Connect a phone line

A phone line connects the CRM to the phones or phone system your team uses, so calls can be started from the CRM and logged on the right record. An owner or admin connects it once for the whole workspace.

Every phone line is a service outside the CRM. Have its account ready before you start: see Calls and phone lines overview for what each one needs.

Open the telephony apps

1. Open Contact center in the left menu.
2. Click Apps next to the Contact center heading.
3. Scroll to Telephony. You see SIM calling, TeleCMI and Custom telephony app. A line already connected has a tick on its tile.

Click a tile to start. The window has a Connect tab and a People tab; the Custom telephony app also has How it talks.

Connect SIM calling

SIM calling uses your team's own mobile numbers. Each person has the SIM calling app on their Android phone. When they click call in the CRM, the number is sent to their phone, and they tap the notification there to dial. Every call made or taken on the phone is logged in the CRM.

1. Click SIM calling. Check the name in Name this line.
2. In the SIM calling dashboard, open Connection → TicAte CRM and make an API key.
3. Paste it into API key and click Connect. The CRM checks the key.
4. The window now shows a Webhook URL and a Secret. Copy both into the same page of the SIM calling dashboard and save there, so calls reach the CRM.
5. Open the People tab. Under SIMs, every SIM on your team's phones is listed. Give each SIM to the person it belongs to, then click Save.

Several SIMs can share one phone and one login: the CRM rings the phone holding the caller's SIM, and logs calls on a SIM under its person. A SIM given to nobody is matched by the email the person signs in with.

Connect TeleCMI

With TeleCMI, clicking call rings your person first, then the customer, and every call on the business number is logged.

1. Click TeleCMI.
2. In the TeleCMI dashboard, open your business number, then Developer → App secret. Paste the secret into App secret.
3. In Click to call rings, choose The TeleCMI softphone or app, or The person's mobile (follow me).
4. Click Connect.
5. In TeleCMI, open Settings → Webhooks and add two webhooks, both with method POST, to the address the CRM shows in step 2 of the window: one of type Call report, one of type Notify.
6. On the People tab, type each person's TeleCMI user id (it looks like 101_1111112), then click Save. Without it, that person cannot call from the CRM and their calls are not put under their name.

Connect another phone system

For any other phone system with an API, such as a cloud provider or an office PBX, use Custom telephony app. You fill in the system's API address and Token or key, then, on How it talks, describe where its call events carry the call id, the status and the numbers, and which request starts a call. Leave the request empty for a line that only reports calls.

This needs the phone system's developer documentation. If you are not sure, ask your provider or write to support@ticate.com.

Say who is who

On the People tab of any line, each person in your team has a box for what the phone system knows them as: an extension, their own number, or the email they sign in there with. Left blank, their CRM email is used (TeleCMI needs the id for everyone who will call).

This decides whose phone rings when someone clicks call, and whose call an incoming one is.

Choose how the line behaves

At the bottom of the Connect tab:

• The call button dials through this line: with more than one line, this one is used for click to call.
• Make a lead when an unknown number calls in: a call from a number nobody in the CRM has makes a lead, named "Caller" with the last digits of the number, so the call has a record to sit on. You can rename it during the call.
• Switched on: untick to stop using the line without losing its settings.

Click Save after any change.

At the top of the window, Can dial means the line can place calls from the CRM; Reports calls only means it only logs calls made elsewhere. The count beside it shows how many call events the CRM has heard from the line, which is a quick way to check the webhook works.

Change or disconnect a line

Click the line's tile, then the line in the list. The same list has Connect another, followed by the app's name, to add a second line of the same kind. To disconnect a line, open it and click the bin icon at the top right. Calls already logged stay on their records.

Your plan sets how many lines can be switched on at the same time. If you reach the limit, the CRM says so: switch one off, or upgrade.

Next steps

• Make and take calls