Phone

Make and take phone calls right in Freesbe, and on a desk phone or a softphone app with SIP credentials (a server, username and password). A desk phone registers directly with your company’s phone system, sip.io, so its calls don’t go through Freesbe.

Set up your phone

On the phone system from Freesbe, there’s nothing to set up: calls ring in the Freesbe apps, which sign in on their own. Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone shows where you’re working from, your voicemail and your music on hold, and no SIP login. For a desk phone too, ask an admin: they set one up for you in the Admin Center.

When your workspace connects its own sip.io account instead, you set up your own phone:

1. Open Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone.
2. Click Set up my phone. Freesbe shows your SIP server, Username and Password. Click the eye icon to reveal the password, and copy each value.
3. On your desk phone or softphone, add a new SIP account and enter those three values.
4. Save it and wait for the phone to show as registered.

If Test mode shows at the top, your workspace hasn’t connected its sip.io account yet. The credentials are placeholders for trying the setup; ask your admin to connect sip.io before you rely on them.

Change your phone password

Click Change password in Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone. The new password works at once, and any phone using the old one stops working until you enter the new one.

The phone

Click the phone button (a phone keypad) in the top bar to open the phone and dial a number. When your workspace’s phone system is from Freesbe, the call goes out from Freesbe itself (see Calls in Freesbe). Otherwise pressing call hands the number to your computer’s phone app (any app registered for tel: links, such as your softphone). The tabs at the bottom switch between the Keypad and your Recent calls. With a phone system from Freesbe there are two more: People and Voicemail (see Your colleagues and Voicemail).

Numbers are formatted as you type, the way your country writes them: 4155550142 becomes (415) 555-0142 in the US, 0501234567 becomes 050-123-4567 in Israel. Start with + (or hold 0) for a number abroad, and it’s written the international way, +44 20 7946 0958, with that country’s flag next to it. Your country comes from your computer’s language and region settings. Extensions and codes with * or # stay as you type them. Recent calls and the call itself show numbers the same way.

If you don’t have a phone account yet, the phone links to Set up your phone account.

The phone button’s color tells you how the phone is doing at a glance:

• Plain: the phone is connected and ready for calls.
• Green: you’re on a call. Click it to see the call.
• Red: Freesbe lost its connection to the phone system, so calls can’t reach you here. Open the phone and click Try again. Freesbe also reconnects by itself when the network comes back.

Keep the phone open

The phone opens under the top bar and closes when you click elsewhere. If you’re on the phone a lot, keep it open:

• Pin it to the side: click the pin button at the top of the phone. It stays beside the conversation, and chat keeps working next to it. Freesbe remembers this on each computer. Click it again, or the phone button, to put it away.
• Pop it out: click the pop-out button. In the desktop app the phone gets a small window of its own that stays on top of your other apps, where you put it. Make it short during a call and it shrinks to one line with mute, hold and hang up. In Chrome and Edge it floats the same way; other browsers open it in a small window. Your calls keep going if you close it; click the button at its top to put the phone back in Freesbe.

Calls in Freesbe

When your workspace has a phone system from Freesbe, you make and take phone calls right in Freesbe, in the browser or the desktop app, with no phone or softphone to set up. Your browser asks once to use your microphone.

• Taking a call: when one of your numbers rings, a card shows who’s calling, with Answer and Decline, and your ringtone plays. If Freesbe is in the background, you also get a notification. A call that comes in while you’re already on one isn’t put through, so it goes on as if you didn’t answer.
• Making a call: open the phone, type a number or a colleague’s extension, and press call. The call says Calling… right away, then Ringing… once their phone rings. You hear the ringing, and anything the phone network plays before they answer, like “the number you have dialed is not in service”. Or click a phone number on someone’s profile, or a phone link in a message: it calls from Freesbe instead of opening another app. (Hold Ctrl or ⌘ while clicking to hand it to your computer’s phone app.)
• During a call: the phone shows the call, with Mute, Hold, Keypad (for menus that say “press 1”), Transfer (see Passing a call on), Add call (see Two calls at once) and Hang up. The top bar shows who you’re talking to and for how long, from anywhere in Freesbe, and the phone button turns green: click either to open the call. The microphone and speakers are the ones you chose in Preferences → Calls & audio → Audio.

When a call doesn’t go through

If the call can’t be put through, the phone says why and plays a tone, so you know without waiting:

• Busy: they’re on another call. You hear the busy signal.
• No answer: nobody picked up.
• Declined: they turned the call down.
• Number not found: the number doesn’t exist. Check it and try again.
• Call failed: something else went wrong, with the phone service’s reason, or Freesbe can’t use your microphone when your browser blocked it.

Press Call again to try the same number, or Close. The call goes away by itself after a few seconds.

