Voice and calling

Smileline Voice is the practice's phone system, inside the CRM. Calls ring in the browser, land on the patient's timeline, and require no handset, PBX or carrier account of your own — though a number can also ring a physical desk phone directly if you want one.

Open Settings → Voice & calling for the practice's phone-system overview, to turn call recording on or off, to choose your hold music, and to see which devices are registered. Managers and owners can open the page; everyone with calling permission can enable calling on their own device.

What is included

Voice is a paid add-on:

• £199/month for GBP practices or $249/month for USD practices, including three concurrent lines and one phone number per line.
• £49/month or $69/month per additional line, up to 30 lines. Each line includes one number.
• £5/month or $7/month per extra number beyond the ones your lines include.
• Unlimited fair-use calls to domestic destinations — there is no per-minute charge and no call meter.
• The Power Dialer is built in: switch on Auto-call on Today and each saved outcome rings the next lead by itself. See Auto-call the next lead.

A "line" is one call in progress. Three lines means three people can be on the phone at the same time; a fourth simultaneous call goes to voicemail rather than being turned away.

After the subscription confirms Voice, Smileline activates calling and the included lines automatically. Billing refreshes also recover an interrupted activation; you do not need to buy the add-on again.

Enable Voice

Only the practice owner can change billing.

Lowering the line count takes effect on the subscription straight away — unless the practice holds more numbers than the lower count allows (each line includes one number, plus at most 15 billable extras), in which case the change is refused and the message says how many numbers to release first. Raising it makes the extra capacity available as soon as billing confirms the change, so add lines before the campaign day rather than during it.

The phone system card

On Settings → Voice & calling, the Phone system card is the overview:

• Phone numbers — how many numbers are active and which one is the outbound caller ID. Buy a number (or Manage numbers) opens Phone numbers. You need at least one active Voice line before anyone can dial or receive calls.
• Call routing — who rings, in what order, and what callers hear out of hours. Open call routing opens Call routing.

Calls are carried on a calling platform Smileline owns and operates — there is no provider account to open, no API key to paste and nothing to verify before ordering: the first number order or port-in checks the platform is reachable by itself. Only if that check fails does the card show an Error row naming what went wrong, with Retry; get in touch if it keeps failing.

Call recording

Record calls records answered calls for training and dispute resolution. It starts on for a practice that is new to Smileline Voice; switch it off here if you don't want calls recorded. Recordings are stored against the call and follow the practice's retention window. Smileline does not play a spoken recording notice. Recording relies on the consent your practice collects from patients — for example in its registration and enquiry forms or patient agreements.

Only owners and managers can play a recording or read a transcript. People who place calls — front desk and telesales — cannot. Voicemail is different: anyone who can take calls can play messages in Voicemail.

Hold music

A caller you put on hold, or who waits while you transfer the call, hears Smileline's default hold music. To play your own music instead, find Hold music on Settings → Voice & calling and choose an MP3 or WAV file of up to 5 MB. Play previews it, and Remove goes back to Smileline's music. A change applies the next time someone is put on hold. Hold music is available to UK and US practices.

Phone calls carry a narrow band of sound, so calm instrumental music works best. Use a file of at least 128 kbit/s; a low-quality file sounds worse again on the line.

Enable calling on a device

Enable calling on each device you want to receive calls on. In a browser or Smileline Desk, the enable button also allows call audio to play. The mobile app registers itself every time it opens, unless you turned calling off on it, and asks for microphone access.

From then on that device rings for inbound calls and can place calls. The Calling devices card on this page lists every registered device for the practice; a manager can revoke one — the next call simply will not ring there. A phone, browser or Desk a manager revoked stays on the card as Revoked with Restore. Restoring it lets that person turn calling on again from Calling on this device; the mobile app does it by itself the next time it opens.

On mobile, keep Smileline open to receive calls. Background call wake-up is not yet enabled; registering the device does not change that limitation.

You can also use the prompt at the bottom right of Today, Inbox, Journeys and a patient's record — the pages you call from; an incoming call and the call bar still appear on every page. Dismissing it with Not now only hides that prompt: the settings section stays available. Close Calling is off on this device with its × and that device remembers it until calling is turned on again; this section still shows it with Turn on. The same section shows your calling status. In the browser and Desk, it also lets you change do-not-disturb or turn calling off. On mobile, it lets you turn calling off on that phone, and a registration failure stays visible here with an enable button to try again. If microphone access was denied, use Open settings to allow it in your device settings.

Pressing Call on the keypad or a patient also registers the device if needed, then continues with the call once the connection is ready. You do not need to find a dismissed prompt first. In the browser and Desk, you can cancel the pending call from the Connecting… notification. A device disabled by a manager still needs the manager to restore it. Calling through your desk handset uses that handset's registration.

On mobile, signing out of the app turns calling off for your account on all your phones, because they share one registration. Any phone that is still signed in, and where you haven't turned calling off, turns it back on by itself: when the app next opens, within about half a minute while it is open, or at the latest when you press Call. If you chose Call from desk phone and that desk phone is no longer yours, the app goes back to calling from the phone.

