The Call Flow Designer (CFD) feature allows you to set up different phone trees to route and manage calls efficiently.

User Level:

Admin

Before You Start

To build your first call flow, you’ll need:

An active CloudTalk number.
Admin permissions.
Any audio recordings you plan to use (greetings, IVR menus).
Optional: Groups and agents already created in your account.

Configure Numbers for Inbound Calls

Video Overview

Check out this video for a visual overview of our call flow designer. While it features our legacy dashboard, the call flow design feature is the same.

Refer to our pricing page to learn more about what action types are available on each plan.

Inbound Numbers

1. From the Dashboard, click Numbers.
2. A list of your phone numbers will appear.
3. Click the blue pencil icon next to the number you want to configure.

Edit Number Settings

💡 In the legacy dashboard, the Call Flow Designer appears first when you edit a number.

When you select the blue pencil icon next to a number, you will be able to edit the configuration of that number.

Basic settings

Internal name: Name your number so it’s easier to find in reports and settings.
VIP Phone number: Toggle On to prioritize VIP contacts in queues for Call to Group steps with VIP tags.
Sequence of steps for incoming call: Click Configure call flow to open the designer.
Allowed international calling: Click Manage to set which countries this number can call. For security, we recommend enabling only the countries essential for your business.
You can also configure this in Account → Settings → International Calls.

Business Hours

When Business hours is toggled On, you can configure the business hour rules for this number:

Holidays: Toggle On to change availability based on national holidays recognized by the number’s country prefix. You can use this setting in combination with Exceptions to specify limited holiday availability.

Type: Set what happens when someone calls outside business hours.
Your business hours: Add or edit rules by day and time range.
Exceptions: Overwrite business hours on specific days.

Configuring business hours or international calls for a number will overwrite the company defaults for that number. If left alone, the number will behave according to the defaults set in Account > Settings.

Number Settings — Legacy

Click the ⚙️ icon to change settings for a number or step. Editing the number opens the Call number settings.

In Call number settings, you can enable/disable call recording and mandatory call tagging as necessary, or use company settings. Select to Configure Business Hours or Configure International Calls for this number.

Design Your Call Flow

1. Click the + icon where you want to insert a step.
2. Choose an action - it will be added directly after your selected step.

Different actions may become available or unavailable depending on where in a branch you are trying to insert them, and some action types imply certain followup steps.

💡 Tip: You can add steps anywhere. Forgot your welcome message? Click + before the IVR step to insert it.