Passing a call on

Click Transfer during a call and type a colleague’s name, an extension, a call queue or a phone number. Each match has two buttons:

• Transfer: the caller waits on hold while their phone rings, and goes to them when they answer. Your side of the call ends then. If nobody answers, the caller stays with you. Changed your mind while it rings? Cancel stops it and keeps the caller with you.
• Talk first: you talk to them while the caller waits on hold, to say who’s calling and why. Then choose Complete to hand the caller over and leave, Merge to bring the caller in for a 3-way call (the phone lists both people; hang up to leave the two of them talking), or Go back to hang up on them and go back to the caller.

A call queue always takes the call straight away: its next free agent answers it. Some calls can’t be passed on yet, such as one that’s already a 3-way call; the phone says so.

Two calls at once

Click Add call during a call to call someone else: type a colleague’s name, an extension or a number. The first call waits on hold at the top of the phone; click it to switch to it, which puts the other one on hold. Switch as often as you like. With two calls up, the phone offers:

• Transfer: connects the two people to each other, and you leave.
• Merge: a 3-way call, where all three of you hear each other. Each person has their own hang up button, to drop just them. Transfer leaves the two of them talking; hanging up ends the call for both.

Your colleagues

The phone’s People tab lists your colleagues who have a phone, with their extension and whether they’re around. Type a name or an extension to find someone, and click the phone next to them to call.

On a phone system from Freesbe, everyone has an extension: a short number like 102. It’s on their profile, on their picture and next to their local time, and Call with the number on it calls them. You can also type an extension on the keypad.

Your calls

The phone’s Recent tab lists your calls from the last 30 days, newest first. Missed calls are in red, and each call shows when it was and how long you talked. Click the phone next to a number to call it back, and Show older calls for more. Calls with colleagues show their name. Click Missed at the top to see only the calls you missed, and All to see everything again.

A call shows up in Recent the moment it ends, with no waiting for the list to load. Calls you made or took on your other devices, such as the mobile app or another computer, show up there too a few seconds after they end, and so do new voicemails.

Call transcripts

Calls can be written out and summarized like meetings. When an admin turns on Let people transcribe their own calls (see Call recording), a call has Transcribe under its buttons. Click it and Freesbe records the call from then on; click Stop to stop. While it’s on, the call says Transcribing: tell the other side the call is recorded, since in many places everyone must agree to it.

A minute or so after the call ends, you and any colleagues on it get a message from Phone in your own DM: Notes from your call with Contoso, with a summary, the action items and a link to the transcript. Calls the workspace records and transcribes for everyone come with the same notes.

The link opens the call’s page: the summary, the caller’s mood, key points, action items and every line of the call, with the recording to play. Click a line to hear it, or search for a word. A transcribed call also has a transcript button in the phone’s Recent tab.

Post to a channel shares the notes, with the summary, the action items and a link to the transcript, in a channel or with a colleague. The transcript itself stays with the people who were on the call and the workspace’s admins, so others who open the link see that they can’t read it.

Call transcripts count toward your plan’s transcript hours, shared with huddle and meeting transcripts. Once those run out for the month, calls aren’t transcribed, and Phone tells whoever pressed Transcribe why.

Voicemail

Everyone on the phone system from Freesbe has voicemail, free, set up for them as soon as they’re on it: there’s nothing to turn on. When you don’t answer, callers can leave you a voicemail. The phone’s Voicemail tab lists yours, newest first, with a count of the ones you haven’t played on the tab. Play one right there (that marks it heard), call the person back, or delete it.

Each voicemail also comes to you in Freesbe as a message from Phone in your own DM, Voicemail from (415) 555-0142 (0:42), with the recording to play right there. Under it is what the caller said, written out, so you can read it without playing it. You get a notification like for any message, and the recording stays with your files.

Voicemails are written out by the same speech to text as meeting transcripts. When an admin turns transcripts off in Workspace settings → Calls & meetings → Recordings, voicemails come with the recording only.

Get voicemails by email

To get each voicemail by email too, open Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone and turn on Email me each voicemail under Voicemail. The email goes to the address you sign in with, with the recording attached, who called, how long it is and what they said written out. It’s in the language Freesbe was in when you turned it on. Voicemails still come to you in Freesbe too, so leave it off to keep them in the app only (that’s how it starts). A recording too long to attach (over 10 MB) comes as a link to play it in Freesbe instead.

Queue calls

When you’re in a call queue, the top bar shows whether you take the queue’s calls right now, next to the dialpad button:

• Taking calls (green): calls from your queues ring you. You’re signed in to a queue when an admin adds you to it.
• A break (amber): click the pill and pick the reason, like Lunch or Training, or Break, no reason. Queue calls stop until you click I’m back. The pill shows the reason and how long you’ve been away.
• Signed out (gray): click the pill, then Sign out of queues, for example at the end of your day. Pick Take queue calls to come back.

Calls straight to your number keep ringing you either way. When an admin gave a break reason a time limit, it shows next to the reason, and Freesbe tells you when your break runs over: a notification on your computer, and the pill turns red until you’re back. The pill also turns red when you’re taking calls but your Freesbe phone isn’t open anywhere, so queue calls can’t reach you.

