Call routing

See where each number's calls go, tracking numbers included, decide who rings when a number is called, what happens outside opening hours, and how a keypad menu sends callers to the right team.

Open Settings → Call routing to see and say what happens when someone dials one of the practice's numbers: its Smileline Voice numbers and its call tracking numbers alike. It needs the owner or manager role, and is for UK and US practices. Without Smileline Voice the page lists only the tracking numbers, with the options that work without it — see Without Smileline Voice.

Each number is configured on its own, so a general line and a whitening-campaign number can behave completely differently. The numbers in a tracking pool share one routing.

See where calls go

Each number's card opens with a chart of what happens when someone rings it, including a number with no routing saved yet. The chart shows the saved routing: a change appears once you click Save routing.

The chart reads left to right, starting with the incoming call. The first box shows the number's hours and caller rules and, when hours apply, Open now or Closed now.
The route that applies now is drawn in colour. The other route is dashed and faded.
The chart and its list show when the picture was worked out, such as Routing at 17:20, so a page left open never passes off an old answer as current. Reload the page to bring it up to date.
Each ring step lists the people it rings, one row per person, with a small icon for each of their phones: browser, desktop app, mobile app, Chrome extension or desk phone. The icon's colour is the phone's status — green ready, blue rings while its app is open, amber not ready yet, red can't ring — and the line under the chart names the icons and their colours. Hover an icon to see its status. A long list of people scrolls inside its box.
A wide chart scrolls sideways rather than shrinking its text. Use the zoom buttons (or pinch, on a phone) to zoom, and drag to move around the chart.
Show as a list, under the chart, gives the same information as text, with each person's phones and their status in words (see the table below). It is the easiest way to read a large chart on a small screen, or with a screen reader.

A number on a desk phone line shows the phone it rings directly. While Voice is switched off, each Voice number shows a single box instead: callers hear the line-changed notice. Tracking numbers keep their chart, without the steps that need Voice (see Tracking numbers).

Who can ring

Each ring step says Up to N can ring: the most people it can reach. It is an upper limit because two things are only known during a call: whether an app is open right now, and who is already on a call. People already on a call are skipped. Nobody can ring — moves on means no phone on that step can ring, so callers go straight to the next step; the list links to Manage phones to fix it.

If nobody at a number's site can ring yet, the chart still lists the site's people with what is missing for each of them, and shows the call ringing everyone straight away.

Desk phones are checked live with the carrier each time the page opens. Every other status comes from the phone's settings.

Status	What it means	What to do
Ready	A desk phone that is registered and will ring.	Nothing.
Not registered	A desk phone that isn't connected, so it won't ring.	Check the phone is powered on and online, and that its setup details are right. See Desk phones.
Status unknown	The carrier didn't confirm the desk phone's state.	Reload the page. If it stays, check the phone's row on Settings → Voice & calling.
Rings when the app is open	A browser, Smileline Desk or the mobile app. It rings only while Smileline is open on it, which the page can't see.	Keep Smileline open on that device during opening hours.
Do not disturb	Do not disturb is on for that device.	The person switches it off from the calling pill's menu, or from the tray menu in Smileline Desk.
App not opened in 3 days	The mobile app hasn't been opened on that phone for 3 days, so it isn't rung.	Open Smileline on the phone.
Setting up	The phone hasn't finished setting up, or the mobile app has never signed in on it.	Finish setup on Settings → Voice & calling (a desk phone showing Setup didn't finish has Retry), or sign in to the app.
No phone set up	Someone who works at the location but has no calling device yet.	They enable calling on a device, or you add a desk handset for them.

A later step can include phones that an earlier step of the same call already tried. The chart counts them as +N phones from above: a phone that was already tried isn't rung a second time on the same call, while one that couldn't ring earlier (on a call, or the app was closed) still gets a chance, so those phones stay listed and counted in the later step too.

Two things show in red:

A deleted ring group. A step still pointing at a group that has since been deleted rings nobody, and the call moves on. Open the number's routing and pick another group; saving asks for one.
The AI receptionist is off. An AI agent step shows in red when the AI can't take calls at all: the add-on is off, the agent hasn't been set up, or Agent live is switched off. Every call then takes If the AI can't take it.

Ring groups

A ring group is the set of people a call rings. Build them once in the Ring groups card at the top of the page, then point numbers at them; Edit and Delete sit beside each group. Ring groups need Smileline Voice.

