Admin & setup

Advanced Group settings

These settings have a big impact on what happens when calls come into a Group. Here is a breakdown of what each setting does.

Legacy Help Docs
We're in the process of refreshing our help docs. This flag will be removed when this article has been updated.

Warning

There is a limit of 10 calls at any one time, so if you put more than 10 people into either Call first or Call second, we may not be able to call all of the people who are available.

Call distribution mode

Simultaneous Distribution

If you choose Simultaneous distribution, calls will ring all available people in Call first at the same time. If nobody answers, the call rings everyone in* Call second*. The people in each box will be called for the* Ring time per person*. If people are set to away, they are moved down one box.

Balanced Distribution

If you choose Balanced distribution, calls will ring one person at a time. The first person will be the person from Call first who is currently available and has waited for the longest time since they were on a call. If this person doesn’t answer, the person with the next longest wait time will be called. Once all of the people in* Call first* have been called, those in* Call second* will be attempted. Calls attempts will be made to each person in turn until the* Total ringing time* has been reached. Calls are not automatically distributed to people whose status is currently Red (on a call or busy) or Grey (offline or invisible).

Total ringing time

Depending on the Call distribution mode that you have selected, this setting decides how long the call will ring before it is sent to voicemail.

If you choose Simultaneous distribution, the total ringing time will be the* Ring time per person* multiplied by how many boxes you wish to ring. For example, if your* Ring time per person* is 9s and your* Total ringing time* is 18s, we will ring people in* Call first* and* Call second* before sending the call to voicemail.

If you choose Balanced distribution, this setting will limit the number of people that we’ll attempt to call before sending the call to voicemail. This prevents the call having to go through all of your people before getting the opportunity to leave a voicemail.

Ring time per person

This setting changes the time that the people in each box (Call first and* Call second*) will be called before rolling to the people in the next box. We’ve found that 95% of people answer calls within the first 12 seconds that the phone is ringing. Callers typically abandon phone calls after between 25 and 40 seconds of ringing. We recommend setting this so that your total ring time is between 30 and 40 seconds (when your voicemail greeting will play).

Try people more than once

If you turn on this setting, people in Call first will be tried again on the second attempt while we're also calling people in* Call second*. This means the boxes are cumulative. Be careful turning this on, as it can be quite annoying for larger teams.

There is a limit of 10 calls at any one time, so if you put more than 10 people into either Call first or Call second, we may not be able to call all of the people who are available.