# Phone calls with Aircall

Connect Aircall so every call lands on the caller's ticket, with who took it, its recording and summary, and automations for missed calls.

Connect [Aircall](https://aircall.io) and every call, inbound or outbound, is documented on the caller's ticket. The call shows in the ticket's timeline as one entry that follows it: ringing, answered by whom, how long it lasted, then its recording, the team's comments in Aircall and Aircall's AI summary when your plan has it. When a call ends, your automations can act on it: reopen the ticket of a missed call, add a note, raise its priority or assign it.

Connecting needs the admin role. Open **Settings**, **Phone**, in the **Channels** group.

## Connect Aircall

**1. Create an API key in Aircall**

In the Aircall dashboard, open **Integrations & API**, then **API keys**, and create a key. Keep its **API ID** and **API token** at hand.

**2. Paste it in opendesk**

In **Settings**, **Phone**, click **Aircall** and paste the API ID and API token, then **Connect**. opendesk checks the key, names the connection after your Aircall company and registers its own webhook in your Aircall account, so calls start arriving at once.

**3. Check that calls arrive**

The connection says **Receiving calls** once its webhook is in place, and shows when the last call event came in. Make a test call to one of your Aircall numbers: a ticket for your number appears with the call on it.

> **Your other Aircall integrations stay as they are**
>
> opendesk only ever touches the one webhook it created. Webhooks of other tools, such as another helpdesk you are moving away from, keep working. Disconnecting removes opendesk's webhook alone.

If Aircall stops sending calls (it switches a webhook off when deliveries keep failing), the connection says so. Click **Test**: opendesk checks the key and registers its webhook again. Replace the key with the key button next to it.

## Where a call goes

opendesk finds the caller by their phone number. Numbers match however they are written on the contact (`+32 470 12 34 56`, `0032 470 12 34 56`), as long as they include the country code. A number opendesk has never seen becomes a new contact, named after the Aircall contact when there is one.

The call then goes on:

1. the caller's **open ticket** (open, pending or on hold), the most recently updated one;
2. else their latest **solved** ticket, when it was solved within the time you choose under **Use a recently solved ticket** (7 days by default; **Never** to skip this);
3. else a **new ticket** on the **Phone** channel, named "Call from" and the caller, in French or German when that is the workspace's **Customer language** (Settings → Workspace). Routing rules on the Phone channel send these tickets to a team.

A call from a withheld number always opens a new ticket. A call from a contact you blocked goes on no ticket and runs no automation, like their email.

## In the ticket

Each call is one entry in the timeline. It shows:

- who called whom, and for an answered call, the teammate who took it;
- **Answered**, **Missed**, **Voicemail** or **No answer**, and while it is going, **Ringing** or **In progress**;
- the talk time, the Aircall number (line) it came in on, and **Outside business hours** when it came outside your hours;
- why a call was missed, in Aircall's words: outside opening hours, nobody answered, hung up in the menu and so on;
- **Play recording** or **Play voicemail**, and **Open in Aircall** for a call Aircall keeps a recording or voicemail for. opendesk keeps links, never the audio: recordings stay in Aircall;
- the comments and labels your team added in Aircall, and Aircall's AI summary and transcript when your plan has them.

Teammates are matched by email: an Aircall user with the same email as a member is shown as that member. Turn on **Assign answered calls** and an answered call gives a ticket nobody has to the teammate who took it.

> **Assign answered calls and auto-assignment**
>
> A call opens its ticket at the first ring, and the answer is only known when the call ends. If auto-assignment (or an automation on **A ticket is created**) gives the new ticket to someone while the phone rings, the ticket already has an owner when the call ends, and **Assign answered calls** leaves it with them. For the teammate who answered to own phone tickets, keep auto-assignment off for those tickets, for instance for the team your Phone routing rule sends them to.

## Missed calls: an automation

What a missed call should do is yours to decide, with an automation on the trigger **A call ends**. This one reopens the caller's ticket, notes the missed call and raises its priority, for calls that came outside your business hours:

**1. Create the automation**

In **Settings**, **Phone**, click **Create this automation** next to **Missed call outside opening hours**. It is created switched off, with these settings, for you to review. You can also build it yourself in **Settings**, **Automations**.

**2. Check its conditions**

- **When**: A call ends
- **If** Call direction is Inbound
- **and** Call outcome is Missed
- **and** Call time is Outside business hours

**3. Check its actions, then switch it on**

- Set status to **Open**
- Add a note: "Missed call outside opening hours: call back."
- Set priority to **High**

**Call time** uses your business hours (**Settings**, **Business hours**), or the ticket's team hours when it has its own. If your phone line is open shorter hours than your team, say 2 to 5 PM, use **Missed call reason** is **Outside opening hours** instead: that is Aircall's own reason, from the opening hours of your Aircall number.

Other conditions of **A call ends**:

| Condition | Values |
| --- | --- |
| **Call outcome** | Answered, Missed, Voicemail |
| **Call direction** | Inbound, Outbound |
| **Call time** | Within business hours, Outside business hours |
| **Missed call reason** | Outside opening hours, No teammate available, Nobody answered, Hung up in the menu, Hung up while waiting, Hung up quickly |
| **Call line** | An Aircall number, such as "FR - B2B": route or label calls by the line they came in on |
| **Call label** | A label your team put on the call in Aircall |

Every other condition (team, status, labels, custom fields) and every action works as in other automations: add a label, assign a teammate or a team, send nothing to the customer.

> **Labels added after the call**
>
> Automations run once, a minute after the call ends, so labels your team adds right after hanging up count. A label or comment added in Aircall later still shows on the call's entry, but doesn't run the automations again.

## While a call rings

With **Show the caller in Aircall** on, Aircall shows the agent who the caller is while their phone rings: their name (linked to the contact in opendesk), the ticket the call goes on and their latest tickets.

## Calling from opendesk

Phone numbers on contacts and in the ticket sidebar are phone links once Aircall is connected. Your computer opens them in your default phone app: set **Aircall Workspace** as the app for phone links (`tel:`) in your system settings, and a click starts the call in Aircall. The call then lands on the ticket like any other.

## Good to know

- Calls appear within seconds: Aircall sends each step of a call as it happens, and opendesk keeps one entry per call even when steps arrive late, twice or out of order.
- The call's final details (duration, missed reason, recording) come about 30 seconds after hanging up, when Aircall finalizes the call.
- A ticket a call opened is on the **Phone** channel: like a ticket made through the API, a reply written there stays on the ticket and is not emailed. To answer a caller by email, reply on their email ticket, or call them back.
- Aircall SMS, two-way contact sync and connecting through the Aircall Marketplace are not part of this connection yet.