Click New ring group and pick how to start:

Patient menu (recommended) — the menu most practices want: callers press 1 if they're a new patient and 2 if they're an existing one, and you pick who answers each. See Set up a patient menu.
Single group — one set of people, or a location's staff, for any routing step.

To build a single group:

Click New ring group, then Single group, and give it a name — Front desk, for example.

Under Who rings, choose Selected members and pick people (shared desk phones, such as the reception phone, are listed with them), or A location's staff and pick the Location. A location's staff are the members assigned to that site on Settings → Team members who have calling enabled, plus the shared desk phones placed at that location.

Click Save group.

A location's staff is worth preferring for a site's main line: someone who joins the practice later starts ringing as soon as they are given that location on the Team page and enable calling — the group itself never changes. The Ring groups card lists such a group as Staff at the location. A member can work at several locations and then rings for each of them; a member with no location belongs to no location's staff, so reach them through Selected members. See Give each member a location.

A group can't be deleted while it is still in use: anywhere in a number's or tracking pool's routing (While open, While closed, If nobody answers, a keypad menu digit, If nothing is pressed, If the AI can't take it or Known patients with an open enquiry), or as the AI voice agent's Transfer to a human while that is on. The message names each number, pool and the AI voice agent still using it; pick another group there first. A number you have released or ported away doesn't count. In the same way, a location that a location's-staff group still rings cannot be archived: repoint or delete the group first.

A device rings only while it is registered and not on do-not-disturb, and a member who is already on a call is left out of the ring altogether. A device that has gone quiet — its browser tab closed, the desk app shut down — may still be dialled for a moment before the platform learns it is gone; the call simply waits for the rest of the group. A group whose members have all closed the CRM is treated as nobody answering, so the call moves on to voicemail rather than ringing into silence.

Click New ring group, then Patient menu.

Greeting and numbers — check the Menu prompt (spoken). It is filled in for you — “Thank you for calling” with your practice's name, then “If you're a new patient, press 1. If you're an existing patient, press 2.” — and you can change it (up to 500 characters). Under Numbers that play the menu, tick each number that should play it; tracking pools and static tracking numbers are listed too. Each number shows the route the menu replaces and what happens outside opening hours. When the practice has only one number, it is ticked already. Click Continue.

New patients (press 1) — pick who answers callers who press 1 (at least one): members, and shared desk phones such as the reception phone. Pressing 1 opens a lead for the caller, even if nobody answers. Click Continue.

Existing patients (press 2) — pick who answers callers who press 2.

Click Save patient menu.

Saving creates two ring groups, New patients and Existing patients, and makes each ticked number's While open a keypad menu: press 1 rings New patients and is the New-patient line, press 2 rings Existing patients. While closed stays as it was. A number with no routing saved yet gets routing that plays the menu at all hours.

If a ticked number's menu already rings one group on 1 and another on 2, the patient menu updates those two groups instead of creating new ones. The numbers step names them along with every other route that rings them, known patients' shortcuts included, and the next two steps start with each group's current people, so the people you pick replace who is in them. If the menu can't be saved on some numbers, the message names them; click Save patient menu again to finish. It sends only those numbers and reuses the groups it has already made.

Afterwards each number's card shows the menu, and you change its prompt, options or If nothing is pressed there like any keypad menu.

Opening hours

For each number, set Opening hours to:

A location's hours — follow a site's opening hours, so changing them in one place changes the phone too. Pick the site under Location.
Always open — the number behaves the same at 3am as at 3pm.
Custom hours — hours that belong to this number only, edited on the same card. Custom hours need a timezone: pick one on the card (it starts as your practice's timezone) or choose a location, whose timezone is used instead. Saving custom hours without either is refused, because hours with no zone would count as closed around the clock.

When a number follows a location's hours, the card shows that location's weekly hours next to it, so what the phone will do is never a guess. A location whose hours have not been set yet cannot be followed — saving is refused with a pointer to the Locations page — because empty hours would count as closed around the clock.

Closed today

A number that follows a location's hours also follows that location's closures. Click Closed today on the card to close the location for the rest of the day: calls take the while closed action, the online booking page offers no slots there, and the AI receptionist tells callers the practice is closed. Reopen today undoes it. Longer closures — a bank holiday week, a training day next month — and the text callers hear on those days are set through the API (POST /voice/routing/closures, with an optional spokenText); the card shows a closure that covers today and when it ends.

