Phone
The phone places and receives calls in the dashboard. Your browser acts as the SIP client, and the dashboard creates a short-lived session credential for it, so you do not need to install a client or share an API key. Go online to place and receive calls. Outgoing calls go through one of your SIP trunks, and incoming calls reach you through a ring group.
Open it under Voice > Phone. The floating window remains open as you move through the dashboard.
What a browser call needs
- An eligible caller ID. Choose a Bird number allocated to this workspace that supports outbound calls, or register an external number on the Numbers page and complete its verification call. See Caller IDs.
- A trunk that can carry a browser call. Enable outbound calling and session credentials. Include MD5 in the Digest offer because browsers use that algorithm.
- The country turned on. A call to a country your workspace has not enabled is refused at setup. See Destinations.
- The phone online. Go online, as described in Receive calls. An Offline phone cannot dial; Online, Busy and Not accepting calls can.
- Permission to place calls and read Voice settings. The phone requires
voice:writeandvoice_management:readin a workspace region that supports browser calling. A call bills the workspace.
Your browser asks for microphone access on the first call.
A call that does not go through says why in the window. When Bird refused it, that is the rejection reason, with the setting that fixes it.
Receive calls
The phone rings when a call arrives for a ring group you are in, and you are online. Receiving calls needs the same permissions as placing them, but no trunk or caller ID.
- Select the status at the bottom of the phone and choose Online.
- The first time you go online in a browser, the phone opens Settings. Choose your Microphone and Speaker, select Allow notifications so an incoming call shows a system notification, and select Play the ringtone to check that you can hear it.
- Select Go online. A short sound confirms that the phone is online.
The phone stays online while the dashboard is open in this browser, and it remembers the choice for this workspace. After a reload it goes online again by itself. Your browser may then block the ringtone until you interact with the page; when it does, the status menu offers Turn on sound.
Closing the phone asks whether to go offline. Signing out, or closing every dashboard tab, also takes you offline.
Answer a call
An incoming call opens the phone, plays the ringtone and shows a system notification with the caller's number and contact name. Select Accept to answer or Decline to refuse it. When another member of the group answers first, the call stops ringing for you.
While a call rings for you or you are on a call, the phone refuses any other call to you.
The ring groups icon on the status bar lists My ring groups, the groups you are in, with how many of their members are online.
Your status
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Online | You receive and place calls. |
| Busy | You place calls but are not rung. A call that had already started ringing you can still ring. Choose Online to be rung again. |
| Not accepting calls | You missed three calls in a row, so you are not rung. Choose Back online to be rung again. |
| Offline | You cannot place calls, and no call rings you. |
A missed call is one that rang you and that you did not answer before it stopped ringing, or that you declined. A call that another member answered first is not a miss, and any call you answer resets the count. Busy lasts until you choose Online or go offline.
One device at a time
In each workspace, you are online on one device at a time. When you go online in that workspace in another browser, that browser takes over, and this one shows Offline · Active on another device. Choose Take over to bring calls back to this browser. A call in progress stays on the device where it started.
Within one browser, one tab handles calls, and the others show Offline · Calls are handled in another tab. Choose Use here to move calls to the tab you are in.
Users online limit
By default, your organization can have up to 10 users online at a time in each region. The limit depends on your Voice plan. A user online in several workspaces, or moving between their own devices, counts once.
At the limit, a user who is not yet online cannot go online: the status reads Offline · Limit of users online reached. Ask someone to go offline, then choose Online to try again.
During a call
- Keypad sends DTMF tones, for an IVR menu or an extension; typing digits on your keyboard sends them too.
- Microphone and speaker have separate pickers. You can switch the microphone during a call. Speaker selection works in Chromium browsers; other browsers use the system default.
The phone has no hold or transfer. It cannot reach emergency services.
Hang up before closing the phone. Reloading the page rejoins an answered call, placed or received. A ringing call cannot be rejoined after a reload, but its outcome remains in the call log.
Where the calls show up
A browser call is carried and billed like any other, and it produces the same record: it lands on the Legs page alongside every call the workspace placed or received, from any client.
Next steps
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Ring groups | Who an incoming call rings, and routing a number to a group |
| SIP trunks | Session credentials, the IP allow list, allowed API keys, and Digest |
| Caller IDs | Registering a number and proving you own it with a verification call |
| Voice destinations | Turning on the countries you call, and what high risk means |
| Call log | Every field on a record, filtering, and CSV export |
| Place your first call | From an empty workspace to a ringing phone in about ten minutes |
Related resources
Continue with the documentation, guides and examples for this topic.