Call Flows establish what the system should do with calls and texts that come in to your phone numbers. Flows are incredibly flexible, totally customizable, and can be as complex or simple as you want.
If you do not have a call flow set up for your phone number, incoming communications will not get to 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.
It's helpful to think of Flows as a series of questions the system will ask to determine how to route the call/text and you get to program the answers - all which will happen in an instant. When a call or a text comes in on a specific phone number, your smrtPhone system will look for the Flow assigned to that number.
Depending on the Applets that have been used, it will ask questions such as: "Is this during hours or after business hours?" and "Should this caller be given a menu of options (IVR)?" and "Should we ring one person or a Group?" and "If we ring a Group should we ring them all at once or in a certain order?" and "If no one answers, should we connect to voicemail?". These are just examples. Read through the entire Flows section of our documentation to become familiar with all of the options.
This video gives an overview of the Flows Dashboard:
On the overview Call Flow screen, you will see:
Name of the Flow - using a friendly name helps to keep things organized and easily understood
A preview of the applets used in the call flow
How many numbers use the call flow. As many numbers as you want can be routed through each Call Flow, however only one Call Flow can be assigned to each number. (Otherwise, imagine an incoming call to a specific number if there were multiple flows - which would the system pick?? This is why each number can only have one flow, but each Flow can be used by many numbers.)
Whether there is a Call Flow set up (or one needs to be)
Whether there is an SMS/MMS text Flow set up (or one needs to be)
Seeing Red (Buttons) in Flows
🛑 If you see the red "Create Call Flow" or "Create SMS Flow" buttons - these should be addressed as soon as possible. Without an established flow, an incoming call/text to this number will not be received. 🛑