Follow-Me: how your calls ring

Your calls can ring the Freesbe app on your computer, the Freesbe app on your phone and a desk phone. Choose how in Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone → When a call comes in:

• Ring where I’m working (the default): the device you’re using right now rings first. If you don’t pick up, your other devices join in after the time you choose (10 seconds unless you change it).
• Ring all my devices at once: everything rings together.
• Ring them one after another: steps in the order you choose, each ringing for as long as you set. A step can ring several devices together. Use the arrows to change the order.

What a caller gets shows each device’s turn to scale and how long a caller waits. If nobody answers, the call goes to your Voicemail (after 25 seconds unless you change it), to A teammate, whose own settings take over, or to A phone number, such as your own mobile. An outside number asks you to press 1 to take the call, so its own voicemail can’t answer it; if you don’t, the caller reaches your voicemail.

While I’m in a meeting or huddle can keep the computer quiet while you’re in one, so the call rings your phone instead. Desk phones can’t wait their turn: they ring from the start while they’re turned on. Calls to a number that rings several people, and to call queues, follow the admin’s settings for that number or queue instead.

My devices lists the devices your calls ring, with a switch to stop one ringing, such as an old phone. Your phone shows up once you’ve opened Freesbe on it. If an admin locked your settings, you see them but can’t change them.

Where you work from (911)

If you call 911 from Freesbe, emergency services are sent to the address you work from. Pick it in Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone → Working from: one of your workspace’s offices, or Add a place, like home for an address only you see. Change it when you work somewhere else, because Freesbe’s phone goes wherever your computer goes. Until you pick one, your calls use the workspace’s default address.

Your music on hold

Callers hear music while you have them on hold or pass their call on. It’s the workspace’s music on hold unless you pick your own in Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone → Music on hold: Lo-fi, Jazz, Classical, Bossa nova, Opus, Pop, Nature or Quiet. Play lets you hear a track first, and The workspace’s music goes back to what your admins picked. Your pick plays on your calls only.

One window at a time

Calls ring in one Freesbe window on your computers at a time: the last one you opened. With several tabs open in the same browser, the first one rings, and another takes over when you close it. If you open Freesbe on another computer, calls ring there instead, and the phone here says Calls ring in another Freesbe window with Ring here to bring them back. Your desk phone or softphone, if you set one up, keeps ringing as well.

For admins: a phone system from Freesbe

Instead of bringing your own phone provider, you can get phone numbers and calling straight from Freesbe. There’s nothing to sign up for elsewhere: people’s phone accounts are made for them. Admins set it up in the Admin Center, under Phone: the phone system, numbers, business hours, 911 and texts. The app’s Workspace settings doesn’t list them; a link to them in the app shows Open in the Admin Center.

1. Open the Admin Center, then Phone → Settings.

2. Under Phone system from Freesbe, pick the Country (the United States or Canada for now) and click Turn on phone system.

   

3. Open the Numbers tab and click Buy a number. The first time, you’ll verify your identity, which phone regulations require (see identity verification for phone numbers). Numbers for sale show right away. Change the Country, choose Local or Toll-free, or type an Area code (like 415) to narrow them down. Show other numbers brings up a fresh set.

4. Pick a number, choose Who should it ring?, and click Get with the number on it.

One local number comes with each person on the Phone system add-on, so while the workspace has some left, local numbers show Included instead of a price. Past that, and for toll-free numbers, each number shows its monthly price before you buy it. Some numbers need documents before the carrier turns them on; they’re marked Needs documents and stay that way in the list until they’re approved. To send a number’s calls to someone else, open the number and change Rings under Incoming calls. The first time a number rings someone, Freesbe makes their phone account, which they find in Preferences → Calls & audio → Phone.

A number can ring up to 20 people at once, like a sales or support line: choose the first person in Rings, then Also ring to add more. Everyone’s phone rings together and the first to answer takes the call. The × next to a name stops ringing them; down to one person, it’s back to the Rings list.

The numbers list

Phone → Numbers lists every number in a table: its flag and number with the country code, its name and city, the Country, the Type (Geographic, Toll-free, National or Mobile), whether it can send and receive Texts, what it Answers with, and its Status. Search by number, name or city, narrow it down by country, type, texts or status, and click any column’s header to sort by it (click again to reverse). With many numbers, the table shows 25 at a time: Rows per page under the table shows 50 or 100 instead, and Previous and Next move between pages. Export CSV saves every number the filters keep, not only the page shown.

A number’s settings

Click a number to open its settings. Each change saves as you make it.

• Name: what people call the line, like Main line or Sales. It shows in the numbers list.
• Incoming calls: what it Answers with (people, a phone menu or a call queue), whether it follows the business hours, where calls go After hours and On holidays (voicemail, a menu, a queue or hanging up), and Allow callers who hide their number: turn it off to turn away “No caller ID” calls.
• Caller ID: Who can call out with it and Who can text from it: Everyone, Only some people (pick them) or Nobody.
• Texts: whether the number can send and receive texts, and the SMS inbox that takes them.
• Fax: turn on Receive faxes on this number to answer fax machines that call it. Each fax becomes a PDF, emailed to the addresses you list (separate several with commas), posted to a webhook if you add one, and kept unless you turn off Keep a copy of each fax. Voice calls to the number still answer as usual. Fax method is T.38, which suits almost every fax machine; try G.711 passthrough if faxes fail.
• Carrier options are coming soon: the caller ID name people see when you call them (CNAM), forwarding to a backup number if Freesbe can’t be reached, a number lock (a PIN another provider needs before moving the number away), and turning texting on or off.

