Module 10 · Take calls: route, menu and queue

Leer en español: Módulo 10 · Recibe llamadas: ruta, menú y cola.

Goal: decide where a call to one of your numbers goes — straight to an agent, to a key-press menu, to a waiting queue or to the opt-out line — and know what the caller hears in each case. Time: ~14 minutes · You need: to have signed in to the dashboard (Module 1), a number of yours that receives calls and, to create menus and queues, the account admin role.

Everything happens in Trunks & Carriers, in the side menu. From top to bottom you will see your trunks, the Inbound IVR menus card and the Inbound DID routing card. Queues have a screen of their own, Inbound queues, which you reach with the Manage inbound queues → link on the routing card.

1. The route: one number, one destination

A route says where a number a customer dials lands. There is one active route per number. In + Add route you type the inbound number and pick the Destination. The number has to be one of your account's numbers (an active number in Caller ID & DIDs); otherwise the console does not save the route and shows The platform did not accept the data. Check the fields and try again. (this check arrives with the next platform release). Routes you already have are not affected.

Destination	What happens to the call
Direct to agent	It rings on the softphone of the agent you pick.
IVR menu	The caller hears one of your published menus and picks with a key.
Inbound queue	It waits in one of your queues until an agent takes it — only while queuing is on for your account (section 4).
Opt-out line (do-not-call)	The calling number goes on your do-not-call list.

Once the route is saved, Provision pushes it to the SIP edge; Disable turns it off without deleting it.

• Recording. It starts on. On a route to an agent, the call reaches the agent and is recorded from the moment they answer; if the agent cannot be found, the call is cut at once instead of ringing into nowhere. On a menu route, recording starts when the agent answers: the menu itself is never recorded.
• Voice AI. Inbound voice AI is not available yet: no AI answers an inbound call, and the form says so.
• Limits on an answered call. An answered inbound call takes one of your account's simultaneous-call places and, on prepaid (or on a subscription whose allowance is spent), the platform reserves the balance it may cost until it ends; on postpaid, or inside a subscription's allowance, nothing is reserved but the call gets a time limit. With no place, or no room in your balance or credit, the call is refused and filed as a refused call. A call that is not served by AI (to an agent, a menu or a queue) is cut after 3,600 seconds (1 hour) by default, or sooner if the reserve allows less; that limit is set by Dialer Digital for the whole platform, not per account. Since no AI answers inbound calls, nothing about voice-AI budgets applies to them.

A route that names nothing refuses all its calls

A menu route without a published menu, or a queue route without an active queue, refuses every call to that number. The routes table flags it on the row, with "This route names no published menu" or "… no active queue". Point it at a menu or a queue, or change its destination.

2. The opt-out line: the caller leaves your list

Pick Opt-out line (do-not-call) for a number that exists only for opting out. The caller goes on your own do-not-call list as soon as the call connects, before anything answers, whatever state your plan is in:

• With an active plan, they hear a confirmation the platform composes with your company's name ("Your number has been added to the do-not-call list of …") and the call hangs up. If your account has no seller name set, they hear a tone only — the opt-out is recorded all the same, and the form warns you.
• With an inactive plan, the call is refused unanswered, but the opt-out has already been written.
• With a hidden or invalid number, there is no one to opt out: the call is refused and nothing is written.

An opt-out route carries no agent, no recording and no AI: the form hides those fields. An opt-out that was not recorded is never confirmed.

3. The menu: what the caller hears and where each key takes them

On the Inbound IVR menus card, New menu opens the editor:

1. The menu's name, for you (e.g. "Main line").
2. The Prompt: what the caller hears on entering, in your words (up to 2000 bytes). The platform adds no text of its own.
3. With + Add key you assign each Key (0–9, *, #) to what happens Then: a queue, an agent, Hang up, Opt-out (do-not-call list) or Open a submenu…, which has its own prompt and its own keys. Up to 5 levels and 64 nodes fit; the editor keeps count for you.
4. If no key is pressed is mandatory on every level: the prompt plays again once and, the second time, that action runs. It cannot be the opt-out: pressing nothing is not asking to leave the list.

