Softphone
A softphone is a software based phone interface inside Salesforce that lets a service agent make, answer, and control calls without a physical desk phone.
Definition
A softphone is a software based phone interface inside Salesforce that lets a service agent make, answer, and control calls without a physical desk phone. It lives in the utility bar of a Lightning console app and shows call controls such as answer, hold, transfer, and end, along with caller details and call logging.
How the softphone fits into Salesforce telephony
The softphone is the agent-facing surface of a call center
Salesforce treats telephony as a connection between an external phone system and the user interface. The softphone is the visible part of that connection. It is a call-control panel that an agent uses to handle voice work, and it sits in the utility bar so it stays open across every record the agent views. A call center record links the softphone to a specific provider. The softphone itself does not place calls on the network. It sends instructions to the connected phone system and reflects the state of each call back to the agent. When a call arrives, the softphone rings, displays the matched record, and offers answer or decline. During a live call it exposes hold, mute, transfer, conference, and wrap-up controls. Because it runs inside Salesforce, every action can be tied to a contact, case, or account. Salesforce supports two paths to a softphone. One is Open CTI, which wires up a third party phone system. The other is Salesforce Voice, also known as Service Cloud Voice, which is the native telephony product. Both present a softphone, but they differ in how the call media and routing are handled.
Open CTI: a browser based softphone with no desktop adapter
Open CTI is a browser based JavaScript API that embeds a third party phone system inside Salesforce. Its big idea is that agents make calls from a softphone directly in Salesforce without installing CTI adapters on their machines. Older telephony integrations needed a desktop plugin on every agent computer. Open CTI removes that. Because the softphone is just a web component driven by JavaScript, it works across browsers and operating systems. A partner builds the softphone as a Visualforce or Lightning component and registers it through a call center definition. The agent then sees it in the utility bar. Open CTI handles signaling and screen behavior, while the actual voice path stays with the partner phone system. One important caveat applies. Salesforce has placed Open CTI in maintenance mode, and it is scheduled to retire in February 2028. New telephony projects are pointed toward Salesforce Voice instead. Existing Open CTI softphones keep working for now, and many established contact centers still run on them. If you are starting fresh, weigh that retirement date before committing to an Open CTI build.
Salesforce Voice: the native softphone in the Omni-Channel widget
Salesforce Voice, the product formerly branded Service Cloud Voice, brings telephony into the platform as a first class channel. Instead of a separate vendor widget, the phone experience appears inside the Omni-Channel widget alongside chat and other work. That gives agents one consistent surface for every conversation. Voice connects to Amazon Connect or to a partner telephony provider for the underlying call media and routing. Calls flow through Omni-Channel, so they can be routed to queues and matched to agents by skill and availability, exactly like other work items. The native softphone adds capabilities that a generic Open CTI panel does not include out of the box. It supports real time transcription, so an agent can read the conversation as it happens and review the transcript afterward. It records and stores calls for quality and compliance, and it logs call activity automatically against the related record. Voice runs in supported browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, with cookies enabled for single sign-on. For new deployments, Salesforce treats Voice as the recommended direction.
The softphone layout controls what an agent sees on a call
A softphone layout is the configuration that decides what the call-control panel displays. An administrator with the Manage Call Centers permission builds it under Setup, then assigns it to user profiles. Profiles let you give a sales team and a support team different on-call views without changing the underlying phone system. A layout governs three things. First, the call-related fields shown for inbound, outbound, and internal calls, such as the phone number, duration, and any custom fields you want visible. Second, the call-related objects and their order, which control the links an agent can click to open or relate records during a call. Third, the screen pop behavior, which decides what opens when an incoming call matches zero records, exactly one record, or several records. A clean layout keeps the agent focused. Showing only the fields that matter reduces hunting during a live call. Sensible screen pop rules mean the right case or contact appears the moment the phone rings. Because assignment is by profile, you can tune the experience per team and update it centrally as your processes change.
Screen pops, click to dial, and automatic call logging
The softphone earns its keep through the small interactions that surround a call. Click to dial lets an agent start an outbound call by clicking a phone number on a contact, lead, or account, instead of reading digits aloud and keying them in. That removes mistakes and saves seconds on every dial. Screen pop is the inbound counterpart. When a call comes in, the softphone matches the caller against your data and pops the related record, so the agent opens the conversation already knowing who is calling and why. When the match is ambiguous, the layout can present a search result list to pick from. Call logging closes the loop. As the call ends, the softphone can create a task or call log against the matched record, capturing the time, duration, and notes without manual data entry. Native Salesforce Voice goes further and writes call recordings and transcripts to the record automatically. The combined effect is that a phone conversation leaves a clean trail in Salesforce, which keeps reporting honest and gives the next agent full context.
Putting the softphone in the utility bar of a console app
For agents to reach the softphone all day, it belongs in the utility bar of a Lightning console app. The utility bar is the fixed footer that opens tools in docked panels, so the phone stays one click away no matter which tab is in focus. Before the utility is useful, the telephony foundation has to exist. That means a configured Open CTI call center and adapter, or a provisioned Salesforce Voice contact center, depending on the path you chose. With that in place, an administrator adds the phone utility to the app through the App Manager and tunes its behavior. A common and important setting is to load the utility in the background when the app opens. With background loading on, the softphone is live before the agent opens the panel, so incoming calls ring even when the phone is minimized. Without it, an agent could miss calls until they manually open the utility. Placement, width, and the background load option together decide whether the softphone feels like a natural part of the console or an afterthought bolted to the side.
How to add a softphone to a Lightning console app
Once your call center is set up, you add the softphone to a Lightning console app so agents can reach it from the utility bar. These steps assume Open CTI or Salesforce Voice is already configured. You need the Customize Application and Manage Call Centers permissions.
- Confirm the telephony foundation
In Setup, verify that a call center exists (Open CTI) or that a Salesforce Voice contact center is provisioned. The softphone needs a backing phone system before it can connect.
- Open the console app in App Manager
From Setup, go to App Manager, find your Lightning console app, and choose Edit. Console-type apps are the ones that support a utility bar footer.
- Add the phone utility
On the Utility Bar (or App Settings) page, click Add and select the phone utility, such as Open CTI Softphone or the Salesforce Voice phone. It now appears in the app footer.
- Enable background loading
In the utility properties, turn on Load in background when app opens so agents receive incoming calls before they open the panel. Save the app.
- Design and assign a softphone layout
Under Setup, open Softphone Layouts, edit the call-related fields and screen pop rules, then assign the layout to the right user profiles. Save.
Keeps the softphone connected while minimized so inbound calls ring without the agent opening the utility first.
Sets how wide the docked softphone panel opens and the name agents see in the utility bar footer.
Maps each user profile to a softphone layout, so different teams get different on-call fields, objects, and screen pop behavior.
Defines what opens for an inbound call when it matches no record, one record, or several records.
- Without background loading enabled, agents can miss inbound calls until they manually open the softphone utility.
- Open CTI is in maintenance mode and retires in February 2028, so plan new builds on Salesforce Voice.
- Softphone layouts are assigned by user profile, so a profile with no assignment falls back to the default layout.
- Salesforce Voice runs on supported browsers like Chrome and Firefox, and single sign-on needs cookies enabled.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Softphone.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Softphone.
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.
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