Release, at the top, gives the number back to the carrier.

Bring your numbers

Keep the numbers your customers already know by moving them from your current provider to Freesbe (porting them). It’s free, works for US and Canadian numbers, and takes 1 to 3 weeks. Calls keep ringing at your old provider until the move day, so nothing goes quiet in between.

1. In the Admin Center, open Phone → Numbers and click Bring your numbers. The first time, you’ll verify your identity, the same as buying a number.
2. Under Numbers, type the Numbers to move, one per line. They must all be with the same provider: send one request for each provider. Choose what answers them once they arrive (a phone menu, a call queue or a person), and when to Move them: As soon as possible, or On a date at least a week away.
3. Under Your current provider, fill in the Provider, Account number, Name on the account, Account PIN (if your provider set one for moving numbers) and Service address on the account exactly as they appear on your bill, and add A recent bill (a PDF or a picture, from the last 30 days, showing the numbers and the account number). Most requests that come back are a name or account number that doesn’t match the provider’s records. The account number isn’t your phone number.
4. Under Sign, read the letter of authorization, type Your full name and Your title, tick I’m signing this letter of authorization electronically and click Send request.

Our team checks the request and sends it to your old provider, and Moving numbers in, under your numbers, shows where it is: Sent, Checked, With your provider, the Move day once the provider sets it, and Done. Admins get an email at each step. Keep your account with the old provider open until the move day: closing it first can lose the numbers.

If the provider turns it down, the request shows Needs a fix with what to correct. Click Fix and send again, change what’s wrong, sign again and send it. Until the request is with your provider you can also Change it, and Cancel the move any time before it’s done.

On the move day the numbers arrive on your phone system and answer as you chose, and the request turns Done by itself. From then they’re billed like any other number. Your PIN and the copy of the bill are deleted 30 days after the move ends.

Extensions

Everyone on the phone system gets an extension, a short number colleagues dial to reach them and callers can dial from a phone menu. Nobody has to hand them out: people get the next free one when the phone system is on, and so does anyone who joins later. Extensions show on people’s profiles.

Admins change them in the Admin Center, under Phone → Extensions:

• Numbering sets where new extensions start (101 unless you change it) and their Length, 3 or 4 digits. It only affects people who get an extension from then on.
• Change next to someone lets you type their new extension and Save it. Extensions are 2 to 6 digits, can’t start with 0 or 9 (they reach outside lines and emergency calls), and can’t be someone else’s or a number the phone system already uses, like a queue’s.

A person keeps their extension when they set their phone up again.

Set up how someone’s calls ring

Admins and Phone admins can set Follow-Me for someone, such as a receptionist whose calls should reach the desk phone first. In the Admin Center, under Phone → Extensions, click Call handling next to the person. You get the same choices they have in Preferences, their devices with a switch for each, and Lock these settings, so they can see them but not change them. They get a notice when you change them, and the audit log records it.

Default call handling, above the list, sets what everyone gets until they choose their own: Freesbe starts with where they’re working first, their other devices after 10 seconds, and voicemail after 25.

Desk phones

On the phone system from Freesbe, the Freesbe apps sign in on their own, so people don’t see a SIP login in the app. For a desk phone or a softphone app, an admin sets it up in the Admin Center, under Phone → Extensions:

1. Click Desk phone next to the person. If they don’t have a login yet, click Set up a desk phone.
2. Click the eye icon to show the Password, and copy the SIP server, Username and Password.
3. On the desk phone or softphone, add a new SIP account with those three values, save it, and wait for it to show as registered.

Change password gives the login a new password; any phone using the old one stops working until you enter the new one. The audit log records each time an admin shows or changes someone’s desk phone password. Their desk phone rings along with the Freesbe apps.

Music on hold

Callers hear music when someone at your workspace puts them on hold or passes their call on. Admins pick it in the Admin Center, under Phone → Music on hold, from eight tracks composed for Freesbe, so there’s nothing to license:

• Lo-fi, a lazy beat and electric piano. It plays until you pick another.
• Jazz, a swung trio with walking bass, brushes, piano and vibes.
• Classical, strings and harpsichord over an old, familiar ground bass.
• Bossa nova, soft guitar-like comping and a gentle melody.
• Opus, bright late-80s synth, the classic on-hold sound.
• Pop, an upbeat groove with a hook you could hum.
• Nature, warm pads, waves on a shore and birdsong, with no beat.
• Quiet, no music, only a soft hiss like an open line, so callers know they’re still connected.

Play next to a track lets you hear it first, as callers will. Picking one changes the music on every call straight away.

