How Inbound Calls Route

When someone calls a careCycle number, the dialed number first identifies its owning campaign. careCycle then uses the caller record, campaign kind, number service, business hours, and attached destination to decide whether AI, a human agent, or terminal handling takes the call.

Main Number Routing

Your main number belongs to your agency (your Receptionist answers it by default), but a known caller can be answered in a more specific context. For example, a member who just had an AI appointment call can be routed back into that appointment, and a member your team called by hand from inside a campaign can land back in that campaign.

If careCycle selects an active campaign that has no suitable AI assistant, it retries the Receptionist campaign rather than leaving the call unanswered.

Campaign Number Routing

A non-main number keeps the call in the campaign it's currently attached to, as long as that campaign is active or paused (otherwise your Receptionist answers):

• A known customer reaches the number's campaign.
• For a Voice AI campaign, a new caller reaches that campaign when it has a new-customer assistant. Otherwise the Receptionist is the fallback.
• For an Agent Queue campaign, careCycle creates a record for a new caller and routes the call through the attached agent pool during business hours.
• A number assigned directly to a specific AI assistant stays with that number's campaign and assistant.

Any campaign can call from its own numbers instead of your main number (and Agent Queue campaigns do by default). A returned call to one of those numbers enters the campaign that number is attached to. If you move a number to a different campaign, its callbacks move with it. Texts sent to a campaign number aren't received; members should text your main number. See Which Number Your Calls Come From.

Campaign Kind and Number Service

Campaign kind and number service have different jobs:

• Voice AI campaign on an AI-serviced number: the campaign's AI answers.
• Voice AI campaign on a softphone-serviced number: human agents ring. If after-hours routing to AI is enabled, the campaign's AI answers outside business hours instead.
• Agent Queue campaign: its attached softphone destination rings during business hours. Outside business hours, careCycle speaks an after-hours TTS greeting and hangs up.

An Agent Queue campaign is created as either an Outbound dialer or an Inbound desk, and that direction cannot be changed later. Direction controls the campaign's primary workflow, not whether its numbers can receive calls. Both directions need an attached softphone destination before activation, and both route inbound calls through it. An outbound dialer also requires Pulse before activation; Pulse is optional for an inbound desk.

A hybrid receptionist is a Voice AI campaign whose softphone number routes directly to humans during business hours and to AI after hours. Hybrid describes the answering path; it is not a separate campaign kind. Its direct inbound calls use the destination's Human-agent call fallback > Incoming calls settings, including Offer a callback first. An AI-controlled transfer uses the separate Voice AI transfer fallback.

Agent Queue Inbound Sequence

During business hours, an inbound Agent Queue call uses the exact enabled softphone destination attached to the campaign. That destination owns the agents, ordering, timing, screen behavior, callback policy, and unavailable messages.

Only eligible Available agents enter the sequence. Priority rules can put the customer's assigned agent or most recent softphone agent first. The destination then orders the remaining pool with Linear, Balanced, Weighted, or Grouped routing. Regardless of strategy, agents ring one at a time. Each agent can ring for 5 through 30 seconds, and the whole sequence can wait 10 through 120 seconds. The overall limit can end routing before every agent is tried.

Auto Answer immediately joins a routed call for an Available agent when the agent enabled it or the organization enforces it. It bypasses the normal need to click Answer or Claim, so the ring timers do not delay that call.

If nobody is eligible, fallback begins immediately. If agents are eligible but nobody accepts, fallback begins when the pool or overall wait limit is exhausted.

Voice AI and Agent Queue Fallbacks

Softphone destinations distinguish a Voice AI transfer attempt from inbound and outbound Agent Queue calls. Select the settings for the actual call path:

An inbound call to an outbound campaign's number is still an inbound call and uses the inbound settings. An outbound Pulse follow-up from an inbound desk uses the outbound settings. These Agent Queue paths do not use the Voice AI transfer fallback.

Outside business hours, an Agent Queue campaign skips agents and the callback offer. It uses the destination's after-hours unavailable message. Blank destination fields inherit the matching message under Settings > Organization > Softphone Settings > Unavailable messages, then the system default for that time window.

Callback Offers

An Agent Queue or hybrid direct-softphone inbound caller can be offered a callback only when all eligibility checks pass: the campaign is active, the exact destination and routing configuration are still enabled, callback offers are enabled on that destination, the call is inside business hours and outside the closing buffer, the callback number and customer are valid, the customer is not on Do Not Call, and no callback is already pending for that campaign and number.

No input or a different digit can replay the prompt up to five times, with a 7-second digit wait per play. Without acceptance, the inbound call proceeds to the unavailable message and hangup. After acceptance, careCycle rings an agent first and dials the customer only after the agent accepts. This accept-first callback exception does not use AMD. Normal outbound Agent Queue Pulse calls remain dial-first and always use AMD before any agent rings.

The routing limit is a maximum for trying agents, not a hold queue. When no agent is eligible, careCycle proceeds directly to the callback offer or unavailable message. A caller's callback request is separate from a successful conversation with a representative.

For call investigations, use recorded disconnect attribution and fallback reason. A completed provider leg or an answered greeting does not establish a human connection. Historical calls without disconnect evidence remain unknown; neither a disposition label nor the call duration proves who hung up.

See Requested Callbacks: Accept-First for eligibility, timing bounds, and retry behavior.

Receptionist Modes

For the main number, the Receptionist page provides two common topologies:

• AI Receptionist uses an AI-serviced number, so Cora answers.
• Direct Routing uses a softphone-serviced number, so your configured human pool rings. When after-hours routing to AI is enabled, Cora answers outside business hours.

See Configure Your Receptionist and Business Hours and Holidays for those settings.

Where to Go Next