Making and Receiving Calls

The UCBC Softphone is the small floating phone widget available throughout the Agent Portal, so you can make and take calls without ever leaving whatever page you're working on. This guide walks through everything it can do, like a first-day walkthrough of your new phone.

Opening the Softphone#

Look for the small round phone-shaped button floating near a corner of the screen — click it to open the softphone panel. Click the status dot at the top; once it's green, you're registered and ready to make and receive calls. Click the minus sign in the widget's header to collapse it back down without closing it.

The softphone panel

Screenshot needed · softphone-panel

Making Your First Call#

1. Open the softphone if it isn't already open.
2. Make sure you're on the dial pad (it's the default view). Type a number using your keyboard or by tapping the on-screen keypad. Made a typo? Use the backspace icon at the right edge of the number box to correct it.
3. Click the green Call button.
4. If your extension has more than one outbound Caller ID set up, you'll see a "Choose number to call out on" pop-up before the call dials — pick which of your numbers you want to appear to the person you're calling, the same way you'd pick which SIM to dial out on a dual-SIM phone. If you only have one number configured, UCBC skips this step and just dials — there's nothing to choose.

You can also start a call without using the dial pad at all:

• From the Recent tab, click any row to redial that number.
• From the Contacts tab, click a saved contact or colleague to call them.

Answering an Incoming Call#

When a call comes in, the softphone pops up an incoming-call screen showing the caller's name (when known) and number.

• If the number that was dialed to reach you matches one of your own configured Caller ID identities, a small badge with an ID-card icon shows which of your numbers the caller actually used to reach you — useful when you handle more than one line and want to answer appropriately.
• If the call came in through an IVR menu, that menu's label is shown right alongside the caller's name.
• If the incoming call includes video, a small video-camera badge appears so you know before you answer that accepting will also turn on your camera.
• Click the green phone icon to answer, or the red phone icon to reject.

During a Call#

Once connected, you'll see the other party's name/number, a running call timer, and a row of controls:

• Mute — mutes your own microphone; click again to unmute.
• Speaker — (shown only when your browser/device supports it) switches audio between your earpiece and loudspeaker.
• Volume slider — controls how loud the call sounds to you; click the speaker icon next to it to mute what you hear entirely.
• Add — starts a second, separate call (for example, to loop in a colleague). Your first call is automatically placed on hold — you'll see an On Hold label on their name — while you dial the second number. Once connected, a Merge button appears so you can bring both calls together into one.
• Transfer — starts an attended transfer: your current call is put on hold while you dial and talk to the transfer destination first, so you can explain the situation before actually handing the caller off. Once that second call connects, a Transfer button appears to complete the handoff.
• Hang Up — ends the call.

The in-call screen with transfer/hold/mute controls

Screenshot needed · in-call-controls

Recent Calls#

The Recent tab lists your latest calls — outgoing, incoming, and missed — each marked with an arrow icon showing its direction and, when the duration is known, how long the call lasted.

• Click a row to redial that number.
• Click the small circle-info icon on a row to see that call's details: the exact date and time, the number that was called (showing a saved name if you have one), and which of your own Caller IDs was used for that call ("Called out on" for a call you placed, "Called via" for one that came in).
• If a number in your Recent list isn't already a saved contact, a small "add person" icon lets you save it on the spot.

Contacts#

The Contacts tab is your shared team directory plus any colleagues already in the system — searchable, with click-to-dial on every row.

To save a new contact (for example, right from a recent call):

1. Click the "add person" icon next to a number in your Recent list, or open the save-contact option from the Contacts tab.
2. Fill in the Name (required), and optionally Company and Email.
3. Choose the contact's visibility:
   • Public — visible to every agent and supervisor in your organization.
   • Private — visible only to you (marked with a small lock icon in the list).
4. Click Save.

Ringtone Settings#

Click the small gear icon in the softphone's tab row to open ringtone settings.

1. You'll see a list of available ringtones, each with a checkmark showing which one is currently selected and a play icon to preview it.
2. Click the play icon on any ringtone to hear a quick preview before committing to it.
3. Click a ringtone's row to select it — your choice is saved immediately and will be used for every incoming call from then on, on any device where you log in.

Tips#

• If your extension only has one outbound Caller ID configured, you'll never see the "Choose number to call out on" pop-up — it only appears when there's an actual choice to make.
• The small badge showing which of your numbers a caller dialed only appears when that number matches one of your own configured identities — an unrecognized number simply shows no badge.
• Saved contacts show up by name throughout the softphone — in Recent, during an incoming call, and anywhere else a number would otherwise show as a bare string of digits.
• Keep Private contacts for anything personal; use Public for anything the rest of the team should be able to look up too.