Telephony

1Overview #

This screen connects your telephone system to the CRM. Once it is set up, a Call button appears on every lead, contact and deal; a call from a number you know pops on the right person's screen with their record; and every call - in or out, answered or missed - lands in the call log with its duration.

Dialling is always agent first: the provider rings the executive's own phone, and only when they pick it up does it ring the customer. That is deliberate. The customer sees your company's number, no executive's mobile number is given away, and nobody needs a headset or a new handset - their existing phone is the handset.

Recordings, where your provider makes them, stay with the provider. The CRM keeps only the address, checks who is asking before it opens one, and writes down every play.

It is an administrator's screen: set it up once and leave it. The people who use the CRM never come here.

2Who it is for #

• Connect one or more provider accounts - Exotel, Knowlarity, Tata Smartflo, Jio, Twilio Voice, or any other through the custom adapter.
• Say which telephone belongs to which user, and who may dial at all.
• Choose what happens when a call comes in: the card, the bell, or both.
• Decide who may play a call recording, and how short a call is not worth logging.
• See every event the provider sent, and retry the ones that failed.

3What it is not for #

• Making calls. That is the Call button on a record, or CRM > Calls.
• Reading the call log. That is CRM > Calls and the four call reports.
• Buying telephone service. The provider account, the numbers and the call charges are yours, arranged with them.

4Step by step #

1. Get the keys from your provider's dashboard: the API key and token (and the account id or SID where they use one). - Exotel: SID, API key, API token. Knowlarity: x-api-key and the authorization token. Smartflo and Jio: a bearer token. Twilio: Account SID and auth token.
2. Press Add account, pick the Provider, and fill in the name, the keys and the caller id - the number your customers should see. - Most providers refuse a caller id that is not one of their own numbers.
3. Decide whether calls are recorded, set a webhook secret, and Save (F5). - Saving makes the call-event address, which never changes.
4. Copy that call-event address into your provider's webhook or callback settings, with the secret. - The server must answer at that address from the internet - a laptop behind an office router will not do.
5. Press Add person for each executive: their agent number (the phone the provider rings first), and whether they may dial. - That number is also how an incoming call finds them - a call to it pops on their screen.
6. Under What happens when a call comes in, press Modify settings and choose the card, the bell, and who may play recordings. - A person can override the card and the bell for themselves on their own row.
7. Test it: open a lead with your own mobile number on it and press Call. Your phone should ring first. - Then ring the company's number from another phone and watch the card appear.

