The Switchboard is the operator's and supervisor's view of your phone system. It shows every live call and every extension's status as it changes, with one-click controls to transfer, park, pick up, record and supervise calls. Open Contact center → Switchboard in the sidebar.
Who can use the switchboard
- Owners and admins always have full access.
- Members need to be in a switchboard access group. Without one they see "You do not have access to the switchboard."
Set up access groups
In Admin → Settings → Settings, switch to Advanced and open Settings & Compliance → Switchboard access. Create a group, add people, and choose what it allows. Start from a preset:
| Preset | Includes |
|---|---|
| Viewer | View switchboard and the queue dashboard |
| Agent | View, click-to-call, blind transfer, park and retrieve, pick up, and set presence / DND |
| Queue lead | Everything in Agent, plus the queue dashboard, pausing agents, and adding and removing agents |
| Supervisor | Everything, including listening in, whispering, barging, recording and hanging up calls |
Or pick individual capabilities:
| Capability | Allows |
|---|---|
| View switchboard | Seeing the switchboard. Every other capability includes it. |
| Click-to-call | Calling from the switchboard |
| Hang up | Ending a live call |
| Blind transfer | Transferring calls |
| Park / retrieve | Parking calls and picking them back up |
| Pick up (grab ringing) | Answering a colleague's ringing call |
| Listen in (spy) ⚠ | Listening silently to a call |
| Whisper (coach) ⚠ | Speaking to the agent only |
| Barge (join) ⚠ | Joining a call so everyone hears you |
| Live recording ⚠ | Starting, stopping, pausing and resuming recording |
| Queue dashboard | Seeing queues and waiting callers |
| Pause agents | Pausing and resuming queue agents |
| Add / remove agents | Changing who's in a queue for now |
| Set presence / DND | Turning Do not disturb on or off for an extension |
| Supervisor (all) | Everything |
⚠ marks capabilities that affect the privacy of calls. Grant them only to people whose role needs them. A person in several groups gets everything those groups allow.
The screen
At the top:
- Live, when statuses are updating in real time, or "Directory only — live status unavailable".
- Your extension, the one the switchboard uses to place and pick up calls. If you don't have one you'll see "Assign yourself an extension to place calls from the panel."
- Refresh.
The switchboard updates as calls start and end, so there's no need to refresh.
Active calls
Each live call shows Ringing or Talking, how long it's been going, and who's connected (extension ↔ other party). Depending on your access, each call has:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Record / Stop | Starts or stops recording, if your recording policy allows it |
| Pause / Resume | Pauses a recording, if pausing is allowed |
| Park | Puts the caller on hold in the parking area |
| Transfer | Sends the caller to another internal number |
| Hang up | Ends the call |
Transfer a call
- Select Transfer on the call.
- In Transfer to ext…, type an internal number: an extension, ring group, auto attendant, queue or voicemail box.
- Select Go. You'll see "Transferred call to …".
The caller is moved straight to the new destination. The switchboard transfers calls to internal numbers of 2 to 6 digits ("Enter an internal number (2–6 digits) to transfer to.").
Park a call
Select Park to put a caller on hold without tying up anyone's phone. You'll see "Call parked."
- Parked calls are listed under Parked (N) as On hold, with how long they've been waiting.
- The caller hears your hold music until someone picks up or they hang up.
- To take the call, select Pick up on it. Your phone rings: "Ringing your phone to pick up the parked call…". Answer it to connect to the caller.
Page someone to a parked call
Park the call, then use a paging group to announce who the caller is waiting for. Anyone with Park / retrieve access can pick it up from the switchboard.
Record and pause
Select Record to start recording a call, and Stop to end it. While recording, Pause and Resume let you keep sensitive information, such as card numbers, out of the recording. The call shows REC or PAUSED. Every start, stop, pause and resume is written to the recording audit trail. See Call recording.
Extensions
Every extension is shown with its status: Available, Ringing, On a call, Do not disturb, Offline or Unknown.
| Button | When | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Call | Any time | Calls that extension. Your phone rings first, then the call connects. |
| Pick up | The extension is Ringing | Answers the ringing call on your phone |
| DND / Un-DND | Any time | Turns their Do not disturb on or off |
| Listen | They're On a call | You hear the call. Nobody hears you. |
| Whisper | They're On a call | Only the agent hears you, so you can coach them |
| Barge | They're On a call | You join the call, and everyone hears you |
For Pick up, Listen, Whisper and Barge, your own phone rings first. Answer it to connect.
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| "Extension … is not ringing right now." | The call was answered or ended before you picked up. |
| "You need an extension with a registered phone to pick up calls." | Open your browser phone, or ask an admin to assign you an extension. |
Supervising calls
Listening, whispering and barging may require notice to the people on the call in some places. Follow your organization's policy and the rules that apply to your calls.
Queues
With queue access, the Queues section shows each call queue:
- the queue number, name and strategy,
- N waiting, with each caller's position and wait time,
- each agent's status, marked paused if paused, with how many calls they've taken.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pause / Resume | Stops or restarts queue calls to an agent, for example during a break |
| Remove | Takes an agent out of the queue |
| + Add an agent… → Add | Adds an extension to the queue |
Adding and removing agents here is temporary. The queue can go back to its saved agent list, for example when routing is next applied. To change a queue's agents permanently, edit the queue in Call queues.
If a button doesn't work
If an action shows a message that it "is not configured on this deployment", contact intSignal to turn on switchboard call control for your workspace.