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How-to guide

How to set up inbound calls with Service Cloud Voice

Setting up inbound calls means standing up Service Cloud Voice and letting Omni-Channel route incoming calls to agents in the Service Console. These are the core configuration steps; the exact telephony onboarding varies by whether you use Amazon Connect, partner telephony, or Bring Your Own Telephony.

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Founder & Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated Jun 16, 2026

Setting up inbound calls means standing up Service Cloud Voice and letting Omni-Channel route incoming calls to agents in the Service Console. These are the core configuration steps; the exact telephony onboarding varies by whether you use Amazon Connect, partner telephony, or Bring Your Own Telephony.

  1. Complete Voice prerequisites

    Set up the prerequisite services for Service Cloud Voice, including a custom My Domain and a single sign-on URL so agents can log in to the contact center cleanly. Pick your telephony model (Amazon Connect, partner telephony, or Bring Your Own Telephony) before you start wiring up calls.

  2. Enable Omni-Channel

    Turn on Omni-Channel so agents can receive and place calls as routed work items. Create the queues and routing configurations that inbound calls will flow through, and assign agents the right service presence and skills.

  3. Add the softphone to the console

    Configure the Service Console app and add the phone (utility) to the utility bar so agents have a softphone in front of them. Confirm the contact center and call center definition are connected to the right users.

  4. Set up caller matching and screen pop

    Turn on Match Callers to End User Records, then build an Omni-Channel flow with a Screen Pop action to open the matched contact, case, or custom records when a call arrives. Use the Find Contact Associated with Voice Call flow template as a starting point.

  5. Define dispositions and test

    Add disposition picklist values that reflect real call outcomes, enable recording and transcription if needed, then place a test inbound call to confirm routing, the screen pop, the Voice Call record, and the wrap-up all behave as expected.

Telephony modelremember

Amazon Connect (Salesforce-managed), certified partner telephony (Cisco, Genesys, NICE CXone), or Bring Your Own Telephony pointing at your own Amazon Connect instance.

Match Callers to End User Recordsremember

Toggle that links an inbound caller's number to the matching customer record so the agent sees who is calling.

Screen Pop actionremember

An Omni-Channel flow element that opens up to three related records on the agent's screen when the call routes to them.

Recording and transcriptionremember

Optional capture of call audio and a speech-to-text transcript, with a configurable speech model, feeding Einstein sentiment and work summaries.

Gotchas
  • Do not build a new inbound channel on Open CTI. It is deprecated, retires on February 28, 2028, and is already blocked for new Agentforce Service orgs.
  • Match callers against more than just Contact.Phone. Account phone numbers, custom identifier fields, and Person Account variants all affect whether the screen pop finds the right record.
  • Amazon Connect telephony minutes are billed separately from your Service Cloud Voice agent licenses, so model both costs before rollout.
  • Vague disposition codes like Other or a generic Resolved gut your outcome reporting. Keep the picklist short, specific, and mutually exclusive.

See the full Inbound Call entry

Inbound Call includes the definition, worked example, deep dive, related terms, and a quiz.