What callers hear while the call connects

When Smileline answers a call that rings a group, forwards to a phone or goes to the AI agent, the caller hears a ringing tone instead of silence — the UK double ring for a UK practice, the US ring for a US one. It carries on until someone picks up, the AI starts speaking, or the call moves on to voicemail or an announcement. A keypad menu is read without it; the ringing starts once the caller presses a digit that rings a group or forwards the call. The ringing stops the instant someone answers and the caller is connected straight away; it is never on a recording.

The supplied UK ringback WAV recording is "UK ringback tone" by Lcmortensen, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 and converted for telephone playback.

Smileline does not read callers a recording notice. When Record calls is on, recording relies on the consent your practice collects — see Call recording.

What callers hear at a dead end

Every route that ends in voicemail speaks a short notice before the tone, and the notice names the real reason:

Closed — the “while closed” action is voicemail: a closure's own spoken text if today is a closure with one, else your after-hours greeting if you set one, else the voicemail greeting, else “The practice is closed right now.”
Nobody could answer during opening hours (no one online, no answer, everyone declined, an empty ring group, a menu with no valid choice): your voicemail greeting, else “Nobody is able to take your call at the moment.”
All lines in use — more callers than your line limit: the built-in “All of our lines are busy at the moment” notice.
A number still being ported in with no routing yet: a plain “Thank you for calling” and the tone. Callers are never told the line has changed.

A custom greeting that does not already ask the caller to leave a message gets “Please leave a message after the tone” appended automatically. Every notice is read in a voice matched to the practice's country — British for a UK practice, American for a US one.

A tracking number without Smileline Voice has no voicemail: its dead ends say “Sorry, we couldn't connect your call. Please try again in a few minutes.” and hang up. See Without Smileline Voice.

What happens while open, and while closed

While open and While closed each take one of six actions. Ring a group and Voicemail need Smileline Voice:

Ring a group — ring the chosen group. Use Ring timeout (seconds) (10–60, 25 unless you change it) to say how long before the call gives up. If nobody answers picks what happens then: voicemail (the default), another group, a forward to a phone, or an announcement — one extra step, never a chain.
AI agent — the practice's AI receptionist answers in natural conversation.
Keypad menu — read a short prompt and let the caller press a digit.
Forward to a phone — send the call to a phone outside Smileline (see Forward to the on-call dentist).
Announcement, then hang up — read the caller a message and end the call, with no voicemail: “We are closed today. For emergencies, call 111.” The call is still logged as missed, so a missed-call text-back still goes out if you have one configured.
Voicemail — go straight to voicemail with the greeting below.

A typical setup is Ring a group while open and Voicemail while closed — or, with the AI voice agent (included with Smileline Voice, or sold on its own), AI agent while closed so after-hours callers are answered instead of leaving a message. Without it the AI agent option is shown but can't be selected; a number already routed to it keeps that setting and takes its fallback until the agent is on again.

Keypad menus

Choose Keypad menu to read callers a prompt and route on the digit they press.

Under While open or While closed, choose Keypad menu.

Type the Menu prompt (spoken) — for example, "Press 1 for appointments, 2 for accounts."

Set what each Press option does: ring a group, forward to a phone, play an announcement, or go to voicemail. Add option adds the next free digit, and Remove takes one away.

Choose If nothing is pressed.

Click Save routing.

A menu can have up to ten options, and each goes straight to its action — menus do not lead to further menus. Only the digits on the menu are accepted. A caller who presses nothing, or a key that isn't on the menu, hears the prompt again; after three tries the call takes If nothing is pressed: voicemail unless you pick a group, a forward or an announcement. A menu that can't be played at all takes the same route. The chart draws it as No choice after 3 tries.

New-patient line

Turn on New-patient line for a menu option to make it your lead line: a caller who presses that digit becomes a lead in Smileline — a patient record and an open journey — whatever happens next on the call, whether the team answers, the call rings out or the caller leaves a voicemail. If the caller is already a patient with an open journey, the call attaches to that journey instead of creating a second one.

The lead opens on the AI voice agent's default treatment (Settings → AI voice agent → Tools) when one is set, and otherwise on General enquiry, which Smileline adds to your treatments the first time it is needed; move the journey to the right treatment once you know it. On a tracking number the lead opens on the pool's or static number's treatment. A missed call on a new-patient line also gets any missed-call followup you have configured. A caller who withholds their number cannot become a lead; the call appears in Review instead so a person can listen and follow up.