Your own music plays something of your business’s instead, like a jingle or a message about your opening hours. Upload a song or recording you have the rights to play to callers (MP3, WAV or most other audio files, up to about 5 minutes); it plays as soon as it’s in. Replace swaps it for another, and picking a track keeps your upload to switch back to.

Anyone can pick their own in Preferences, which plays on their calls instead (your music on hold). Call queues play their own hold music, set on each queue.

Phone menus

A phone menu answers a number with a greeting, then lets callers press a key to reach the right people: “For orders, press 1. For deliveries, press 2.” It’s also called an IVR or auto attendant. Phone menus are built in the Admin Center, where there’s room for the greeting and every key.

1. Open the Admin Center, then Phone → Call routing → Phone menus, and click Add a menu. Give it a Name.

2. Set the Greeting:

   • Type it and pick a Voice to have it read out. Listen plays it for you first.
   • Record it: click Start recording, say the greeting into your microphone, and click Stop. Play it back below, or record it again.
   • Upload a file: an MP3, M4A or WAV file.
   • None skips straight to waiting for a key.

   Recordings and files can be up to 5 minutes. New greetings count toward a daily limit.

3. Under Keys, choose what each key does. Ring people rings one person or several at once, Voicemail takes a message for someone, Another menu plays a second menu (like a Deliveries menu under key 2), Call queue puts the caller on hold in a call queue, and Hang up ends the call. Add a key adds up to 12: the digits, * and #.

4. To let callers reach someone directly, turn on Let callers dial an extension. Callers can type a person’s extension any time during the greeting, and it rings them. Choose Everyone with an extension (people who get one later are added on their own) or Only some people. Keys you set win when they clash with an extension. Say so in the greeting (“If you know your party’s extension, dial it now”). Dialing by name is coming later.

5. Under If nobody presses a key, choose how long to Wait for a key. The greeting plays twice, then the call goes where you choose.

6. Click Try it to hear the menu as a caller would, then Save menu.

Try a menu

Try it, next to a menu in the list or at the bottom of the editor, calls the menu without a phone. The greeting plays, and the keypad presses keys as a caller would: you see each step and where the call ends up, like The call rings Priya Raman. Nobody’s phone rings. It works like a real call: when nobody presses a key, the greeting plays a second time before the call goes where If nobody presses a key says, and so does a third key that isn’t a choice. Start over calls again, and Sound off follows the steps without playing the greeting.

Then point a number at the menu: in Phone → Numbers, open the number and change Answers with from Ringing people to the menu. Callers to that number hear the menu from then on. To go back, choose Ringing people and pick who it rings. A menu can’t be deleted while a number answers with it or another menu sends calls to it.

Call us links

A Call us link is a page customers open to call you from their browser, free: on your website, in an email signature, from a QR code on a flyer, or from your Telegram bot. They tap who they need, like Sales, Support or Billing, say their name, and the call rings the right people the same way a phone menu’s key does. Nothing to install, and no phone number needed.

1. Open the Admin Center, then Phone → Call routing → Call us links, and click Add a Call us link.
2. Give it a Name for yourself and the Title customers see, like “How can we help?”.
3. Add up to 5 Buttons. Each has its name, a line Under it (“New orders and quotes”) and what it Rings: people, someone’s voicemail, a phone menu or a call queue.
4. Under Ask before the call, keep Their name on to have customers type it: it shows as the caller’s name when the call rings. Add a question asks for more, like an order number, in whatever language your customers speak. Your team sees the answers on the ringing call.
5. Turn on Follow business hours to have buttons say you’re closed outside your business hours, with your own message.
6. Click Create link. The preview beside the editor shows the page as customers see it.

Use it gives you the link (call.freesbe.net/…), Copy website button for a ready-made Call us button to paste into your site’s HTML, and a QR code. To offer it on Telegram, choose it as the Call us button in Telegram’s settings: customers send /call, or tap Call us in the bot’s menu.

Customers see your workspace’s name and logo and the buttons. Tapping one asks the questions, then Call asks for the microphone and calls.

When it rings, the call says Call us link · from the browser under the customer’s name, with their answers below.

Calls from Call us links are free for customers and cost your workspace $0.01 a minute, on your monthly bill with your other calls.

Call queues

A call queue holds callers on the line until someone is free, instead of ringing out or going to voicemail when everyone’s busy: callers hear a greeting, then hold music and their place in line. It’s for a sales or support line that gets more calls than people. Call queues come with the Call center add-on and are set up in the Admin Center.

1. Open the Admin Center, then Phone → Call routing → Call queues, and click Add a queue. Give it a Name.

2. Under Who takes its calls, Add someone for each person who answers. They’re signed in to the queue when you save it, and its calls ring their Freesbe phone.

3. Under Who gets the next call, choose how calls are shared out:

   • Whoever’s been free longest spreads calls evenly.
   • Everyone at once rings every free person, and the first to answer takes the call.
   • Take turns goes round the list.
   • In order, from the top rings the first free person in the list. Use the arrows to put the main people at the top.
   • Whoever took the fewest calls and Anyone, at random do what they say.

