Zoom Phone Options for Departmental Contact Extensions
Part of the preparation for moving a department to Zoom Phone includes questions about call management:
- Fielding incoming calls that are not personal
- Keeping extensions "alive" after a person leaves the department or college. these are business continuity numbers
- Fielding calls to the department's advertised contact numbers. Advertised contact numbers include numbers advertised for a specific purpose - not a specific person. Examples include McCabe Library Circulation, Worth Health, the ITS Help Desk.
- Evaluating need for a physical phone versus using the Zoom Desktop or Mobile Apps
Options for Departmental Calls and Numbers
Group Call Pickup
Group call pickup provides the ability for members to pick up inbound calls for a member of the same group without the need to access to that member’s desk phone or Zoom client. Members can be phone users or common area phones. When a call is unanswered by a member, all other group members receive a subtle notification to accept or dismiss the call.
- Pickup groups do not get assigned a separate phone number or extension, and
- Pickup groups do not have a separate voicemail. Voicemail messages would go to the original member called, if no one else in the group answers the call.
- For more information about group call pickup, go to Setting Up and Using Group Call Pickup.
Shared Line Group (SLG)
A shared line group allows Zoom Phone Adminisrators to share a phone number and extension with a group of phone users or common area phones. All members of the shared line group have access to the group's direct phone number and voicemail. You can apply custom business, closed, and holiday hours to shared line groups and set routing rules. If you aren't sure that shared line groups fit your use case, see our comparison of call routing methods.
- A shared line group can have 0 to 10 phone numbers. All members can use these numbers to make or receive calls.
- By default, a shared line group can handle up to 4 calls at the same time.
- If routing to voicemail, you can only route to the shared line group's voicemail inbox. You can't route to a voicemail inbox that belongs to another extension. Voicemails can be sent to all members of the group, or to a specific email address. Voicemails cannot be accessed via the web portal, but can be accessed by a desk phone (similar to how the accessed on a Cisco phone).
- Call routing to a member's external phone number is not supported.
- A shared line group will ring all members simultaneously for incoming calls.
- SLG phone number can be added to a Desk Phone - not restricted to the Zoom Desktop Application.
- SLG cannot be managed by a member of the group.
- Call forwarding can only be set through a desktop phone that is a member of the group, or by a zoom Phone admin.
- For more information about shared line groups, go to Using Shared Line Groups (Client or App).
Call Queue
Call queues allow incoming calls to be routed to a specific group of users. For example, calls can be routed to people in your organization's billing, sales, or customer service departments.
- Call queues can have their own phone number.
- Call queue extensions cannot be added to a desktop phone as a separate line. Calls can only be made or received via the Zoom desktop or mobile application.
- Members of the group can mange call queue settings via the zoom web portal (designated Call queue admins).
- Members can set their own business hours for calls to the Call Queue.
- Members can op-in or opt-out of receiving calls to the call queue.
- Call distribution can be simultaneous, sequential, rotating, etc(additional options).
- For more information about call queue settings, go to Changing Call Queue Settings.
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