re setting up Terva to answer our practice’s calls when our team can’t. Please make this change for calls to our main number, [practice number]:
1. Find what answers that number first: a menu (auto attendant), ring group, queue or time switch. 2. When nobody answers within 15 seconds, or a caller has waited 30 seconds in a queue, send the call to our Terva number 0X XXXX XXXX as an external number. Use +61 X XXXX XXXX if the system needs +61. 3. If a menu answers, send callers who press nothing to the same place after the timeout. 4. Outside our opening hours ([opening hours]), send calls to 0X XXXX XXXX instead of voicemail or a closed message.
Please also: - make sure voicemail doesn’t answer before this - turn off any “press 1 to accept” or call confirm on forwarded calls - keep the caller’s number showing (caller ID pass-through) - leave our daytime ringing as it is, so our phones ring first
Please tell us what you changed and how to undo it. When it’s done, Terva will ring our number to check it works.
Thanks, [your name]
Sources
These steps follow the provider’s own guides, checked in September and October 2026. Menus change, so if a step doesn’t match what you see, check with your provider.
Other phone systems
See every phone system- A phone system answers first
- Calls already go to a mobile
- Telstra mobile
- Optus mobile
- Vodafone mobile
- Boost, ALDI, amaysim and others
- Telstra home or business phone
- Optus landline
- TPG or iiNet
- Aussie Broadband
- Maxo (MaxoTel)
- Hosted desk phones
- Microsoft Teams Phone
- Zoom Phone
- RingCentral
- Telstra TIPT
- Older phone system or adaptor box
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