   Ring each phone for is how long one person’s phone rings before the call tries the next, and Time for notes after a call gives people a moment before their next queue call.

4. Set the Greeting callers hear when they join, typed, recorded or uploaded like a menu’s, or None.

5. Under Hold music, keep Standard music or upload your own file.

6. Tell callers their place in line announces it every 30 seconds to 5 minutes, when it changes.

7. Under If the wait runs long, choose the Longest wait and the Most callers waiting. Past either, callers go where Then says: voicemail, other people, a menu, another queue, or hanging up.

8. Under If nobody is signed in, choose where calls go straight away when no one in the queue can take them. Click Save queue.

Then send calls to the queue: open a number in Phone → Numbers and choose it under Answers with, or pick Call queue for a key in a phone menu. A queue can’t be deleted while a number, a menu or another queue sends calls to it.

Breaks

People in a queue take a break or sign out from the status pill in their top bar (see Queue calls). Under Break reasons on the Call queues page, add the reasons they pick from, like Lunch, Training or Meeting. Click Add a break reason, type its Name, choose a Time limit if the break shouldn’t run longer than that, pick a color, and click Save. When a break runs over its limit, Freesbe tells the person and their pill turns red. People can take a break without a reason too.

Call center board

The Call center page in the app shows your queues as they happen: callers waiting and for how long, each queue’s numbers for today, and what everyone in a queue is doing, whether that’s taking calls, on a call, wrapping up, on a break, or signed out. It comes with the Call center add-on. Admins see it, and so do the Supervisors they choose.

To choose supervisors, open the Admin Center, then Phone → Call routing → Call queues, and under Supervisors pick each person from Add a supervisor. Take someone off with the × next to their name. You can also turn on Call center supervisor on the person’s own page under People → Members (see Edit a member).

Admins and supervisors open it from Call center in the bar on the far left.

• Callers waiting lists everyone on hold, longest wait first, with their queue and place in line. A wait past two minutes turns red.
• Each queue’s card shows how many are waiting, the longest wait, how many calls today were answered in time, and who’s free, on calls or on a break. Nobody free means callers are waiting and nobody can answer; Long waits means waits are running long.
• People shows each person’s status and how long they’ve been in it. A break past its reason’s time limit turns red.
• With more than one queue, pick one at the top to see only its callers and people.

To nudge someone, click Nudge next to them, pick or type a message, and choose whether it comes From me or From the Call center bot. They get it as a direct message, with a notification.

Listen, whisper or barge in

Admins and supervisors can join anyone’s queue call from the board, to coach someone or help with a hard caller. Everyone on a call has a Listen button next to Nudge. Click it to start listening; from there you can switch at any time.

• Listen: hear the call. Nobody hears you.
• Whisper: talk to your colleague only. The caller doesn’t hear you.
• Barge in: join the call. Your colleague and the caller both hear you.

Your Freesbe phone picks up on its own, so calling from Freesbe has to be on and you can’t be on a call of your own. A bar at the top of the board shows whose call you’re on and for how long. Switch between Listen, Whisper and Barge in at any time without leaving the call, mute yourself while you whisper or barge in, and click Leave call when you’re done. The call goes on without you. Their row on the board says You’re listening, You’re whispering or You’re on this call.

The phone panel shows the same call, with the same choices.

For a TV on the wall, click Wall mode: the board fills the screen in large type, and keeps up on its own. Click Leave wall mode or press Esc to go back.

For numbers over days or weeks, such as calls answered, waits and each person’s breaks, see Reports → Call center in the Admin Center.

Call flows

A call flow shows everything that happens when someone calls one of your numbers, drawn as steps joined by lines: business hours, phone menus, call queues, the people who ring, messages, voicemail and hanging up. Change the drawing and you change where calls go. Open the Admin Center, then Phone → Call routing → Call flows: each number is listed with the first steps of its flow. Click Open to see and change it, or click Call flow next to a number in Phone → Numbers.

Each step has its exits on the right: where the call goes next, like Key 1, No key pressed, No answer or After hours. A number’s exits are Open, After hours and Closed days when it follows business hours, or Calls when it doesn’t. To change where an exit goes, drag a line from it to the next step; drawing a new line from an exit replaces the old one. An exit with no line hangs up. To take a line or a step out, click it and press Delete.

Add a step puts a new step on the canvas:

• Phone menu and Call queue add one you’ve already made, with every step after it. Their greetings, hold music and who answers are set on the Phone menus and Call queues pages.
• Ring people rings the people you pick, all at once.
• Play a message reads out what you type, in the voice you pick, then goes on to the next step, like “We’re closed for the holiday.”
• Voicemail takes a message for someone.
• Hang up ends the call.

Click a step to see where each of its exits goes. On a phone menu, Add a key adds an exit for another key, and × takes one off. It also says whether callers can dial an extension from it, which you turn on in Phone menus. Try a call calls the selected phone menu (or the first one in the flow) without a phone, as in Try a menu.

