Using the softphone

The softphone is the calling console built into the xMatix web workspace: you go online in the Calls drawer, calls ring in your browser with the caller already identified from your records, and every call you take or place is logged in the call register on its own. It sits between your administrator's telephony setup (numbers, queues and routes) and the call record that carries the outcome afterwards.

Overview

The softphone has three parts, all in the desktop web app:

• The Calls segment in the status bar at the bottom of the workspace. Its coloured dot shows your call status; selecting it opens the drawer. Next to it are Chats and Macros.
• The Calls drawer. Before and between calls it shows your name, your status pill, three figures (Calls today, Talk time, Avg handle), the dial box and the Recent and Campaigns tabs. During a call it switches to the Active Call console, and a toggle at the top lets you flip between Active Call and Call Register.
• The call popup. A ringing card appears at the bottom right of the workspace, above any open panel, when a call rings. Once you are on a call and the drawer is closed, a compact pill keeps the caller, the timer and the main controls in view while you work elsewhere.

When to use it

• You answer customer calls from a support, service or sales queue.
• You call customers back, or place an outbound call from a number in a record.
• You want an AI agent your administrator has set up to make an outbound call for you while you listen in.
• You need to turn a call into a case, task, lead or other record while you talk, so the call is linked to it.

How xMatix handles it

Nothing connects until you go online. Signing in does not make you reachable. The live call channel opens only when you choose Go online or pick a status other than Offline in the drawer. Going online applies to the browser tab you did it in: reloading that tab keeps it online, but a new tab or window starts offline. While you are online, xMatix renews your availability every minute. If your browser stops renewing — the laptop sleeps, the network drops — the router stops offering you calls after five minutes. Closing a tab that is online sets you Offline straight away, even when another tab is still open.

Only Available agents are offered calls. Busy, Away and Offline all keep queue calls away from you. An agent is also skipped when they are already carrying as much work as their routing resource allows. Who is rung for each number is set by your administrator — see Inbound routing.

Calls and chats have separate statuses. The Calls and Chats segments each carry their own dot. Changing one does not change the other, and the chat status is kept in your browser only.

Several tabs, one ring. If you are online in several tabs, every one of them shows the ringing card, but only one plays the ringtone. When you accept in one tab, the others stop ringing and drop the card.

First to accept gets the call. When a call rings for several agents, the first to select Accept gets it. Anyone accepting a moment later sees "That call was answered by someone else." and their card closes. As soon as the call is answered, it stops ringing for everyone else.

The caller is identified before you answer. The ringing card shows the matched contact's name and account. When there is no match it says New caller and Unrecognized number, or Unknown caller and No caller ID when the number is withheld. When this caller has called before, the card adds last call and how long ago (for example last call 3d ago). Matching uses the last seven digits of the number against your contacts' phone fields, then account phone numbers — the exact rules are on Calls, dispositions and recordings.

Hanging up starts after-call work. When a call you were on ends, your status becomes Busy with the reason ACW and a 45-second After-call work countdown starts. When it reaches zero — or when you select Finish & go Available — you are set back to Available. An outbound call that was never answered (busy, declined or no answer) skips after-call work and simply clears.

Hang-up saves what you have. The disposition and notes selected at the moment you hang up are saved on the call. Save disposition during after-call work saves any later change.

Prerequisites

• Telephony is set up for your organization and the Enable Telephony (CTI) module switch is on.
• You staff an active queue. Your user must be linked to a routing resource that is in the agent pool of at least one active queue. Without that, the Calls segment is not shown at all — see Telephony configuration.
• A desktop browser. The softphone is not shown on phones or tablets, and the mobile app does not place or take calls.
• A working microphone that your browser is allowed to use. The browser asks for permission the first time audio starts. If you refuse, the other party cannot hear you.
• For outbound calls: your organization's telephony connection must have an outbound trunk.