When you Publish, every prompt is turned into audio right then. If one cannot be turned into audio, nothing is published and you can publish the same menu again. Each queue and each agent you name is also checked to be yours and active; if not, nothing is published.

• Editing is publishing another version. Edit and Publish make the next version of the same menu, and the routes that already use it hear it without you touching them. A call already in the menu keeps the version it started with, and each call keeps with its record the version it heard.
• Retiring is for good. A retired menu is never published again: you publish another one. And it cannot be retired while an active route uses it: disable or re-point that route first.

What the caller hears, in order: the call is answered, the prompt plays, and the key takes them to its destination. A key that is not in the menu does nothing. If the destination cannot be reached — queuing is off, the agent has no seat — the call is cut right then instead of leaving the caller in silence.

4. The queue: waiting for an agent

In Inbound queues, New queue creates a queue with its name (e.g. "Sales"). Two active queues cannot share a name, and a queue is never renamed. The table shows, per queue, its Overflow and how many Active routes use it.

• Overflow… moves a call that waited too long to another active queue: you type the wait in seconds and pick the destination queue. A queue cannot overflow to itself, and a loop (A moves to B and B back to A) is refused too. Remove overflow lets a call wait as long as it takes.
• Retire is for good: the queue leaves the list and nothing can name it again; its history stays. While an active route, a current menu or another queue's overflow names it, it is not retired, and the screen tells you what is using it so you re-point or disable that first. That includes an active route whose closed destination (section 8) names the queue.
• Creating a queue, changing its overflow and retiring it need an account admin; everyone else sees the screen read-only.

Opening hours and holidays live on the route

The queue, the menu and the agent have no schedule of their own; a route does. Without one, a call is treated the same at 3 a.m. as mid-morning and, if nobody is available, the caller waits in the queue (with no overflow, “as long as it takes”). To close a line outside hours or on a holiday, see section 8.

Queuing may be off on your account

Whether a queue takes calls depends on two switches on your account, which Dialer Digital turns on — not you. The Inbound queues screen itself — and the route form and the menu editor — tells you:

• Queuing on: a call to a queue route enters its queue and is offered to an available agent.
• Queuing off: a call to a queue route is not answered and no agent is offered it, whatever is set up. A menu key that leads to a queue cuts the call. The screen names the switch that is missing.

You can create and arrange your queues in the meantime; just do not count on them taking calls until the screen says Queuing on. If it cannot read that, it says so too.

5. Offering a callback to someone waiting in the queue

Instead of leaving a caller to wait too long, a queue can offer to call them back. It is a queue feature with two keys, and both must be set:

1. The queue's threshold. On Inbound queues, the row's Callback threshold… button asks for the Wait before offering a callback (seconds). The Callback threshold column shows the value, or "No threshold: this queue cannot offer a callback." Remove callback offer turns it off for that queue. An account admin changes it.
2. The account switch. The callback feature ships off and Dialer Digital turns it on, not you: saving a threshold does not enable it. The Queuing on notice on the screen speaks of the queue's two switches, not this one; if you are unsure whether you have it, ask Dialer Digital.

With both keys set, the platform compares each call's measured wait with the threshold. When it crosses, it decides once whether the offer goes ahead. There is an offer only if:

• the number the caller dials from matches a debtor in your portfolio;
• the real compliance checks would let that number be dialed at that time: consent, do-not-call, Reg F, the state matrix and quiet hours. If any blocks, or cannot decide, there is no offer and the call keeps waiting;
• the debtor has one campaign or none. With two or more, the platform does not guess which and makes no offer.

A call that already has an agent ringing gets no offer, and neither does a call that was waiting when the service restarted: its wait was not measured.

What the caller hears. Today the offer is a short tone, not a spoken sentence: the public wording of the offer is not decided yet. If the caller presses 1 within the window (30 seconds by default), the platform re-checks the compliance controls at that moment, books the callback, plays a confirmation tone and hangs up. Any other key, or silence, does nothing and the call stays in the queue. If a check closed in between, the call is not hung up either: it keeps waiting. Pressing 1 twice does not book two appointments.

