How Calls Work¶
Calls are Daktela's richest channel: incoming calls flow through a routing chain of announcements, IVRs and time conditions before reaching a queue and your agents; outgoing calls are dialled by agents or automated by campaign diallers. This page explains the pieces and how a call travels through them.
When you are ready to build, follow the guide that matches your goal:
- Set Up Inbound Calls β answer calls to your number.
- Set Up Outbound Calls β let agents dial out.
- Set Up Campaigns β automate outbound calling with diallers.
The Journey of an Inbound Call¶
- A caller dials one of your numbers. The inbound routing matches the dialled number (DID) and/or the caller's number and sends the call to its Next destination.
- The destination is usually a time condition (business hours check), often followed by an IVR ("press 1 for salesβ¦"), an announcement, call steering (speech recognition) or a ring group.
- The call lands in a queue, which rings your agents according to its distribution strategy. Unlike chat channels, agents need a device (SIP phone or WebRTC) to answer calls.
- Unanswered calls can be routed to missed calls so agents can call the customer back, or to a terminate target.
Outbound Calls and Campaigns¶
- Manual outbound calls: an agent logged in to a calls outbound queue dials a number; the outbound routing picks the trunk based on dial patterns, and Caller IDs decide which number the callee sees.
- Campaigns automate outbound calling over lists of records: Preview (agent reviews the record, then dials manually), Progressive (the system dials automatically after a preview period), Predictive (the dialler calls ahead of agent availability and filters out unanswered calls) and Robocaller (fully automated calls without agents, e.g. with TTS announcements).
The Building Blocks¶
| Building block | What it does | Where to set it up |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound routings | Match the dialled number / caller ID and start the routing chain. | Settings β Routings β Calls |
| Time conditions | Route by date/time using time groups. | Settings β Routings β Calls |
| IVR, Announcements, TTS, Call steering, Ring groups | The dialplan applications a call can pass through before reaching a queue. | Settings β Routings β Calls |
| Calls inbound queue | Holds waiting calls, plays ringtones/IVRs while waiting, records calls, distributes to agents by distribution strategy. | Settings β Routings β Queues |
| Calls outbound queue | The queue agents use to dial out; sets the outbound number, recording and dialler behaviour. | Settings β Routings β Queues |
| Campaign queues | Preview, Progressive, Predictive and Robocaller campaign types. | Settings β Routings β Queues |
| Agents | The users whose rights have access to the queue. For calls they also need a device. | Settings β Routings β Queues, Agents column |
| Devices | SIP phones, Daktela devices or external numbers agents use to make and take calls. | Settings β Devices |
| Outbound routings, Caller IDs, Trunks | Dial patterns, presented numbers and carrier connections for outgoing calls. Trunks are set up by Daktela's Support team. | Settings β Routings β Calls β Advanced settings |
| Missed calls | Create missed activities for agents to call back later. | Settings β Routings β Calls |
Info
Changes in Settings β Routings β Calls only take effect after you click Apply configuration changes in the top right corner.
Before You Start¶
- Administrator access to the Settings section of Daktela.
- A phone number and trunk β trunks are set up by Daktela's Support team.
- Devices for your agents β SIP or WebRTC; see Devices.
- Your business hours and a list of agents.
Ready? Continue to Set Up Inbound Calls, Set Up Outbound Calls or Set Up Campaigns.