5The fields #

• The account - One per provider line. Every key is stored encrypted and never shown again - a blank box keeps what is stored.
• Name - What to call this line here, e.g. "Sales line". Up to 100 characters, unique
• Provider - Exotel, Knowlarity, Tata Tele Smartflo, Jio, Twilio Voice - or Any other provider, which you drive with your own dial request. Decides which boxes below are asked for, and how the provider's call events are read. Six choices
• Active ? - Off: nothing is dialled through it and its call events are refused. Switch
• The default account ? - The one a Call button uses when nothing else says otherwise. Only one account can be the default - setting it here clears the others. Switch
• Account reference - Whatever your provider calls the account - an Exotel SID, a Twilio Account SID, a Jio tenant id. Required for Exotel and Twilio
• Caller id - The number your customers see when the call reaches them. Most providers insist it is one of the numbers they gave you. A telephone number
• API key / API secret / Access token - The keys from your provider. Only the ones that provider uses are shown. Stored encrypted, never shown again
• API address - Where the provider's API lives. Blank = the provider's standard address; required for Jio
• Record calls ? - On: the provider records the call and keeps the file; the CRM keeps only its address. Your provider announces the recording to the caller where the law requires it. Switch
• Ring the agent for - How long the provider rings the executive before giving up. Blank = the company setting (270). 10 to 120 seconds
• Webhook secret - What proves a call event really came from your provider - as a signature over the body, a header, or ?secret= on the address. Strongly advised: without it, anything that can reach the address can write into your call log. 12 characters at least
• Unmatched calls - user group - Who else sees a call from a number no lead or contact has. Blank = its agent alone. From Admin > User Group
• Call-event address - Made by the server on first save; it never changes. Give it to your provider. Every call event arrives here and is stored before anything is made of it.
• Dial request (JSON) - Custom provider only: how to ask your provider to place the call - method, address, headers and body, with {agent}, {customer}, {callerid}, {ring} and your keys filled in. "idField" names the field of the answer carrying the provider's call id. Valid JSON
• Event fields (JSON) - Custom provider only: which field of its call event is the call id, the status, the numbers, the talk seconds and the recording. Anything left out is guessed from the usual names. Valid JSON
• A person's telephone - One per person per account. This is what makes the Call button appear for them, and what makes an incoming call find them.
• User - Whose telephone this is. A user of this company
• Account - Which line their calls go through. From the accounts above
• Agent number - The phone the provider rings first - their desk phone or mobile. Also how an incoming call is matched back to them: a call arriving on this number pops on their screen. At least seven digits; with the country code for anything but a plain Indian mobile
• Extension - Their extension on your system, for your own reference. Up to 20 characters
• Provider's agent id - Where your provider keeps its own id for this agent. Up to 100 characters
• May dial ? - Off: no Call button for them. Calls to their number are still logged and still pop. Switch
• Call pop card / Bell item - As the company follows the settings; or always, or never, for this person. Someone who works away from the screen may want the bell without the card. Three choices each
• Active ? - Off for somebody who has left or changed desk. Their calls stay in the log. Switch
• Remarks - Anything worth noting about that telephone. Up to 255 characters
• What happens when a call comes in - Settings 263-270. Press Modify settings to change them; they are also on CRM Settings.
• Show the call pop card ? - A card in the corner of the CRM when a call rings somebody's agent number. Needs the CRM open in a browser tab. Setting 263. Switch
• Raise a bell item ? - Every incoming call also becomes an item on that person's bell. So a call missed while the CRM was closed is still seen. Setting 264. Switch
• Pop for a caller nobody matches ? - Whether an unknown number pops too. The card then offers to make a lead of it. Setting 265. Switch
• Log a follow-up for every call ? - A finished call writes a follow-up on its record. So calls show in the work lists and the activity reports. Setting 266. Switch
• Shortest call worth logging - A shorter call is kept in the call list but writes no follow-up. Stops mis-dials and one-ring drops filling the reports. Setting 267. 0 to 600 seconds; 0 logs everything
• Who may play a recording - The people concerned (the caller, the record's owner and people it is shared with, their team lead, sales managers) or managers only. Every play is logged with the listener's name whatever this says. Setting 268. Two choices
• Ring the agent for - How long the provider rings, where it takes that from us. An account can override it. Setting 270. 10 to 120 seconds
• Keep call events for - How long the provider's raw events are kept behind the log. The calls themselves are never removed by this. Setting 269. 7 to 730 days
• Call events - What the provider sent, newest first.
• Status - Done, Pending (waiting to be read) or Failed. Failed rows are red; Retry puts them back in the queue.
• Result - What was made of the event, or why it could not be read.

6Rules and integrity #

• The agent is rung first, always - Press Call and your own phone rings; answer it and the provider rings the customer. Nobody's mobile number is given away, and the customer sees the caller id.
• Every event is stored before anything is made of it - A call event is kept the moment it arrives and answered at once; the worker turns it into the call log within half a minute. A failure is retried (2, 4, 8 ... minutes), then listed - nothing is lost.
• An incoming call finds its person by the agent number - Which is why that number must be exactly the one your provider rings. A call to a number nobody has is still logged, and waits on the calls page.
• A caller finds their record by the last ten digits - The same matching the communication hub uses: an OPEN lead first, then a contact and its newest open deal.
• Recordings never leave the provider - The CRM stores the address, checks setting 268 and who is asking, logs the play, and opens it. There is no way to hear one without a row in the play log.
• Keys are write-only - Once saved, a key or token is never sent back to the screen - the box simply says something is stored. A blank box keeps it.
• The address must be reachable - A provider that cannot reach your server cannot tell you a call happened. Outgoing calls you place still appear, but they never move past "Ringing".
• A company without the add-on sees none of this - No menu rows, no Call button, no pop - and the worker skips the company altogether.

7Shortcut keys #

• F5 - Save while editing.
• Esc - Cancel the edit; otherwise close the tab.

8If something does not work #

9For an administrator #

• A public address - The provider posts call events to api/crm/webhooks/telephony/{key} on your server. Without a public HTTPS address there is no call log for incoming calls and no completion for outgoing ones.
• Recording and the law - Recording calls is your decision and your liability: most providers announce it, and in several places you must. The CRM only keeps the link.
• Who may set it up - An administrator, or somebody whose designation category is Sales Manager.

10Settings it uses #

• 263 the pop card, 264 the bell, 265 pop for an unknown caller, 266 log a follow-up, 267 shortest call logged, 268 who may play a recording, 269 keep events (days), 270 ring seconds.