Every step needs a way in: Save stays off while a step has no line into it, so connect it or take it off. Click Save and the changes are live right away; Discard goes back to what’s saved. If someone else changed the same number’s calls while you were editing, Freesbe says so instead of saving over them: reload to see their changes. Menus and queues can be part of more than one number’s flow, so changing one changes it everywhere it’s used. Steps set up outside Freesbe, like where one person’s own calls go when they don’t answer, are drawn but can’t be changed here.

Call recording

To record calls, open the Admin Center, then Phone → Call recording, and under Record calls pick who’s recorded:

• Off: no calls are recorded.
• Everyone: everyone’s calls are recorded.
• Some people: only the people you add with Add someone. Only people with a phone line are listed.

Then pick Which calls: Calls from outside, Calls to outside numbers and Calls between colleagues. Record every call queue call records every call to a call queue, whoever answers it, even when their own calls aren’t recorded. Click Save when you’re done.

In many places everyone on a call must agree to it being recorded. Freesbe doesn’t announce recording to callers yet, so say it in your phone menu greeting, for example “This call may be recorded.” Check the rules where you and your callers are.

Transcribe recorded calls writes each recorded call out word by word as soon as it ends, and sends the people on it the call’s notes. Summarize them with AI adds a short summary, the caller’s mood, key points and action items. Transcripts count toward your plan’s transcript hours, shared with huddles and meetings.

Let people transcribe their own calls gives everyone with a phone line a Transcribe button during their calls, for the calls that aren’t recorded already. See Call transcripts.

Delete recordings after sets how long recordings are kept: 30 or 90 days, 1 or 2 years, or until someone deletes them. It applies to calls recorded from then on. Recordings stay with the phone system, and admins listen to them in the call log.

Call log

Every call on your phone system is listed in the Admin Center under Phone → Call log, newest first: calls in from outside, calls out, and calls between colleagues. Each line says when the call started, who called (a colleague, the caller ID or the number), the number or person it rang, who answered, and how long they talked. Missed calls are marked in red.

• Search: type any number, or part of one (three digits or more), to find calls from or to it on either end, or a colleague’s or caller’s name.
• Dates: pick a range on the calendar, or this week, last week, this month or last month, up to 90 days at a time. Calls are kept for 90 days.
• Direction: calls in, calls out or calls between colleagues, each with its own icon.
• Result: only answered calls, or only missed ones. Length keeps calls over 1, 5 or 10 minutes.
• People: only the calls those people made, took or were rung for. Clear filters starts over.
• Show older loads more, and Download CSV saves every call the filters show, up to the newest 5,000, with times in UTC and talk time in seconds.

Play a recorded call

A call that was recorded has a play button. It opens a player under the call: play, pause, jump anywhere, play faster (1.5× or 2×) or download the recording. Transcript opens what was said, line by line, with a summary of the call, the caller’s mood, the key points and what to do next. Click a line to hear it, or search the transcript for a word.

A recording without a transcript yet has Make a transcript, which writes one and the summary in a minute or so. It needs transcripts turned on under Phone → Call recording, where you also choose which calls are recorded and how long recordings are kept.

Calls show up a few minutes after they end. Each person still sees their own calls in the phone’s Calls tab (see Your calls). For totals per queue and per person, see Reports → Call center.

Business hours

Phone → Call routing → Business hours in the Admin Center sets when your phones are answered: the time zone and the hours for each day of the week. Then open a number and turn on Follow business hours. During business hours it answers as usual. The rest of the time, calls go where After hours says: voicemail (the voicemail of the first person the number rings, which comes to them in Freesbe like any other voicemail), a phone menu, a call queue, or hanging up. Numbers that don’t follow the hours answer at any hour.

Holidays

Under Holidays, add the days off your usual hours: pick a date with Add a day, give it a name, and choose Closed all day or Special hours, like 9 to 1 on Christmas Eve. A holiday replaces that day’s usual hours. When you’re closed on a holiday, calls go where a number’s On holidays says (the same place as After hours unless you pick another); outside a holiday’s special hours, they go where After hours says.

Import holidays fills them in for you: choose a country and Freesbe lists its public holidays for the next 12 months. Untick any you work on, then Add. Each comes in closed all day, named; change any to special hours afterwards. Holidays only some states or regions keep aren’t listed, so add those with Add a day. Remember Save hours when you’re done.

Release, on a number’s settings, gives it back to the carrier. Calls and texts to it stop, and you may not get the same number again.

The phone system comes with the Phone system add-on, which includes one local number for each person. Local numbers past those are billed as the Phone number add-on, and every toll-free number as the Toll-free number add-on, counted when you buy or release one; a number being released isn’t billed.

A new phone system can call the United States and Canada right away. Other countries open up once your account has been reviewed.

Texts to your numbers

The Messaging tab brings texts customers send to your numbers into a channel, one thread per customer, and your team’s replies go back as texts. Your WhatsApp Business number can go there too, with replies on WhatsApp. Each number starts in test mode. See texts to your Freesbe numbers and WhatsApp.

