Inbound

Queues & IVR.

Business hours, IVR menus, queues and their strategies, overflow, voicemail and the callback option, plus the exact definitions behind every inbound number.

How an inbound call flows

01
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Number
The call arrives on one of your numbers. Unknown numbers are rejected.
02
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Hours
If the number has business hours and you're closed, the call takes the after-hours route (by default, the workspace voicemail).
03
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Disclosure
If the call will be recorded and your disclosure setting applies, the recording notice plays.
04
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IVR or queue
The number's route plays an IVR menu, puts the caller in a queue, rings one user, or goes to voicemail, a message or an external number.
05
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Agent
The queue offers the caller to an eligible agent, whose softphone rings with a screen-pop of the caller.

Business hours

Open Hours in the admin console. A schedule has a timezone, a weekly grid of opening times per day, and holidays (a date and a name) when it stays closed. The editor shows whether the schedule is open right now. New workspaces start with "Weekdays 9–5" in the workspace timezone.

Attach a schedule to a number, together with its after-hours route. Calls outside hours never enter a queue and don't count in queue metrics.

IVR menus

Open IVR to build menus. Every plan includes IVR.

Greeting: text-to-speech (with a choice of voice) or an uploaded audio file.
Options: keys 0–9, * and #, each with a label and a route: another menu, a queue, a user, voicemail, an external number, a message, or hang up. Callers press one key.
Timeout and retries: how long to wait for a key press, and how many times to repeat the menu.
No input and invalid input: each can have its own route. By default the menu repeats until the retries run out, then takes the first option.

The editor shows the menu as a tree. Each call keeps the path the caller took through your menus, visible on the call detail page.

Queues

Open Queues. New workspaces start with a queue named Sales.

Field	type	description
Strategy	longest idle	Who is offered the next caller. See strategies below.
Priority	0	Higher-priority queues are served first when an agent belongs to several.
Ring timeout	20 s	How long an offer rings an agent before moving on.
Max wait	300 s	After this, the caller overflows.
Max queue size	none	With a limit set, callers beyond it overflow straight away.
Wrap-up	30 s	After-call work time for this queue's calls.
SLA threshold	20 s	Answered within this counts toward service level.
Short abandon	5 s	Callers who hang up sooner are excluded from answer rate and service level.
Welcome	optional	Text-to-speech or audio played on entering the queue.
Hold music	default music	Upload your own audio file.
Announce position	on, every 60 s	Callers hear You are caller number N.
Overflow route	queue voicemail	Where callers go when the wait or the queue is too long.
No-agents route	queue voicemail	Where callers go when no member is signed in and online.
Voicemail	on	The queue's mailbox, with its own greeting.
Callback option	off	Offer a callback when the estimated wait reaches a threshold.
Callback on abandon	off	Schedule a callback for callers who hang up after waiting.
Recording	inherit	The queue's recording policy.
Caller ID and script	optional	The caller ID for outbound calls tied to the queue, and the script shown in the screen-pop.

The second column shows the default.

Strategies

Field	type	description
longest idle	Default	The agent who has been available the longest.
round robin	Rotation	The agent who was offered a call least recently.
fewest calls	Balance	The agent who has taken the fewest calls today, then the longest idle.
ring all	Race	Rings up to 5 eligible agents at once, longest idle first. The first to answer takes the call.

Members and who gets offered

Add agents to a queue with an optional penalty: agents with a lower penalty are tried first.

An agent is eligible for an offer when they are signed in to the queue, Available, with a ready softphone, haven't just missed this caller, and aren't working a power or predictive campaign. Agents sign in and out of each queue from the chips in the agent workspace header; supervisors can do it for them.

When an agent belongs to several queues, the dialer looks across all of them: higher-priority queues first, then higher-priority callers, then whoever has waited longest. Calls transferred back into a queue get a higher priority.

An offer rings for the queue's ring timeout. If it isn't answered, the caller stays in place and the next eligible agent is tried. An agent who misses two offers in a row (the default) is put on Break with the reason "Missed calls".

Overflow and no agents

Overflow. A caller who has waited the queue's max wait, or who arrives when the queue is full, takes the overflow route. By default that's the queue's voicemail.
No agents. If no queue member is signed in and online when the caller arrives, the no-agents route applies: the queue's voicemail when it's on, otherwise a message and hang up.

Both routes can point anywhere a number can: another queue, an IVR menu, a user, a message or an external number.

Voicemail

There are three kinds of mailbox: queue, user and workspace. Each has a greeting (text-to-speech or audio) that falls back to the workspace greeting.

Callers hear the greeting and a beep, and can leave up to 2 minutes. They press # to finish.
New messages land in the Voicemail inbox with a player, read, archive, assign and Call back. Agents see their own mailbox and the mailboxes of their queues.
Mailbox users get an email for each new message while the workspace has voicemail email notifications on (the default).
The voicemail.created webhook fires for each new message.

Callback option

Instead of holding, callers can ask to be called back.

Offer a callback when the estimated wait reaches a threshold you set in seconds. The estimate is the number of callers waiting plus one, times the queue's average handle time today (3 minutes until there's data), divided by the number of signed-in agents who aren't offline.

The caller hears "The wait is about N minutes. To get a call back instead, press 1. To keep holding, stay on the line."

Press 1: a callback is created for the queue, due now, and the caller hears their number read back before the call ends. The call ends as a callback request: it isn't counted as an abandon or as offered.
Anything else: the caller keeps their place in the queue.

Callback on abandon. With this switched on, a caller who hangs up after waiting at least the short-abandon time gets a callback automatically, as long as the number is valid and not on a DNC list.

Queue callbacks aren't assigned to anyone: they appear as claimable cards for the queue's members, and the first agent to press Call takes it. See callbacks.

Metric definitions

These definitions are used by the wallboard, every report and the API. Days are counted in the workspace timezone.

Field	type	description
Inbound offered	Count	Calls that reached a queue. Callers who took the callback option are excluded.
Answered	Count	Offered calls connected to an agent.
Short abandon	Count	Hung up while waiting or ringing, before the queue's short-abandon time.
Abandoned	Count	Hung up while waiting or ringing, at or after the short-abandon time.
Overflowed	Count	Left the queue through overflow or no-agents routing, including to voicemail.
Answer rate	answered ÷ (answered + abandoned + overflowed)	Short abandons and callback-option takers are excluded. After-hours calls never enter a queue and are excluded.
Service level (SLA %)	answered within threshold ÷ (answered + abandoned + overflowed)	Answered within the queue's SLA threshold. Same exclusions as answer rate.
Missed inbound	Count	Inbound calls that never reached an agent, for any reason. Matches the call.missed webhook.
Outbound connect rate	human-answered ÷ dialed	Machines and voicemail are not connects.
Campaign abandon rate	abandons ÷ human-answered	Power and predictive calls answered by a person with no agent free in time.
AHT	(talk + hold + wrap) ÷ handled calls	Average handle time.
Occupancy	(on call + wrap-up) ÷ (logged-in − break)	From each agent's status history.

Usage and minute allowances are counted per calendar month in UTC; see Billing & usage.