A tracking number turns this around: every caller is a lead unless they pick an option that is not a New-patient line. See Keypad menu with New-patient line.

AI receptionist answering

Choose AI agent to have the practice's AI voice agent answer the call — while open, while closed, or both. Under If the AI can't take it, pick where the call goes instead — a ring group, a forward to a phone, an announcement or voicemail (without Smileline Voice: a forward or an announcement). That fallback is used whenever the AI is unavailable: its daily minutes budget is spent, all its concurrent calls are busy, or the add-on has lapsed. On a tracking number with Smileline Voice the AI also needs one of your Voice lines to be free; without Voice it needs none — see Use the AI with your own phone system.

The agent itself — persona, greetings, what it may do on a call — is configured on AI receptionist.

Forward to the on-call dentist

Choose Forward to a phone — while closed, as a menu digit, or under If nobody answers — to send the call to a mobile or landline outside Smileline, in your practice's country. Type the number as you would dial it (07700 900123 is fine). Under That phone sees, choose whether the forwarded phone shows the caller's own number or this practice number — on a tracking number, the tracking number that was dialled.

The call rings that phone for the number's Ring timeout; if nobody answers, the call goes to voicemail (on a tracking number without Smileline Voice, to the couldn't-connect message). Unlike the backup number below, a forwarded call stays inside Smileline: it is logged, recorded like any other answered call, and counts towards missed-call follow-ups.

If a voicemail picks up instead of a person — that phone is switched off, out of signal or turned the call away — Smileline recognises the greeting within a few seconds, hangs up on it and carries on as if nobody had answered: the caller goes to your practice's voicemail, so their message lands in Smileline and the call counts as missed. The caller may hear the start of that greeting first. A person who answers is connected straight away; when calls are recorded, the recording starts once Smileline has heard it's a person, a few seconds in. The forward to a location's phone that a tracking number uses before its routing is saved isn't checked this way: that phone system's own menu and voicemail belong to the practice.

A forward can't point at any Smileline number, your own Voice and tracking numbers included — that would send the call straight back into routing. Saving refuses it, and a call is never dialled into one. Route that number instead, or ring its team's group directly.

Caller rules

Each number's card carries Caller rules, applied before the open or closed action. They need Smileline Voice, and they apply to tracking numbers too — a blocked caller to a tracking number is not made a lead:

Blocked numbers — callers on this list get a busy tone and never ring anyone. The call is still written to the call log, so a mistake is visible.
Withheld numbers go straight to voicemail — a caller who hides their number skips the ring and the menu.
Known patients with an open enquiry — a caller Smileline recognises as a patient with an open journey skips the keypad menu and takes the route you pick here (a group, voicemail, a forward or an announcement) instead of pressing digits. Leave it at Take the normal route to keep the menu for everyone.

Voicemail greeting

Voicemail greeting is what callers hear before the beep. Leave it empty and Smileline reads a neutral message instead. Recorded messages appear in Voicemail.

Recorded greeting replaces the spoken text with your own recording. After you have saved the number's routing, upload an MP3 or WAV (up to 5 MiB) under Recorded greeting on the same card; callers then hear that recording instead of the typed greeting, so make sure it ends by asking them to leave a message. Play lets you check it and Remove goes back to the text. The after-hours greeting, when you set one, is still spoken as text.

When routing is incomplete

Routing always fails towards voicemail (on a tracking number without Smileline Voice, towards the couldn't-connect message), never towards a dropped call. Each number's chart draws which of these applies to it and who at its site can ring (see See where calls go):

A tracking number with no routing configured follows its location — see Tracking numbers.
A Voice number with no routing configured rings the staff at the site where its phones are (set on the Phone numbers page) first. If nobody there answers — their phone isn't connected, is on do not disturb, declines, or rings out — it then rings everyone with calling enabled, and only then goes to voicemail. A number with no site yet rings everyone straight away. Its card names the site, and Configure opens the form ringing that site's A location's staff group if you have one, otherwise your first ring group (voicemail when you have none); nothing changes until you click Save routing.
Hours that cannot be read as valid hours are treated as closed.
A half-finished action falls back to voicemail.

So a mistake here makes callers leave a message. It never makes the phone ring out to nothing.

