How Your Call Flow Works (Overview)
Understand your incoming call route, connect IVRs and voicemail, and resolve the Call Flow warning when call forwarding is enabled.
Start with the number, then follow its destinations
The Call Flow page controls where calls to a business number go. Open Settings → Phone Numbers, find the correct number and click Call Flow in its Actions column. Confirm the number at the top before making changes.
1. Identify the entry point
In the section named after your number, Select Action for Incoming Calls is the first destination. Creating an IVR, ring group or schedule does not automatically connect it to incoming calls. Select it here, or connect it through a block already in the active flow, and click Save.
If call forwarding is enabled: Call Flow displays a warning and prevents changing the incoming destination. Open the number’s Settings → Call Forwarding and turn off forwarding first if you intend to change the route, then return to Call Flow and save the new destination. You can still edit the description while forwarding is active.
Changing the incoming destination preserves the number’s existing call recording and fax detection settings. Review those settings separately if you also need to change them.
2. Choose the pieces you need
- Business Hours: routes calls by matching day and time conditions. Groups have their own destinations and priorities; the alternate destination handles calls that do not match.
- Phone Menu (IVR): plays a greeting and lets callers press a key for a destination.
- Team Ringing (Ring Groups): rings several destinations using a Strategy (Simultaneous, Sequential, Rollover or Random), Order and Timeout per destination. For one-at-a-time ringing, use Sequential and set Order. Enabled lets you disable a destination without deleting it. Set a timeout destination for unanswered calls.
- Call Centers: callers wait in a queue with music until an available agent answers. Create agents, assign them to the queue, and review the queue strategy, agent availability, waiting limits and unanswered-call destination. This is different from a ring group.
- Voicemails: receives a message with the greeting and notification email you configure.
- Recordings (Audios): creates or uploads audio used by greetings. An audio file does not, by itself, define a complete route with an unanswered-call destination.
3. Build from the final destination back to the start
- Prepare the greetings you need.
- Create or identify the voicemail boxes for unanswered and after-hours calls.
- Create ring groups or call center queues, and IVR menus, choosing their destinations and fallbacks. For a queue, create and assign its agents first.
- If needed, create Business Hours and connect the open-hours and alternate destinations.
- Set the number’s incoming action to the first block and save.
Example: Number → Business Hours → Ring Group during open hours → Voicemail if unanswered. Outside those hours, Business Hours sends the call to the after-hours voicemail. An IVR can sit between Business Hours and the ring group.
4. Test the complete route
Call from an external phone. Test an answered call, an unanswered call and the closed-hours route. For an IVR, test every key, silence and an invalid key on separate calls. Check the actual greeting and destination, not just whether the phone rings.
If callers reach the wrong place
- Check the correct location and number, then follow each saved destination from the entry point.
- Check Settings → Call Forwarding for that number. Enabled always-forwarding applies regardless of Business Hours or time conditions.
- Check that the IVR or schedule points to the intended next block. Avoid routes that send calls back to themselves.
- Changing an existing shared destination may affect other routes that use it. Review those routes before changing or removing it.
Calls come from: check where this destination is used
In Phone Menu (IVR) and Team Ringing (Ring Groups), the Calls come from column shows the configurations that send calls to each menu or group, such as a phone number, Business Hours or an IVR option.
- A named source: that configuration routes calls here.
- +1 more / +2 more: additional sources also use this destination.
- No calls sent here: no incoming routing references are listed. This is a configuration check, not a call-history report.
Before deleting a shared destination: review every listed source, change its destination and save the source configuration. Check the list again and test the replacement route. While another configuration sends calls here, the destination cannot be deleted.
Related guides
- How to Set Up Business Hours
- How to Create an IVR / Auto Attendant
- How to Create a Ring Group for Multiple Extensions or Cell Phones
- How to Add or Edit Voicemail Settings from the Dashboard
- How to Upload or Create Audio Recordings (Greetings)
Call Center guides
Set up Call Center queues
Add and manage agents
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