Call Flow Actions

Action	What will it do?
Call to agent	Route all calls to a single agent. Use when you want all calls for this number to always go to the same person.
Call to favorite agent	If a caller has a favorite agent listed on their contact, route to this agent. Otherwise, skip this step. Use when you want customers to reach their dedicated account manager first.
Call to group	Route calls to the selected group of agents. Best for sales or support teams who handle calls collectively.
Playback	Play a pre-recorded message or music for callers. Great for greetings, announcements, or estimated wait times. *Tip: You can upload new sounds through Account > Sounds > `+ Add Sound`.*
Voicemail	Route calls to the voicemail of an assigned group or agent. Use as a backup when no one is available to answer. *Tips:* Voicemails assigned to a group will send a voicemail notification email to the group email address when Send voicemails* options are set to Yes.* We recommend using a Playback* in the previous step that prompts callers to leave a message.*
Redirect to external number *Essential, Expert & Custom users	Redirect a business-critical call to a number outside CloudTalk. Helpful if you want calls forwarded to a mobile phone after hours. *Tips*: A redirected call appears as a new outbound call in data and is charged with outbound rates. (These outbound minutes will not be counted toward call packages assigned to specific agents.) CloudTalk will attempt to use the original caller-id, which may conflict with country restrictions or CLIR.
Call recording	Record a specific branch of the call flow. If this step is not added, use default recording options chosen in Settings. Use for training, compliance, or quality monitoring purposes.
Fax	Enable this number to receive fax messages. Automatically send all fax messages to the email account set. Only needed if you want to receive faxes through CloudTalk. *Tip*: This step cannot be combined with other steps.
Conference	Assign this number as a conference room which can be reached by public phone numbers. Use when you want customers or partners to dial in directly to a meeting line. *Tip*: This step cannot be combined with other steps.
Change of the outbound caller name *Essential, Expert & Custom users	Change the outbound caller ID - for example, before a Redirect to external number step. Helps make forwarded calls look like they’re coming from your business number. *Tips*: This action will result in the loss of the caller's number info. Use this when you want customers to recognize a forwarded call as your business. Otherwise, the outbound ID for forwarded calls defaults to the original inbound caller's number.
Get and dial an extension	Allow callers to type in the extension code of a particular agent. Use for companies that rely on extensions for direct agent reach. *Tip: Add a Playback** step before this to list the possible extensions.*
IVR *Essential, Expert & Custom users	Allow callers to navigate to the most appropriate group or agent by prompting them to type in numbers on their keypad for a desired call branch. Best for call centers or teams with multiple departments.
Time Route *Essential, Expert & Custom users	Route calls based on the day or time they come in. Ideal for after-hours routing, holidays, or multi-location businesses. *Tips*: You can set custom paths for holidays or varying operation hours which exist for different locations of your business branches. The failover option covers any time not specified.
Go to *Expert & Custom users	Use a predefined call flow or branch from any of your CloudTalk numbers. Helpful if you want to reuse the same flow across multiple numbers.
Condition splitter *Essential, Expert & Custom users	Filter calls through a series of conditions, branching calls to different routes depending on select details about the call, contact, or HTTP request response object. Useful for routing VIP customers to priority lines or splitting calls by region. *Tip*: This step uses `AND` as an operator in cases with multiple conditions.
HTTP Request *Essential, Expert & Custom users	Send a custom HTTP request when this step is reached. Use if you need to fetch or send customer data from another system before routing.
Collect input from caller	Prompt callers to use their keypad and input a response after hearing a pre-recorded message. Great for surveys, PIN entry, or capturing account/order numbers. *Tips:* The Pattern* defines the expected format of the input. It can be a constant value (like a password) or a RegEx function, along with a confirm character.* The result of the caller's input can be referenced within the map function of other actions.
Mark call as resolved	Automatically mark calls which reach this point as "resolved" in the system. Helps improve reporting accuracy for missed vs. handled calls. *Tip*: This can improve the accuracy of your missed call data.
Copy call flow / Add saved flow	Allow admin to select one or more connected actions (or entire branches) in a call flow for copying, to paste into other call flow branches. Use to save time when building flows that follow a repeated pattern. *Tip: This is an alternative for users who do not have the Go to** step in their plan.*

What about older action types? External API, Custom dial plan, and Webhook actions are considered legacy features. In new call flow designs, these have been replaced by the HTTP Request action. Your existing call flows that already include these steps will continue to work as they are, there’s no need to change them unless you want to update the design.

Delete a Step

Click the ⚙️ icon on the step.
Select the 🗑️ icon.
Choose whether to delete only that step or all following steps. Note that, deleting IVR or Time Route steps also removes all subsequent steps.

Example Call Flow Designs

Now that you have a basic grasp of how the designer works, let's look at some traditional routing practices.

The main aim of the Call Flow Designer is to avoid missed calls and to ensure your customers efficiently reach the agents who can be most helpful to them. Below are some straightforward examples of how to achieve that.

Basic Call to Group

A customer calling in through this number would be greeted with a welcome message (Playback step) before the call was routed to the "Agents" group (Call to group step).

If no agent from the "Agents" group answers, the customer is redirected to voicemail. If the call is answered, we mark the call as resolved.

IVR Route to Groups

In this slightly more advanced example, our customer again calls in to be greeted with a welcome message. The following IVR step will prompt the customer to type in a number on their keypad, which will decide what happens next for their call.

If they dial 1, they are routed to "Group A". Dialing 2 routes calls to "Group B". Finally, they can dial 3 to leave a voicemail for the billing department. As in the simpler example above, answered calls get marked as resolved and unanswered calls are routed to the group-associated voicemail.

Tips For a Successful IVR Step

Make sure the numbers your recorded message tells callers to press match the appropriate branch numbers on your call flow design.
Consider checking the Failover for no key pressed option in case the caller does not successfully pick something.
Give your customers enough time to listen to directions and dial a response. We recommend at least 20 Seconds to wait on this step.