Set up call pickup groups

Pickup groups let people answer a call that's ringing on a coworker's phone by dialing *8 from their own. You decide who can pick up whose calls.

Some labels in your portal or apps may look slightly different from this guide.

How the two group settings work

Each user has two settings, and they do different jobs.

• Call Group is the group the user's own ringing calls belong to. A user is in one call group.
• Pickup Group is the list of groups whose ringing calls the user is allowed to answer. A user can have several.

A coworker can grab a ringing call when the ringing user's call group is in the coworker's pickup groups. It only works in that direction. For example, say Jordan is in call group 5 and can pick up group 7, while Sam is in call group 6 and can pick up group 5. Sam can answer Jordan's ringing phone, but Jordan can't answer Sam's.

For a simple team where everyone covers everyone, put them all in the same call group and give them all that same group as their pickup group.

Before you start

On our shared phone system, CallSprout support allocates the group numbers for your account, and you choose from those. Ask support for numbers before you set up your first groups, or when you need more. On Contact Center Pro, ask support how groups are set up on your system.

Don't see this option? Contact support and we'll set it up for you.

Put users in groups

1. 1
   Step 1:

   Open the user

   Go to Extensions, find the user and select the edit icon.

2. 2
   Step 2:

   Show the advanced settings

   Select Show advanced options and scroll to the groups section.

3. 3
   Step 3:

   Set the call group

   Choose one group in Call Group.

4. 4
   Step 4:

   Set the pickup groups

   Choose one or more groups in Pickup Group.

5. 5
   Step 5:

   Save, then repeat

   Select Save. Do the same for each person on the team.

Turn on call pickup

Group membership alone isn't enough. Each user who picks up calls also needs the call pickup service switched on.

1. 1
   Step 1:

   Open the user's call settings

   On the user's page, select Enhanced Services.

2. 2
   Step 2:

   Turn on Call Pickup

   Select Call Pickup, set it to allowed and save.

What your users dial

• *8 answers a ringing call in one of their pickup groups.
• *88 followed by an extension answers that extension's ringing call, even outside their groups.

Share answer a coworker's ringing phone with your team. If several phones ring at once, the group code takes one of them, and the user can't choose which.

Troubleshooting

• The group code does nothing. Check that the ringing user's call group is in the caller's pickup groups, and that call pickup is on for the person dialing.
• Pickup works for some phones but not others. Groups only work between phones using the same connection type. If one phone is set up differently, contact support.