Once you've identified the specific needs for telephony in your organization, you'll usually consider multiple telephony providers based on factors like features, compatibility with Zoho Recruit, pricing, support, and so on.

In Zoho Recruit, you have the option of using the built-in telephony system to meet your needs.This will allow you to manage subscriptions, payments, and recordings without any third-party dependencies.

• To learn more about telephony in general, see Telephony - an Introduction

• To view the other telephony providers, see PBX/Contact Centres supported in Zoho. (Make sure to choose Zoho Recruit in the Filter by services dropdown) 

Setting up built-in telephony    

Built-in telephony in Zoho Recruit is powered by Twilio's telecommunication infrastructure.  

Setting up built-in telephony consists of the following steps:

1. Buying a number

2. Adding telephony users and configuring outbound calling

3. Setting up incoming call routing

 Step 1: Buying a number     

The admin must first purchase a number to get started.

To do this, the admin will have to enter details like country, region, and number type (Local, mobile, or toll-free). These details will determine the cost of buying a number.

To get an idea of the pricing of phone numbers, see Built-in Telephony Voice Pricing.

  To buy a number   

1. Go to Setup > Telephony.

2. In the How would you like to Proceed? page, click Set Up Now.
   

3. In the Getting started page, click Buy a number.

4. In the Buy a number pop-up:

1. Choose the Country.

2. Select the Number Type as Local, Mobile, or Toll Free from the dropdown list. Please note that all options may not be available for the country you've chosen.

3. Depending on the number type, you may have to select a Region or fill in an Address.

4. Choose a number from the Available Phone Numbers dropdown and click Next.
   

5. Verify the purchase summary and click Buy.

6. In the Confirm Your Purchase pop-up, click Buy Phone Number.
   

Note:

1. Each organization can buy and maintain multiple phone numbers. The purchase and maintenance of each number will be charged monthly.

2. Each built-in telephony transaction (purchase of number, making a call, or upgrading recording storage) will be charged in credits.

3. The value of 1 credit is 1 USD. The price for purchasing credits will be converted into your local currency. Click here to learn more about pricing.

4. To get started with built-in telephony, admins will have to buy credits. Credits will then be deducted from the organization's built-in telephony wallet for each activity.

5. The number of available credits will be displayed on the home page, where the admins can manage the transactions.

 Step 2: Adding telephony users  and configuring outbound calling

Once you've purchased a number along with the credits to use it, you'll see the Built-In Telephony home page.

Here, you can see tabs like:

1. Telephony Plan Details: This is where you manage credits and storage. You can purchase additional credits, set up auto-recharge, and manage your storage plan (for your call recordings). You can also view the history of your credit purchases, see credit usage analytics, and view recording storage usage.

2. Phone Numbers: This tab holds the list of all your purchased numbers. You can add and delete phone numbers and associate them to call flows from here.

3. Call Flows: A call flow is the process through which an incoming call is handled. The Call Flows tab will list all such flows configured for your organization. You can create, modify, and delete call flows from here.

4. Telephony Users: All the Recruit users who need to use the Telephony service need to be managed here. You can add and remove telephony users here. You'll also be able to filter them by Telephony Groups.

5. Telephony Groups: You can group your telephony users into groups to make it easier to route incoming calls to the right person. This is the tab where you manage such groups.

6. Calls History: All the incoming, outgoing, and missed calls will be listed here. You can download this list as a csv file.

For now, let's add users who can receive and make calls using the number you've just purchased. This step lets you determine who can make outgoing calls using which number. There is no limit to the number of users who can be associated with a phone number.

Note: If you do not want to display the phone number during an outgoing call, you can mask the number using a custom caller ID so that if the prospect or customer calls you back, they will be redirected to the dedicated support number.  

 To add a telephony user 

1. In the Built-In Telephony home page, click the Telephony Users tab.

2. Click Add User.
   

3. In the Create Telephony User popup, select the User.

4. If you want to add this user to a Telephony Group, you can select the group from the dropdown list.

5. If you want the user to be able to make outbound calls, select the Allow to make outgoing calls checkbox.

6. If you want to record calls made by this user, select the Record outgoing calls made by this user checkbox.

7. Select the Outgoing caller IDs that must be available for this user.

8. If you want to allow the user to add custom caller IDs, select the Allow to add custom outgoing caller IDs checkbox.
   

 Step 3: Setting up incoming call routing   

Call flows allow you to configure the routing of incoming calls to its associated phone numbers. To learn more about call flows, see <Manage Call Flows>.

 To create a call flow 

1. In the Built-In Telephony home page, click the Calls Flows tab.

2. Click Create Call Flow.
   

3. In the Create Call Flow popup, enter the Name for the flow and add a Description.

4. Select the Associated Phone Numbers from the dropdown list. Incoming calls to these numbers will follow the process you set up for this flow.
   

5. Click Next.

6. In the Call Flow builder, drag and drop the required states from the left pane. You'll have to configure each of these states. To learn more about these states, see <Manage Call Flows>.

7. Add and delete connections between states as required.

8. Click Publish.

The flow is now enabled for the associated numbers.

Note:

• If a number is not associated with a call flow, incoming calls will be rejected for that number.

• You can save the flow as a draft by clicking the Save as Draft button.

• If you've already published a flow, you can compare the draft with the published version by selecting their respective tabs in the Call Flow builder.

• To deactivate the flow, toggle the Status in the Calls Flow tab.