Removing someone from the practice, or moving them to a role without calling permission, revokes their devices automatically.

One tab at a time

A browser registers each device once, however many Smileline tabs are open. The first tab to enable calling takes the calls; every other tab shows Calling is active in another tab with a Take over button. Taking over moves calling to that tab unless the other tab is ringing or on a call, in which case it says so and keeps the call. Closing the tab that has calling hands it to the next open one automatically. Close the notice with its × to hide it in that tab; Take over stays available under Settings → Account → Calling on this device.

While you are on a call

The call bar shows who you are speaking to and offers Mute, Hold, a Keypad for phone menus, Transfer and End call — hover a button to see what it does. A caller on hold hears music and cannot hear you. When card details are read out, the call recording pauses by itself and the call bar shows Card payment · recording paused with a countdown to when it resumes; see Call recording.

While something is wrong with the call — a weak connection, audio not getting through, or a headset unplugged — the dot on the call bar turns amber and a short warning shows beside the timer. Hover it for the full sentence and what to do.

When you call someone, the call bar appears the moment you click, with their name and Calling…. You hear a ringing tone while their phone rings and are connected the moment they answer. The timer starts then — Hold and Transfer appear too. If their voicemail picks up instead, Voicemail shows beside the timer a few seconds in. The call stays connected, so you can leave a message or hang up. With Call AI, the call log's Voicemail or Answered is checked against the whole conversation a minute or so after the call. A short tone plays when a call ends, on the speaker you chose for calls. While a call is being placed, every call button waits for it, so clicking twice never starts two calls.

The call bar floats at the bottom of every page. Click the caller's name to shrink it to a small badge with the caller and the call timer, and click it again to bring the controls back. An open keypad or transfer comes back with them. The keypad and the transfer list open one at a time; click Keypad or Transfer again to close it. Closing the transfer list while an Announce first transfer is ringing doesn't stop it — open Transfer again for Complete or Cancel.

A browser call lives in the Smileline page you took it on. Opening another page from the menu, reloading or closing the tab ends the call, so while you are on one your browser asks before leaving. Switching to another browser tab or app is fine — the call carries on. In Chrome, switching tabs also brings the call bar with you in the floating call window. Calls on a desk handset or in Smileline Desk are not affected.

Transfer lists every colleague who has calling set up, with their do-not-disturb state, and takes a typed number too. A colleague who is already on a call cannot be chosen — their device would not ring. Two ways to hand the call over:

• Announce first (the default) rings the colleague while the caller hears hold music, and connects you to the colleague as soon as they answer. Tell them who is calling, then click Complete to hand the caller over, or Cancel to take the caller back. If the colleague does not answer within the number's ring time, the caller comes back to you.
• Blind hands the caller to the colleague's own device — the one they used most recently — at once, and your call ends. The caller hears hold music until the colleague picks up; until then only a manager can step in on the call. If the colleague doesn't answer, your device rings again so you can take the caller back. If you don't answer either, the caller can leave a voicemail; if they leave no message, a task to call them back appears in Today.

Send to voicemail plays the other person your voicemail greeting and lets them leave a message — on calls you made as well as calls you took. The call still shows as answered in the call log.

When a call that was ringing you is answered by someone else, the screen pop closes with Taken by and their name, so you know it is being handled.

The calling pill's menu also holds Do not disturb (your devices stop ringing until you switch it back) and, on browsers that allow it, a Speaker picker for where call audio plays. If the pill covers something you need, drag it by the handle on its left to anywhere on the page: it stays where you leave it in that browser, and an incoming call shows up there too. Where a message box would put the pill over Send, it moves up above the box by itself and goes back once the box is gone.

The floating call window

In Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Firefox, your calls can sit in a small Smileline window that stays on top of every other window, so you can work in other tabs and apps without losing sight of them. The call audio still plays through the Smileline tab.

• During a call in Chrome, switching to another browser tab opens the window automatically. It shows who you are speaking to, the call timer, any warning about the call, and the same controls as the call bar — Mute, Hold, Keypad, Transfer and End call. The window closes when you return to the Smileline tab or the call ends. To stop it opening automatically, turn it off in Chrome's site settings for Smileline.
• Pop out calls opens the window whenever you choose, and it stays open until you close it. It is in the calling pill's menu, and on the incoming-call card while a call rings, so you can take that call in the window. Incoming calls ring in it, showing the caller's name or number and the Marketing line badge for calls to a tracking number, and Answer and Decline work as they do on the page. A call you take or make keeps its controls in the window. Between calls, the window shows your calling status.

While the window is open, rings and the call bar appear in it instead of on the page. When you close it, they come back to the page, and if you were using the keyboard in the window, you carry on from the same button. The window belongs to the page that opened it, so opening another page from the menu, reloading or closing that tab closes the window as well. To keep it open all day, leave the tab that takes your calls on one page and work in another tab.