Procedure

Step 1 — Open the Calls drawer and go online

1. In the status bar at the bottom of the workspace, select Calls.
2. The drawer opens. If you are not online yet, it says "You're offline — the live call channel isn't connected, so nothing will ring here."
3. Select Go online. The status pill shows Connecting… and then Available, and the Calls dot turns green.

To go online with another status, open the status pill and choose Busy or Away instead — that also connects you, but you are not offered queue calls until you choose Available.

If the drawer shows "Live call connection unavailable — you're Offline until it reconnects. Reload to retry.", the live channel could not be reached. The status pill is locked at Offline. Reload the page once your connection is back.

Step 2 — Set your status during the day

Open the status pill at the top of the drawer and choose:

• Available — ready for queue calls.
• Busy or Away — stay connected but receive no queue calls. You can still dial out.
• Offline — disconnect. If you choose Offline during a call, the call and its after-call work carry on, and you are disconnected when they finish.

Step 3 — Place an outbound call

1. In the dial box, type or paste the number, including the country code where needed, and press Enter or select Call.
2. A Dialing … bar appears briefly, then the drawer switches to the call console with ○ Dialing…. There is no ringtone, and the talk timer starts only when the other party answers.
3. When they answer, the console shows ● Connected and the timer runs. Continue with Step 5.
4. To abandon the attempt before they answer, select Cancel (Cancel this call).

You can also redial from the Recent tab: point at a call and select the phone icon (Call followed by the number).

The new call is in the register straight away, as an Outbound call with status Ringing, matched to a contact where the dialled number is recognized.

If the call cannot be placed you see "Could not place the call." The most common causes are an organization with no outbound trunk, or a number the telephony service rejected — ask your administrator.

Step 4 — Let an AI agent make the call

When your administrator has set up active AI agents, the dial box has a Call as list in front of the number.

1. Open Call as and pick an agent shown as AI: agent name. Call as me returns to a normal call.
2. Enter the number and select Call.
3. You see "AI agent is calling … Turn off "Bot talking" to speak yourself." You join the call muted and hear both the AI agent and the customer.
4. The Bot talking switch in the console decides who speaks:
   • On — Bot talking. Your mic is muted.
   • Off — You are talking. Bot is silent. The AI agent stops, and your microphone opens only after it has confirmed it is silent.
5. Switch it back on to hand the conversation back to the AI agent.

If the switch cannot change over you see "Could not silence the bot. Your mic stays muted." or "Could not hand the call back to the bot.", and nothing changes. On the call record, Agent shows AI: followed by the agent's name.

Step 5 — Answer an incoming call

1. The ringing card appears with Incoming call, the caller's name or New caller, the number, the account tag and the match line.
2. Select Accept. The Calls drawer opens on the Active Call console with the timer running.
3. Or select Decline to close the card. Decline only clears the card in your browser — the call keeps ringing for anyone else it was offered to, and it is still logged.

Step 6 — Work the call

The console header shows the caller, the number, the account tag and the timer, with these controls:

The body has five tabs:

• Caller — for a matched contact: Value (the account's annual revenue), Open cases and CSAT worked out from the contact's ten most recent cases, then Linked records: the latest case, the account and a count of past calls. Select a case or the account to open it. For an unmatched caller it says "New caller — not matched to a contact." Agent notes is where you type as you talk.
• Script — a fixed five-step guide (Greeting, Verify identity, Understand the need, Resolve / next steps, Close). Select a step to tick it off; the bar shows how far you are. The steps are the same for every call and cannot be edited.
• AI assist — Generate recommendations reads the call's transcript and shows sentiment, next best actions and coaching; see Call insights.
• Transcript — shows a ● Listening placeholder only; no live text appears here.
• Knowledge — three general sample articles; Insert copies an article's title and summary into your notes. They are not drawn from your organization's knowledge base.