What happens next. It is a booked callback like any other, with the caller's number, which you can see in Callbacks & PTPs. Its time is no earlier than your account's minimum callback notice. A booked appointment is a candidate, not a permit: the campaign dials it under the whole compliance engine, like any other call.

To measure it, the Offered / accepted column of Inbound queues gives, per queue, how many offers were made and how many accepted ("{n} / {m} · {p}% accepted"), over the Callback results window you pick: last 24 hours, last 7 days or last 31 days. With no offers in the window it says "No callback offers in this window."

6. Skills and VIP priority

Both decide which agent a waiting call is offered to and in what order. Neither authorizes anything: they relax no compliance control.

Skills: who can take this queue

A skill is a label you invent (e.g. spanish, late_collections): lowercase letters, digits, _ and -, starting with a letter or digit, up to 40 characters, with no catalog and no levels.

1. Give them to agents. In Agents & Seats, the Seats table, column Routing skills: the Manage skills button (or the list it already has) opens a field where you type the labels separated by commas and Save. One agent takes up to 50.
2. Require them on the queue. In Inbound queues, column Required skills, the same field (also the row's Skills… button). Empty removes the requirement.

With skill routing on, a queue with required skills offers the call only to an available agent who has all of them. If none does, the call waits; its exit is the queue's overflow (section 4). So if you require skills on a queue with no overflow, the screen warns: "This queue requires skills but has no overflow. A caller waits if no matching agent is available." And if the platform cannot read the skills, it offers the call to nobody unchecked: it stays in the queue.

With routing off — it ships off and Dialer Digital turns it on — what you save is kept but not read: distribution is as before.

VIP priority: a head start, not a jump

1. On Inbound queues, the VIP debt lists panel shows your debt lists with a checkbox each; tick the ones you want and Save VIP lists. An admin sees and changes it. A call whose number belongs to a ticked list gets the head start. Selecting lists does not turn the feature on.
2. Dialer Digital sets the head start for your account, in milliseconds: it ships at 0, which leaves it off. With a higher value, a VIP call's wait is credited with that head start when ordering who is offered first. If Dialer Digital has also set a service target for your account whose wait threshold is not above the head start, VIP stays inactive: a head start that large could by itself push a standard call past the target. It is not strict priority: a standard call that joined the queue more than the head start before the VIP call still goes first.

The call's class is decided once, when it joins the queue. If it cannot be decided in time, the call stays standard: it is never rejected or delayed for that.

7. Reading the queue card on the live monitor

In Agents & Seats, the Live floor screen carries the Inbound queue card: for each active inbound queue, how many calls are waiting now. It refreshes every 5 seconds. It ships off and Dialer Digital turns it on; off, it says "Queuing is off for this account: calls are not being queued, so there is no depth to show." With no active queue, it says "No active inbound queue."

Column	What it counts
Queue	The queue's name.
Waiting	Calls waiting now, including one already being offered to an agent.
Longest wait	How long the oldest has waited (mm:ss, or h:mm:ss).
VIP waiting	How many of them are VIP.
Oldest VIP	The wait of the oldest VIP call.
Ready matching	The available agents who hold every skill that queue requires.

• A dash (—) is not a zero. Zero says "measured, and nobody is there"; the dash says "cannot be measured". VIP waiting and Oldest VIP show a dash while the VIP head start is not active (at 0, or inactive because of the service target in section 6). Ready matching shows one if the queue requires no skills, skill routing is off, or the skills could not be read. With VIP active and none waiting, VIP waiting does show 0 and Oldest VIP keeps the dash.
• A call that overflows to another queue is counted in the queue where it waits now, and its wait starts at the overflow.
• If the read fails, the card clears the figures rather than leaving them stale: "Could not read the inbound queues. The figures are cleared rather than shown stale; it will try again."

8. Hours and holidays: closing a line

A route can carry its own hours: when the number is open, which days are holidays and what happens to a call that arrives outside them. It is optional and per route: a route with no hours behaves exactly as before, at any time of day. An account with several numbers repeats the hours on each route; there is no account-wide schedule that routes inherit.

Today it is set through the API

The hours are written in the hours field of POST / PATCH /v1/inbound-routes (details in the developer documentation). The dashboard's route form does not carry the schedule yet. To switch the hours off, send hours: null.