Leaving the page would end a call in progress, so during a call a link or search result you open opens in a new tab, and the call carries on in the tab you took it in. Reloading or closing that tab asks you first. If the call controls ever stop working, the call stays connected: click Try again on the card that replaces them.

Turning calling off on a device

Open the menu on the calling pill and choose Turn off calling on this device. The device stops ringing at once, on every tab, and stays off until you turn it on again from the same pill. A device a manager revoked from the Calling devices card stays off until a manager restores it there — the pill explains which of the two applies.

In the mobile app, open Account → Calling on this device and tap Turn off calling on this device. The phone stops ringing at once and stays off, even after you close and reopen the app, until you tap Enable calling on this device or place a call. Signing out of the app resets it. Your phones share one registration, so your other phones stop too until each turns calling back on by itself, the same way as after a sign-out.

Desk handsets

A physical SIP desk phone can be one of a member's calling devices, ringing together with their browser, desktop app and mobile app — or on its own, for someone who never enables calling in the browser. It can also be shared: a phone that belongs to nobody, such as the one on the reception desk.

If a row shows Setting up with Setup didn't finish, the carrier did not confirm the phone. Check its Location, then click Retry — or revoke it and add it again.

A shared phone's name is unique in the practice while the phone exists: adding the same name again returns the same phone, and the name at a different location is refused. A shared phone gets the next free extension (from 100) — the same numbers members use — and a manager can change it on its row. Put it in a ring group like a person (Selected members lists shared phones too), or let A location's staff ring it: shared phones placed at that location are included. Revoking a shared phone removes it from every ring group and frees its name and extension. Removing a member, or changing their role, never affects a shared phone.

When a known patient calls, the phone displays their name beside the number. Once a call is answered on the desk phone, the app shows a small bar with Hold, Transfer and Hang up, so transfers are done from Smileline rather than with the phone's own Transfer button — except on a Yealink set up by link, whose own Transfer key works with Smileline (see Yealink). Any desk phone's own Hold key puts the caller on the practice's hold music, and Resume brings them back straight away. A hold started with the app's Hold is ended with the app's Resume, which also ends a hold made on the phone. If a transfer from the desk phone is cancelled or not answered, the caller comes back to you off hold. For a call on a shared phone, nobody owns the call, so every manager sees its bar — On Reception, for example — in the corner of the app and the Desk; at the phone itself, use the keypad codes below. On the phone itself, press * then a colleague's extension then # to transfer the caller to them, *0# to send them to voicemail, or ** extension # to speak to the colleague first — then # hands the caller over and * takes them back. If the colleague doesn't answer a * transfer, your desk phone rings again, just as with Blind in the app. Each person's extension is set on Settings → Team members → Manage; a shared phone's on its row here, so colleagues can transfer a caller to reception the same way. The Transfer menu in the app lists shared phones too. The caller hears the key tones briefly.

The desk phone dials out from its keypad as soon as its location has a number registered for emergency calling (the number's caller ID is what patients see). A manager can switch dialling out off, or change which location the phone sits at, on the card; a phone used away from the practice keeps the practice's registered address until its location is changed. Calls dialled on the keypad appear in the call log and on the patient's timeline as they happen but cannot be recorded, held or transferred by Smileline — to get a recorded, transferable call from the desk phone, press Call in Smileline and choose Call from my desk phone in the calling pill's menu (or the switch on the mobile keypad): the phone rings, you lift it, and the patient is dialled (this option is for your own desk phone only, never a shared one). Keypad minutes count towards fair use like every other call.

The card distinguishes a missing location or emergency registration from a failed carrier sync. If the carrier has not confirmed dial-out setup, it shows that status and the latest rejection reason. Smileline retries the saved setup automatically. Receiving calls also requires the phone to be registered, as shown by its separate registration status.

An emergency registration can fail for an account setup issue as well as an address problem. Phone numbers shows the carrier's latest explanation next to the affected number. For example, carrier emergency-service terms must be accepted by Smileline's carrier-account owner; changing the practice address does not resolve that refusal. Once the reported issue is resolved, choose Register address to retry the saved registration.

Your call log

Settings → Phone → Call log lists every call in and out of the practice with its recording and transcript, exactly as the Desk app's Calls view does. The list updates about a second after a call rings, is answered or ends, and keeps the older calls you loaded with Load older. The search box looks up a number or name once you pause typing. The All, Incoming, Outgoing and Missed tabs and the Date, Handled by, Result, Outcome and Recorded filters work as in the Desk app's call log. A call with a patient shows where their journey stands now (such as Call back later · Thu 15 Oct), and its person icon opens their patient record. An opened call shows the call — Call AI's read, the recording and its transcript — beside the lead: the journey's outcome, their lead card, where Open lead opens their record, and the brief for the next call. An ended call opens with How the call went: the menu choice, who it rang, who answered and on which device, holds, transfers, forwards, voicemail and who hung up. Each call says who handled it — the member, or the shared desk phone ("Handled by Reception") that answered or dialled it. Patient records, the inbox and the pipeline show a call button beside every phone number; it dials from the device you are on, and hides while that device is already on a call.

Next steps