Inbound Call
An inbound call in Salesforce is a customer-initiated voice call that reaches a contact center through Salesforce-connected telephony, then surfaces inside the agent's console with the matching customer record and call data attached.
Definition
An inbound call in Salesforce is a customer-initiated voice call that reaches a contact center through Salesforce-connected telephony, then surfaces inside the agent's console with the matching customer record and call data attached. The platform opens the related contact or case, records call details on a Voice Call object, and can fire automation when the call connects, transfers, or ends. An inbound call differs from an outbound call (the agent dials out) and from an internal call (agent to agent or agent to supervisor).
Salesforce handles inbound voice mainly through Service Cloud Voice, which routes calls with Amazon Connect, with a certified partner telephony provider such as Cisco, Genesys, or NICE CXone, or with your own Amazon Connect instance under Bring Your Own Telephony. Older call centers used the Open CTI JavaScript framework so any vendor could embed a softphone. Open CTI is now deprecated and set to retire on February 28, 2028, with Service Cloud Voice as its replacement.
How an inbound call moves through Salesforce
The inbound call lifecycle
An inbound call starts when a customer dials your published number and the telephony platform answers. Before an agent ever picks up, the call usually passes through an IVR menu that collects intent and may authenticate the caller. The telephony layer then hands the call to Salesforce for routing. Omni-Channel evaluates the work, matches it to an available agent by skills and capacity, and pushes the call as a work item into the Service Console. When the agent accepts, the voice path connects and the conversation begins. Throughout this flow Salesforce is creating and updating a Voice Call record so the interaction has a permanent home. The record captures who called, when, how long the call lasted, and which contact or case it relates to. After the agent hangs up, post-call steps run: the agent sets a disposition, a wrap-up summary is written, and any follow-up automation fires. Understanding this sequence matters because each stage is a place where you can configure behavior, attach data, or trigger a flow.
Open CTI and its retirement
Open CTI is the browser-based JavaScript API that let third-party telephony vendors embed a softphone in Salesforce without installing a desktop CTI adapter. It defines events for calls arriving, being answered, and ending, plus methods to search for a record, screen pop, and save call data. Two separate versions existed, one for Salesforce Classic and one for Lightning Experience, and they were not interchangeable. For years this framework was the foundation under nearly every inbound call integration. That has changed. Open CTI is deprecated and scheduled to retire on February 28, 2028, after which those implementations stop working. It is already unavailable for newly created Agentforce Service orgs, and Salesforce adds no new features to it. The recommended path forward is Service Cloud Voice, which is natively integrated with Omni-Channel and the supervisor tooling rather than bolted on through a vendor adapter. If you still run an Open CTI softphone, treat migration planning as current work, not a future concern.
Service Cloud Voice as the native option
Service Cloud Voice is the supported way to bring inbound voice into Salesforce today. It presents one experience inside the Service Console: the softphone, the customer record, live transcription, and AI assistance sit together. Under the telephony layer you choose a model. Amazon Connect is the Salesforce-managed option. Partner telephony connects certified providers like Cisco, Genesys, and NICE CXone through a managed package. Bring Your Own Telephony lets you point Voice at an Amazon Connect instance your own team controls. Whichever model you pick, the agent sees the same console and the same Voice Call data model. Voice ties into Einstein for auto-generated call sentiment and AI work summaries, so reps spend less time on after-call notes. Recording and transcription are configurable, including the speech-to-text model. Because Voice is built on Omni-Channel, a call is just another routable work item alongside chat, email, and cases. That unification is the main reason Salesforce steers new contact centers here instead of legacy softphone integrations.
The Voice Call object and its data
Every inbound call writes to the Voice Call standard object, available since API version 40.0. It represents a phone or VoIP call captured by Salesforce Voice, Sales Dialer, or another supported connector. Key fields include CallType, whose values are Inbound, Outbound, and Internal, so the same object cleanly distinguishes the three directions. CallDurationInSeconds stores how long the call ran, while start and end timestamps anchor it in time. CallDisposition holds the outcome the agent selected. A related field links the Voice Call back to the contact, account, or case it belongs to, which is what makes the call show up on the customer timeline. Child objects extend the picture: VoiceCallRecording stores the audio, and transcript records hold the text. Because all of this lives in standard Salesforce objects, you report on it with normal reports and dashboards. Call volume, average handle time, transfer rate, and per-agent productivity all come from querying Voice Call. Custom fields and flows can extend the object for your own metrics.
Screen pop and caller matching
The screen pop is the moment an inbound call earns its keep. When the call routes to an agent, Salesforce can automatically open up to three related records, for example the caller's contact, their open case, and a recent order, each on its own subtab. The agent answers already looking at context instead of asking for an account number. Behind this sits caller matching. Turning on Match Callers to End User Records tells Voice to look up the inbound number against your data and link the call to the right person. For richer logic, Salesforce ships a Find Contact Associated with Voice Call flow template, and an Omni-Channel flow with a Screen Pop action controls exactly which records open. You decide the search criteria, what happens on a single match versus multiple matches, and whether to offer record creation when no match exists. Tuning this well pays off fast. A precise match against the right identifier removes a manual lookup on every call, and the cumulative time saved across a busy queue is significant.
Omni-Channel routing and dispositions
Omni-Channel is the engine that decides which agent gets an inbound call. It treats the call as a work item and routes by skills, availability, and capacity, the same way it handles chats and cases. You can route with Omni-Channel flows, which gives admins a no-code way to branch on caller input, queue, or business hours before the call ever rings an agent. Supervisors get real-time queue visibility, can listen in on a live call, and see contact center activity in one place. After the conversation, the disposition closes the loop. The agent picks a code such as Sale Closed, Information Provided, or Refund Issued on the Voice Call record. Some orgs require a wrap-up note, others auto-generate one from the transcript with Einstein. Those disposition values become the primary signal of what your contact center actually accomplishes. Build them deliberately. A short, clear, mutually exclusive picklist produces clean outcome reporting, while vague catch-all codes like Other quietly destroy the analytical value of every call you handle.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Amazon Connect (Salesforce-managed), certified partner telephony (Cisco, Genesys, NICE CXone), or Bring Your Own Telephony pointing at your own Amazon Connect instance.
Toggle that links an inbound caller's number to the matching customer record so the agent sees who is calling.
An Omni-Channel flow element that opens up to three related records on the agent's screen when the call routes to them.
Optional capture of call audio and a speech-to-text transcript, with a configurable speech model, feeding Einstein sentiment and work summaries.
- 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.
Prefer this walkthrough as its own page? How to Inbound Call in Salesforce, step by step
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Inbound Call.
- Service Cloud Voice (Salesforce Help)Salesforce
- Link Calls with Customer Contact RecordsSalesforce
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Inbound Call.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is an Inbound Call in a Salesforce contact center?
Q2. Which framework lets any telephony vendor render its softphone inside the Salesforce console and respond to call events?
Q3. On an Inbound Call, how does Salesforce identify which customer record to screen-pop as the call connects?
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