Ring Groups

What a ring group is

A ring group rings multiple phones at once (or in sequence) when a call comes in. Useful for:

• A small support team where any of 3 people can answer
• A reception desk with a backup
• A "Sales" line that rings every salesperson

Ring groups are simpler than queues. No hold music, no position announcements, no ACD logic. Just: ring these phones, route the answered call to whoever picks up first.

Where ring groups live

Top nav → Ring Groups. Columns: name, strategy, member count, actions.

Creating a ring group

Click New Ring Group. Form fields:

Field	What it does
Name	Display name (Sales, Support, etc.)
Description	Optional
Strategy	How members ring (see below)
Ring Timeout	Seconds to ring before giving up (default 30)
Members	List of extensions and/or external numbers
Call Screening	Toggle on to prompt callers to announce themselves before ring
No-Answer Action	What to do if no one picks up

Click Save.

Strategies

Strategy	How it rings
Simultaneous	All members ring at the exact same time. Whoever picks up first gets the call.
Sequential	Members ring one at a time, in order. If member 1 doesn't answer in N seconds, member 2 starts ringing.
Rotary	Like sequential but starts with a different member each call (round-robin).

Simultaneous is loud and aggressive — everyone's phone goes off, but you almost never miss a call. Best for support/reception.

Sequential is polite — only one phone rings at a time. Best for sales teams where you want to give the senior rep a chance to answer first before bouncing to the junior.

Rotary is fair — distributes calls evenly across members. Best for situations where you want to share workload.

Members

Add extensions (internal) and/or external numbers (your team's cell phones, for after-hours coverage).

For each member in sequential mode, set:

• Order — drag to reorder
• Ring Timeout — how long this member rings before advancing (sequential mode)

For each member in any mode:

• Mandatory — should the call fail if this member is offline? (Rare; usually no.)

No-answer action

What happens if the ring timeout expires and no one picked up. Options:

• Hangup — end the call (caller hears busy)
• Voicemail — send to a specific voicemail box (often the team's shared box)
• Custom Destination — send to an external number or another extension
• Queue — escalate to a queue
• Other ring group — escalate to a different ring group

A common pattern:

Sales ring group rings → if no answer in 30s, escalate to Sales voicemail box

Call screening

If enabled, when the call hits the ring group, the caller is prompted: "Please say your name." Their name is recorded. Then members' phones ring with a "press 1 to accept call from [name]" prompt.

This is useful when you want to know who's calling before answering. Comes at the cost of latency (caller experience: 5-10 second pause after dialing).

Most ring groups don't use it. Enable only if there's a specific need.

Routing a phone number to a ring group

Two ways:

1. From the Phone Numbers page, edit a number, set Routing → Ring Group → pick group. Save.
2. From a Call Flow, drag a Ring Group node onto the canvas, pick the group.

Editing a ring group

Click the group in the list. Make changes. Save. Changes apply immediately to new calls. Calls in progress are unaffected.

Deleting a ring group

Click Delete on the group's row. Confirm.

If any DID or call flow references this group, those references break. The Edit page warns you about active references before letting you delete.

When to use a ring group vs a queue

Use ring group when…	Use queue when…
You have 1-5 people who can answer	You have 5+ agents
You don't need hold music	You want polished caller experience
Calls are short and there's no realistic wait	Calls might wait 30s+ on hold
You don't need reporting on wait times	You want metrics on average wait, abandonment

For most small teams (under 5 people), ring groups are fine. For anything larger or anything customer-facing, use a queue.