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Overview

You can use call forwarding to dynamically route incoming calls based on any of several factors.
  • Agent availability: You can place calls in a holding queue and route them to an available agent as soon as one is available.
  • Business hours: You can route calls to an office number during business hours and to a mobile phone or voicemail during non-business hours.
  • Time zones: You can forward calls to agents from different time zones to ensure round-the-clock availability.
This guide shows how to forward calls either by using our PHLO visual workflow builder or our APIs and XML documents. Follow the instructions in one of the tabs below.
You can create and deploy a workflow to implement call forwarding with a few clicks on the PHLO canvas.

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Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. To receive incoming calls, you must have a voice-enabled Plivo phone number. You can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API.

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Create the PHLO

To create a PHLO, visit the PHLO page of the Plivo console. If this is your first PHLO, the PHLO page will be empty.
  • Click CREATE NEW PHLO.
  • In the Choose your use case pop-up, click Build my own. The PHLO canvas will appear with the Start node.
    Note: The Start node is the starting point of any PHLO. It lets you trigger a PHLO to start upon one of three actions: incoming SMS message, incoming call, or API request.
  • From the list of components on the left side, drag and drop the Call Forward component onto the canvas. When a component is placed on the canvas it becomes a node.
  • Draw a line to connect the Start node‘s Incoming Call trigger state to the Call Forward node.
  • In the Configuration tab at the right of the canvas, configure the Call Forward node to select the From number using a variable. Enter two curly brackets to view all available variables, and choose the appropriate one. Enter all the numbers you want to call in the To field, separated with commas.
  • Once you’ve configured the node, click Validate to save the configuration.
  • Give the PHLO a name by clicking in the upper left, then click Save.
Your complete PHLO should look like this.

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Assign the PHLO to a Plivo number

Once you’ve created and configured your PHLO, assign it to a Plivo number.
  • On the Numbers page of the console, under Your Numbers, click the phone number you want to use for the PHLO.
  • In the Number Configuration box, select PHLO from the Application Type drop-down.
  • From the PHLO Name drop-down, select the PHLO you want to use with the phone number, then click Update Number.

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Test

You can now call your Plivo phone number and see how the inbound call is forwarded.For more information about creating a PHLO application, see the PHLO Getting Started guide. For information on components and their variables, see the PHLO Components Library.