Select Create from this call at the bottom to open a new record linked to the call:

1. Pick a record type — Suggested for this call offers Case, Service Order and Task; All records offers Lead, Opportunity, Contact, Account, Activity, Appointment, Quote, Order and Note; Search records to create… reaches any other record type.
2. The New form opens with the caller's contact, account and number, a subject such as Inbound call · number, and source Voice already filled.
3. Save. The call is linked to the new record.

While the drawer is closed, the compact pill shows ● Connected and the time (or On hold), with Mute, Hold, Hang up and Open call panel.

Step 7 — Wrap up

1. Select End. The console switches to After-call work with the 45-second countdown: "Auto-finishes & sets you Available when it reaches 0 — or finish now below."
2. Under Disposition, pick a chip — Resolved, Follow-up, Call back, Escalated, Sale or Complaint — or select More… for the full list. A chip marked AI is the disposition suggested by the AI assist analysis.
3. Complete Wrap-up notes (the same text as your agent notes).
4. Select Save disposition. You see "Disposition saved".
5. Select Finish & go Available, or let the countdown finish.

The call is now Completed in the register, with its Outcome, Notes and Duration (s).

Step 8 — Review recent calls and close a stuck call

The Recent tab lists the 15 most recent calls you can see — not only your own — with direction, number, outcome or status, duration and time. Select a row to open the call record. Refresh reloads the list.

A row still showing Ringing or InProgress after the call is over has an End this call icon. Select it to hang the call up and mark it Completed. You see "Call ended." or "Could not end that call."

Fields

The softphone itself has no form. These are the things you fill or read in it:

Business rules

• The ringing card and pill appear only for a call offered to you; you are offered queue calls only while Available, connected and within your work capacity.
• Online status lapses five minutes after your browser last renewed it; closing the tab sets you Offline at once.
• Accepting a call sets it to InProgress, stamps Answered and sets Agent to your routing resource. A second accept by someone else is refused.
• Hanging up sets the call to Completed, stamps Ended and saves the disposition and notes selected at that moment.
• After-call work lasts 45 seconds and ends with your status set to Available, unless you chose Offline during the call.
• An unanswered outbound call has no after-call work.
• Decline never changes the call record.
• Create from this call links the call to the new record only when your profile has the Link to record permission on calls.
• A call placed as an AI agent is refused when the AI agent is inactive, or when your organization's telephony service cannot place AI calls. If the AI agent cannot join, the call is hung up so the customer is not left on a silent line.

Example

A service coordinator starts their shift at 09:00 IST. They select Calls, then Go online, and the dot turns green.

1. A call rings. The card shows the contact's name, a Lakeview Clinic account tag and Matched contact · Lakeview Clinic · last call 2d ago. The coordinator selects Accept.
2. On the Caller tab, Open cases reads 1; they open the latest case to read its history.
3. The caller reports a new fault. The coordinator selects Create from this call → Service Order. The form opens with the contact, account and number filled; they add the fault description and save.
4. They select End. In After-call work they pick Resolved, add "Engineer visit booked for Thursday" to Wrap-up notes, select Save disposition and then Finish & go Available.
5. In the register the call is Completed, Outcome Resolved, linked to the new service order.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox where telephony is set up and you are in an active queue's pool:

1. Open Calls and select Go online. Confirm the pill reads Available.
2. Set yourself Away, then back to Available.
3. Dial a test number you control. Answer it, then try Mute and Hold and ask the other person what they hear.
4. On the Caller tab type a note. Use Create from this call → Task and save the task.
5. Select End, pick Call back, select Save disposition and wait for the countdown.

Expected result: your status returns to Available on its own after 45 seconds; the call is in Recent as Outbound with outcome Call Back Later; the call record shows your note and is linked to the task.

Quick reference

• Status bar → Calls → Go online. Nothing rings until you do.
• Only Available gets queue calls; Busy and Away still let you dial out.
• Decline only clears your card; the call is still logged.
• Transfer does not move the call — arrange a call-back.
• Hold silences the caller's audio; there is no hold music.
• Create from this call links the new record to the call.
• Hang-up saves the disposition you have selected; after-call work lasts 45 seconds.
• Call as AI: … sends an AI agent; Bot talking off lets you speak.
• End this call on a Recent row closes a call stuck in Ringing or InProgress.

