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Overview of Inbound Communications, Calls, and Text/SMS - Call Flows

Understanding call flows and setting how the system handles incoming phone calls and text messages.

Flows establish what the system should do with calls and texts that come into your phone numbers. Flows are incredibly flexible, totally customizable, and can be as complex or simple as you want.

Everyone needs a Call Flow!

If you do not have a call flow set up for your phone number, incoming communications will not reach you. Even if it is as simple as ring this user, you must tell smrtPhone what to do when someone contacts each of your phone numbers.

There are two kinds, and they work as a pair:

Call Flow SMS Flow
Handles Inbound voice calls Inbound SMS/MMS messages
Required? Yes โ€” always Only if the number receives texts
Depends on Nothing A Call Flow of the same name must exist first

How a Flow works

Think of a Flow as a short series of questions the system asks itself to decide where a call or text should go. You program the answers in advance; the system runs through them in an instant.

When a communication arrives, smrtPhone finds the Flow assigned to that number and works through it. Depending on which applets you've picked, the questions might be:

  • Is this during business hours, or after?
  • Should the caller get a menu of options (IVR)?
  • Should this ring one person, or a team?
  • If nobody answers, should it go to voicemail?

Each applet you add is one more question in the chain.

Full Call Flow

 The two flow types, briefly

๐Ÿ“ž Call Flows route inbound voice calls. You build one by picking applets โ€” Business Hours, Dial, Round Robin, IVR, Voicemail โ€” and arranging them into the path a call should take.

How to build a Call Flow, step by step โ‡ข

๐Ÿ’ฌ SMS Flows route inbound text messages. Same idea, different applets โ€” Business Hours, SMS Inbox, Save & Reply, Menu, smrtAgent โ€” and the destination is an inbox rather than a ringing phone. Remember it needs a Call Flow of the same name to exist first.

How to build an SMS Flow, step by step โ‡ข

Numbers and Flows: how they pair up

One number, one Flow. One Flow, many numbers.

A single Call Flow can serve as many phone numbers as you like โ€” useful when a dozen marketing numbers should all behave identically. But each number can only be assigned one Call Flow, because otherwise the system would have no way to choose between them when a call came in.

A preview of the Applets used in the call flow. Use these Applets for your Flows

Next steps

Once a Flow is built and assigned, test it โ€” place a real call and send a real text to the number, and confirm both behave the way you expect.

๐Ÿ’ก Customize User permissions โ‡ข
๐Ÿ’ก Duplicate a Call Flow โ‡ข