Transfer Destinations
Internal (careCycle softphone) and external transfer options, routing modes, and fallback behavior.
Transfer destinations define where a live call goes and what happens if nobody can take it. Create and manage them from Configure > Transfer Destinations.
For a Voice AI campaign, a destination is where an AI employee can hand a caller to a person. For an agent-first campaign, the attached softphone destination is also the campaign's authoritative agent pool for outbound dialing, inbound calls, callbacks, screen behavior, and inbound fallback.
Transfer destinations are shared building blocks. A destination can be used by the Receptionist, Voice AI campaigns, and multiple agent-first campaigns. careCycle shows those references before editing. Changing the destination changes every flow that uses it.
A softphone destination routes calls to careCycle agents. It owns one routing configuration plus handoff, screen, disposition, and fallback settings.
Eligibility and Priority Overrides
Only active agents who are online, Available, on the air for the campaign, and eligible under any state-licensing filter enter the route. Attributed inbound and outbound calls also apply campaign source restrictions. If state-based routing finds no licensed agent, the configuration can either use all otherwise eligible agents or go directly to fallback.
Optional priority overrides run before the base strategy:
- Prioritize the agent the customer last spoke to puts the most recent softphone agent first when that agent is eligible.
- Prioritize customer's assigned agent puts the agent assigned on the customer record first when that agent is eligible.
If both apply, their configured priority decides which is tried first. Neither override bypasses availability, source, campaign air-status, or state-licensing checks.
Sequential Routing Strategies
The selected strategy creates one ordered list. careCycle rings agents one at a time from that list, never all at once.
| Strategy | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Linear | Uses configured agent priority from highest to lowest. |
| Balanced | Starts with the eligible agent whose last routed call is oldest, then continues in that order. |
| Weighted | Builds a weighted random order. Larger weights make an agent more likely to appear earlier. |
| Grouped | Tries active groups by group priority. Each group uses its own Linear, Balanced, or Weighted order. |
In Grouped routing, finishing one group's ordered agents moves the call to the next group. Balanced is round-robin distribution over time, not a simultaneous ring.
Call Timing and Auto Answer
- Ring duration per agent must be a whole number from 5 through 30 seconds.
- Max wait time must be a whole number from 10 through 120 seconds.
Max wait covers the complete sequence, so it can expire before every agent is tried. When no eligible agent exists, fallback starts immediately.
Auto Answer joins the call as soon as it reaches an Available agent who has enabled Auto Answer, or when the organization enforces it. The agent does not need to click Answer or Claim, and routing timers do not delay that auto-answered call.
Handoff and Agent Screen
Softphone destinations support two AI-to-agent handoff strategies:
- Immediate transfer connects the caller when the accepting agent joins.
- Wait for operator lets the agent review the summary and select Ready before the caller is connected.
The summary appears in the agent transcript for either strategy. Screen on Transfer controls whether the accepting agent lands on the destination's call form, the customer details page, the Inbox, or stays on the current screen. Agent-first outbound and callback rings use this same destination-owned screen choice.
Separate Fallback Contracts
A softphone destination has separate settings for Voice AI and agent-first campaigns:
- Voice AI fallback can open appointment booking, forward to a phone number, or take no action when no routed agent accepts. Agent-first campaigns ignore these settings.
- Inbound agent-first fallback can offer an eligible caller a callback and then play a TTS voicemail greeting, or play the greeting directly. Voice AI campaigns ignore these settings.
Agent-first inbound handling always ends in the destination-owned greeting after the callback offer is skipped, declined, or unanswered. Outside business hours it skips the agent pool and callback offer and uses the after-hours greeting. A blank destination greeting falls back to the matching organization greeting, then the built-in greeting.
Agent-first voicemail does not record messages
The business-hours and after-hours voicemail fields are text-to-speech greetings. careCycle speaks the selected greeting and hangs up. There is no caller mailbox or recording.
Callback settings belong to the destination and therefore apply to every attached agent-first campaign:
| Setting | Allowed | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Window | 15 to 480 minutes | 120 minutes |
| Attempts | 1 to 5 | 2 |
| Retry delay | 1 to 60 minutes | 10 minutes |
| Closing buffer | 5 to 120 minutes | 30 minutes |
The window must be at least Attempts x Retry delay. Expiry is capped at the start of the closing buffer. Callback recovery is accept-first: an agent accepts before careCycle dials the customer, and AMD is disabled for that requested callback. Normal outbound agent-first Pulse calls are the opposite: dial-first with mandatory AMD before agents ring.
Managers monitor active callback promises under Wallboard > Queue & Callbacks, including queue age, attempts, completion, and expiry risk.
External destinations send a call outside the careCycle softphone:
- Static transfer dials a configured phone number directly.
- Dynamic transfer calls a configured ping URL to check availability and obtain or validate the transfer number before dialing. If the ping does not produce a usable destination, its configured external fallback applies.
- SIP transfer represents a SIP destination when configured through a supported management surface.
External destinations do not provide a careCycle agent pool and therefore cannot satisfy the activation requirement for an agent-first campaign.