Emergency calling (E911)

Under the numbers, Emergency calling (E911) keeps the addresses emergency services are sent to when someone calls 911: add your offices, with the street number and suite or floor. The first one is the Default address, used for everyone who hasn’t picked a place; with more than one, you can pick another default. Each address shows whether the carrier Confirmed it, or that it Needs fixing. An address people work from, or the default, can’t be removed until they pick another.

When someone calls 911, tell picks who hears about it right away, as US law asks: a channel like #front-desk, or every admin in a message from Phone. The message says who called, from which address, and the number to call them back on.

Emergency addresses can be in the United States and Canada. Addresses are saved now and sent to the carrier as soon as emergency registration turns on; until then they show as Saved.

Click-to-call from your CRM

A Call button in your CRM, help desk or your own app can call through Freesbe. The person’s Freesbe phone rings first, in the app on their computer or phone; once they answer, Freesbe dials the customer from your workspace’s number, so the call shows up in their calls like any other.

• From the other system’s server: make an app with the phone:call permission and send POST /api/workspaces/{w}/phone/calls with its token, the number in to, and whose phone rings in userId or email.
• As a person: an AI agent you connect with the phone:call permission can call for you with its call_phone_number tool. It never gets that permission unless it asks for it.
• How it went: the phone.call_ended event says whether the customer answered and how long you talked, with the leadId and vars the call was started with, so the CRM can log it. Apps with phone:call and outgoing webhooks can subscribe to it.

The person has to be signed in to Freesbe’s phone somewhere; if not, or if they’re on another call, the call isn’t started and the answer says why. The details are in the API reference.

Turning the phone system off

Turn off phone system stops calls, texts and everyone’s phone logins right away. Your numbers aren’t released yet: they’re kept for 30 days. Click Turn phone system back on before then and everything comes back as it was: numbers, who they ring and people’s phones.

While it’s off, the Phone system add-on (and Call center, if you have it) isn’t charged from your next renewal; what’s already paid isn’t refunded (see Adding and removing). The numbers you keep are still billed, and none are included, so each local number counts as a Phone number add-on. Turning it back on before the renewal costs nothing extra; after it, the add-on is charged again for the rest of the period.

Admins get an email when it turns off, nine days before the numbers are released and again two days before. On the release date the numbers go back to the carrier, and you may not get them again. To keep a number with another provider, contact support@freesbe.net to port it out before then.

When the numbers are released, the Phone system add-on ends with them, so there’s nothing to remove on the Billing page.

When the Phone system add-on ends

You can remove the Phone system add-on on the Billing page while you still have numbers. Freesbe tells you first what happens to them, and nothing is released by surprise:

• Until the end of the period you’ve paid for, the phone system keeps working. Phone system shows the date it ends, with Open Billing to keep the add-on.
• On that date the phone system turns off, like turning it off yourself, and admins get an email. The numbers are kept for 30 days, billed as usual with none included, then released.
• Add the Phone system add-on again before then and the phone system comes back on by itself, as it was.

The same happens when you cancel and the workspace moves to Free, which has no phone system: the Move to Free button says so first. On Free there’s no bill, so the 30 days cost nothing. To keep a number with another provider, contact support@freesbe.net to port it out before the release date.

A plan that doesn’t come with the phone system can’t be chosen while the workspace has one. Turn the phone system off and let its numbers go first, or stay on your plan.

Deactivating someone lowers the number of local numbers that come included. If the workspace then has more local numbers than people, Freesbe says what the extra numbers add a month before you confirm. See Who counts as a person.

If a payment is overdue

• After 7 days, outgoing calls and texts pause. Incoming calls still ring, so customers can still reach you.
• After 14 days, the phone system turns off, and the 30 days before the numbers are released start.
• Once you pay, everything turns back on by itself.

If you don’t see Phone system from Freesbe, your workspace doesn’t have the Phone system add-on, or it isn’t offered on your server yet. A workspace uses either Freesbe’s phone system or its own sip.io account, not both: disconnect sip.io before turning Freesbe’s on.

For admins: connect sip.io

1. Open the Admin Center, then Phone → Settings.
2. Enter the sip.io API address (like https://example.sip.io/api), your Account ID and your API key. The key is stored encrypted and never shown again.
3. Click Connect sip.io.

From then on, Freesbe creates one sip.io device for each person who sets up their phone. Passwords are read from sip.io when someone asks to see theirs; Freesbe never stores them.

Assign each device to the sip.io user with the same email links each device to the matching PBX user (and extension). Only addresses people have verified are matched, but only tick it if you trust that every account’s email belongs to that person.

When someone leaves the workspace, their device is turned off and its password scrambled. Disconnect turns off every device Freesbe made on sip.io and scrambles their passwords, so nobody keeps a working line by accident; new phone accounts go back to test credentials. Connecting a different sip.io account does the same to the old account’s devices. Connecting the same account again with a new key keeps everyone’s devices.

If your workspace doesn’t use phones, the Phone section says Phone calling is off.