Backup number

Each Voice number's card carries a Backup number — a mobile or landline you control, outside Smileline, in your practice's country, typed as you would dial it. If Smileline can't take a call to the number, the caller is forwarded there instead of letting the line ring out.

A forwarded call bypasses everything on this page: no ring groups, menus, voicemail, recording, AI receptionist — and it won't appear in call history. It is a safety net for outages, not a routing feature.

Each forwarded call is written to Review queue within the hour, so you know a rescue happened and can see who was forwarded where.

Tracking numbers have no Backup number field: their calls are rescued to their location's phone (the pool's location, for a pool's numbers) in the same way. See What each role means.

Numbers on a desk phone

A number moved to a physical desk phone doesn't route through Smileline at all — its card here swaps to the desk-phone panel, and the routing settings on this page no longer apply to it. A desk phone that is one of a member's calling devices is different: it rings in that member's ring groups like any other device, with the caller's name on its display. A shared desk phone rings in the groups it is picked for, and in its location's staff.

Tracking numbers

Your call tracking numbers are routed here like any other number, under Tracking numbers after the practice's own numbers. Each website pool has one card: its numbers take turns on your website, so they share one routing. Each static tracking number has its own card. A card lists its numbers (one marked Changed-line notice is parked, and its callers hear that the line has changed), then its chart, then Configure, which opens the same routing form a Voice number has; nothing changes until you click Save routing. On Settings → Call tracking, a pool's Set where its calls go link opens its card here, as does the Call routing link in a number's Change role dialog.

Every tracked call Smileline accepts is answered and recorded straight away, whatever its routing does next. It becomes a lead unless the caller picks a keypad option that is not a New-patient line.

Until a tracking number's routing is saved, its calls follow its location (the pool's location, for a pool's numbers):

With Smileline Voice, as for a Voice number with no routing: the location's staff ring first, then everyone with calling enabled, then voicemail.
Without it, or while Voice is switched off, calls are forwarded to the location's phone, which sees the tracking number that was dialled. If nobody answers, or the location has no phone, the caller hears “Sorry, we couldn't connect your call” and the call ends.

Configure starts close to that route: with Voice, ringing the location's A location's staff group if you have one (otherwise your first ring group, or voicemail if you have none); without it, forwarding to the location's phone, showing the tracking number. A few things work differently from a Voice number:

With Smileline Voice, a tracking call rings your team, or reaches the AI receptionist, only while one of your Voice lines is free. When every line is busy it moves on as if nobody had answered. Without Voice the AI receptionist answers without a line.
Ring timeout (seconds) is 10 to 60, 25 unless you change it, and also sets how long a forward rings.
A pool's voicemail and after-hours greetings are spoken as text; a recorded greeting can be uploaded for a static number.
A forward never reaches one of your own Smileline numbers. To send tracking calls to the team behind a Voice number, ring that team's group.

Without Smileline Voice

Call tracking doesn't need the Smileline Voice add-on, so a practice without it routes its tracking numbers here too, with what works without Voice lines. To forward a pool's calls to one number, you can also set it in the pool's own dialog on Settings → Call tracking — see Set up a pool.

Opening hours, including Closed today, and Ring timeout (seconds).
Forward to a phone and Announcement, then hang up.
Keypad menu, whose options forward or play an announcement, with a New-patient line and If nothing is pressed. Choosing it starts with “If you're a new patient, press 1. If you're an existing patient, press 2.”: both options forward to the location's phone, and press 1 is the New-patient line.
AI agent, with the AI voice agent add-on — see Use the AI with your own phone system. Its If the AI can't take it starts as an announcement; a caller who asks for a person leaves a message for the team instead.

Ring groups and the patient menu, Ring a group, Voicemail, the greetings and Caller rules need Smileline Voice. A ring or voicemail choice saved while the practice had Voice still shows, greyed out, so you can change it; saving routing that still uses one is refused. Caller rules saved while the practice had Voice stay on the card so you can clear them; Withheld numbers go straight to voicemail shows only while it is on.

With no voicemail, every dead end — a forward nobody answers, or a menu whose If nothing is pressed is left at Say we couldn't connect, then hang up — plays “Sorry, we couldn't connect your call. Please try again in a few minutes.” and hangs up. The call is still logged, and still becomes a lead to ring back. Tracking numbers keep answering while Voice is switched off: their routing skips the steps that need Voice, and voicemail becomes that message.