Permissions

A user without Link to record can still create a record from a call; it is saved but not linked, and no message is shown. Details are on Calls, dispositions and recordings.

Configuration

The softphone has no settings of its own. Administrators shape it through the telephony setup:

Full procedures are on Telephony configuration. The after-call work length, the script steps and the Knowledge articles are fixed and cannot be configured. The card at the top of the Campaigns tab is sample content that is not connected to any campaign — the list beneath it is simply your recent outbound calls.

Common problems

There is no Calls segment in the status bar

You are not in the pool of an active queue, the telephony module is switched off, or you are on a phone or tablet. Ask your administrator to add your routing resource to a queue's pool, then reload. See Troubleshooting telephony.

"You're offline — the live call channel isn't connected, so nothing will ring here."

You have not gone online in this session. Select Go online.

"Live call connection unavailable — you're Offline until it reconnects. Reload to retry."

The browser could not reach the live call channel, so you are held Offline and the status pill is locked. Check your network, then reload the page.

Calls ring colleagues but never me

Your status is not Available, you closed another tab that was online (which sets you Offline), your status lapsed because the browser stopped renewing it (sleep, lost network), or the number routes to a queue whose pool you are not in. Set yourself Available again; if it persists, see Inbound routing.

"That call was answered by someone else."

A colleague accepted the same call a moment before you. Nothing is needed — the call is theirs.

"Could not place the call."

The organization has no outbound trunk, the telephony service rejected the number, or the chosen AI agent is no longer active. Check the number and country code, then ask your administrator.

I answer but hear nothing, or the caller can't hear me

Usually the browser's microphone permission or the wrong input device. Check the site permissions in your browser, then your computer's input device.

Transfer does nothing

That is expected: Transfer does not move the call. Agree a call-back with the caller, or ask a colleague to call them.

Common questions

Can I take calls with the tab in the background?

Yes, as long as the tab you went online in stays open. The ringing card appears in every tab that is online, and one of them plays the ringtone. Closing any tab that is online sets you Offline — if you keep working in another tab, choose Available there again. Closing the tab you are talking in ends your side of the call. A computer that goes to sleep stops renewing your status, and after five minutes you are no longer offered calls.

What happens if I don't pick a disposition?

The call is still logged with its timings, number, agent and any linked record. Only the Outcome is empty. When the 45-second countdown ends you go back to Available whether or not you picked one. You can set the outcome later on the call record — use Edit for the full list of values. Pick one before hanging up where you can: hanging up saves whatever is selected, and that is what call reports group by.

Where do my calls go afterwards?

Every call — answered or not — is a record in the call register, reachable from Recent in the drawer or from Call Register in the CRM and Support apps. An unanswered call is Completed with no answer time. Declining the card does not remove the call. Insights you generated in AI assist are stored with the call and can be read later in the supervisor console. See Calls, dispositions and recordings.

Can I speak on a call the AI agent is making?

Yes. You join every AI call muted and hear both sides. Turn Bot talking off to speak: the AI agent goes silent first, then your microphone opens. Turn it back on to hand the conversation back. Only one voice speaks at a time. The Bot talking switch is only shown on calls placed with Call as an AI agent.

Does the Recent list show only my calls?

No. It shows the 15 most recent calls you have access to, which can include calls taken by colleagues. Calls today, Talk time and Avg handle are worked out from the same list, so read them as a quick indicator rather than your personal statistics. For per-agent figures, filter Agent in the call register or use the supervisor console.

Related topics

• Calls, dispositions and recordings
• Call insights
• Conversation transcripts
• Inbound routing
• Telephony configuration
• The supervisor console
• Troubleshooting telephony
• Call reference