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Call Routing

Call routing determines where inbound calls go based on time, caller identity, skills, and custom rules. The One Voice provides several routing mechanisms that work together.

Business Hours​

Business hours define when your phone system is "open." Calls arriving outside business hours are routed to a separate destination (voicemail, after-hours IVR, or another number).

To configure:

  1. Go to Settings → Business Hours
  2. Set open/close times per day of the week
  3. Set the Closed Route — where calls go when the system is closed (e.g., an IVR node or voicemail box)
  4. Toggle Override: Closed to force closed mode for emergency situations

Holiday Calendars​

Holiday Calendars let you define exceptions to your normal business hours schedule.

To create a calendar:

  1. Go to Settings → Holiday Calendars
  2. Click Add Calendar
  3. Use the Load Preset button to import US, Canadian, or UK national holidays
  4. Add custom dates as needed; toggle Recurring to repeat the same date every year
  5. Return to Settings → Business Hours and assign the calendar under Holiday Calendar

When a call arrives on a holiday, it follows the holiday route rather than the normal open/closed schedule.

Hunt Groups​

A hunt group rings multiple extensions in sequence or simultaneously for a single inbound number.

To create a hunt group:

  1. Go to Hunt Groups → Add Hunt Group
  2. Choose a Ring Strategy:
    • Simultaneous — all extensions ring at once; first to answer gets the call
    • Round-Robin — rotates through agents in order for even distribution
    • Sequential — rings extensions one at a time in priority order
  3. Add extensions as members with their ring order/priority
  4. Set Ring Timeout per extension (how long to wait before moving to the next)
  5. Set a Failover — what happens if all extensions are unavailable (forward to another hunt group, call queue, voicemail, or external number)

Failover chaining: Hunt groups support cascading up to 3 levels deep. A hunt group can fail over to a call queue, which can fail over to another hunt group.

Call Queues​

Call queues hold callers in a virtual waiting room until an available agent picks up.

To create a call queue:

  1. Go to Call Queues → Add Queue
  2. Choose a Ring Strategy:
    • Round-Robin — even distribution across available agents
    • Longest Idle — routes to the agent who has been available the longest
    • Skills-Based — matches callers to agents by skill requirements and agent proficiency (see below)
  3. Set Max Wait Time — callers who wait longer than this are routed to the overflow destination
  4. Set Max Queue Size — callers beyond this limit get the overflow route immediately
  5. Add agents as members; agents must toggle themselves Available to receive queue calls

Overflow: When a queue cannot serve a caller, they route to your configured overflow destination — typically voicemail or an IVR announcement.

Skills-Based Routing​

Skills-based routing routes callers to the agent best qualified to help them.

Setup:

  1. Go to Skills to create skill definitions (e.g., "Spanish", "Networking", "Billing")
    • Assign a category: language, technical, department, or custom
    • Set a weight (1–100) — higher weight = more important in matching
  2. In the Skills Matrix (right side of the Skills page), assign proficiency levels to each agent per skill (1 = novice, 5 = expert)
  3. In Call Queues, select Skills-Based as the ring strategy
  4. Add Required Skills to the queue with a minimum proficiency level

When a call arrives at a skills-based queue, the system scores all available agents by how well their skills match the requirements and routes to the best match.

Smart Routing (VIP + Sentiment)​

Smart routing uses AI signal to prioritize certain callers automatically.

VIP Routing:

  1. In Contacts, toggle the VIP flag on any contact
  2. In Settings → Smart Routing, set a VIP Queue (typically your fastest-response queue)
  3. Calls from VIP numbers are placed at the front of that queue automatically

Sentiment-Based Routing:

  1. In Settings → Smart Routing, enable Sentiment Routing
  2. Callers with a recent Negative sentiment score (derived from AI call summaries) are routed to a priority queue
  3. This ensures that callers who had a bad experience recently are handled by a senior agent

Testing Your Routing​

Before going live, test each routing path:

  1. From a mobile phone, call your Voice number outside business hours — verify the closed route fires
  2. Call during business hours and navigate any IVR you've configured
  3. Test hunt group failover by making all members "unavailable" and verifying the overflow route
  4. Test queue overflow by setting max wait to 5 seconds in a test queue