What you set

1. Time zone and weekly windows. The same shape as your calling hours: a zone (e.g. America/Chicago) and, per weekday (mon…sun), a start and an end. A day with no window is closed all day. A window does not cross midnight: a night shift is written as two days (e.g. Monday 18:00–23:59:59 and Tuesday 00:00–06:00).
2. Holidays. A list of dates (YYYY-MM-DD, in that zone, up to 366, none repeated). A holiday closes the whole local day, whatever the weekly windows say. Past dates are accepted and ignored; nothing purges them.
3. What happens when closed, mandatory once there are hours. Two options:
   • A message. The caller hears your text once and the call ends. It is your own text (up to 2000 bytes; the platform adds none) and it is turned into audio when you save: if it cannot be, the save fails and nothing is stored. The call is answered to play it, so it costs what an answered menu call costs.
   • Another destination. The call is treated as a call to an agent, a menu, a queue or an AI agent of yours, which must be active in your account when you save. That destination has no schedule of its own (hours do not chain) and it is not recorded.

When it is decided. Once, when the call arrives, on the instant it came in and in the route's time zone. A switched-off account is still refused for its plan reason first.

A call already admitted is not cut. If a caller entered at 16:59 and the line closes at 17:00, the call stays in the menu, the queue or with the agent until it ends. The schedule governs entry. One limit: a queue with no overflow can keep someone waiting past closing if no agent takes the call; emptying the queue at closing is not part of this.

The opt-out line takes no hours. A route to the Opt-out line (do-not-call) is refused with 422 if it carries hours, and changing a route with hours to the opt-out line requires removing the hours in the same save. Opting out is never closed by schedule. Likewise the closed destination cannot be the opt-out line.

If the schedule cannot be read (a damaged value, a zone that no longer resolves), the call goes to the route's normal destination and the platform logs the error: it fails open, because a lost call cannot be recovered and a minute answered after hours can.

Records. For a route with hours, each call keeps with its record whether it found the line open, closed, on a holiday or with an unreadable schedule, the zone, the local date and time and, if closed, where it went. A route with no hours writes nothing new.

Before you rely on it. Save the hours and then Provision the route (or let the platform's route sync do it). A route to an agent with no recording used to reach the agent without passing through the platform; with hours it is anchored so the schedule can be applied, and that takes effect on provisioning.

Retiring something a closed destination names. Retiring a queue, a menu or an AI agent that the closed destination of an active route names is refused with 409, listing that route's id: re-point or disable the route first, like any active route that names it. Before this check existed, such a retirement was allowed and left the route sending closed calls nowhere; if you retired one earlier, review your routes' closed destinations.

9. Recommended order

1. Create your queues (and their overflow, if you want one).
2. Publish your menu, which can now name those queues and your agents.
3. Create the number's route, point it at the menu (or at a queue, or at an agent) and Provision it.
4. If you will take opt-outs by phone, set up a separate number as an opt-out line.
5. If a line must close at night or on holidays, add the hours to its route (section 8) and Provision it again.
6. To route by skill, save the skills of your agents and of each queue (and an overflow, in case nobody has them) and ask Dialer Digital to turn routing on; do the same for the offered callback and the monitor card.

What you learned

• The four destinations of a route and what the caller hears in each.
• That the opt-out line records the opt-out on connect, with any plan, and never confirms an opt-out it did not write.
• How a menu is built, published and versioned, and why the no-key action is mandatory and never the opt-out.
• How a queue is created, overflowed and retired — and that it takes calls only when the screen says Queuing on.
• How to offer a callback to a waiting caller, what the caller hears and what gets booked; and that it needs a per-queue threshold and a switch Dialer Digital turns on.
• How to give agents skills and require them on a queue, and what the VIP head start is (a time credit, not a jump).
• How to read the monitor's Inbound queue card, and that a dash (—) is not a zero.
• How to close a line by hours and holidays, what the caller hears (a message or another destination), that a call already admitted is not cut at closing, that the opt-out line takes no hours and that a window does not cross midnight.

Next: Module 11 · Invite your team →. To integrate your account over the API — routes, menus and queues included — continue with the developer documentation.