Calls Going Straight to Voicemail — How to Fix

Introduction

If callers are going straight to voicemail (or to an out-of-hours message) when they should be reaching a live person, use this guide to diagnose the cause. There are several possible reasons.

Check 1 — Is Do Not Disturb (DND) enabled?

DND silences the phone and sends all calls directly to voicemail.

• On a Yealink phone, look for a DND indicator on the screen or a lit DND button.
• To turn off DND from the phone: press the DND soft key or feature code *74.
• In the Linkus app: check the Presence status — if set to DND, change it to Available.
• In the admin portal: edit the extension, go to Features tab, check DND is off.

Check 2 — Is Call Forwarding enabled?

Call forwarding redirects incoming calls to another destination (often voicemail or an external number).

1. In the admin portal, edit the extension.
2. Click the Features tab.
3. Check the Call Forward settings:
4. Unconditional Forward — all calls are forwarded without ringing
5. Forward on Busy — calls forwarded when the extension is on another call
6. Forward on No Answer — calls forwarded if not answered within X seconds

To disable, clear the destination fields and click Save and Apply.

From the phone: dial *070 to disable all call forwarding.

Check 3 — Is the phone registered?

If the phone or Linkus app is not registered, the PBX can't ring it — so calls go straight to voicemail or the failover destination.

Check the Status Centre Dashboard — if the extension shows offline (grey/red), the phone is not connected. See the phone registration troubleshooting guide for fixes.

Check 4 — Is the ring timeout too short?

If the ring group or inbound route timeout is very short (e.g. 5 seconds), the phone barely rings before going to voicemail.

1. Go to Call Features > Ring Group and edit the ring group.
2. Increase the Ring Timeout (e.g. to 30 seconds).
3. Click Save and Apply.

Check 5 — Is the IVR or time condition routing incorrectly?

If calls go to an IVR first, and the IVR timeout/invalid destination is voicemail, calls may be going there before reaching a ring group.

1. Check your inbound route — is it going to the IVR first?
2. Go to Call Features > IVR and review the Timeout Destination and Invalid Destination — these should route to a ring group or operator, not voicemail.
3. Also check whether Time Conditions are routing calls as out-of-hours unexpectedly (wrong time zone, missed a bank holiday override, etc.).

Check 6 — Is the extension's voicemail ring timeout too short?

1. Edit the extension and click the Voicemail tab.
2. Check the Ring Time Before Voicemail (s) setting — increase it if it's very short (e.g. below 20 seconds).

Tips

• The most common culprits are DND being accidentally activated, or a call forwarding rule set by the user and forgotten about.
• Check the CDR log (Reports > CDR) for the missed calls — the Status and To columns show exactly where the call went and why it didn't ring.

Summary

Check DND first, then call forwarding, then extension registration status. The CDR log is your best friend for tracing exactly where a call went.