This article covers how to use the Pipeliner Calling & Messaging feature. You can initiate a call directly from your Pipeliner cloud web application using a personal, or company, phone number and then log the call as a completed task. You can also send one-off or mass text messages directly from within the web app — using a purchased Pipeliner VOIP number — making keeping in touch with your customers and prospects even more seamless and efficient.

NOTE: The Pipeliner Calling & Messaging feature is an add-on to Pipeliner that will require the purchase of call credits to use for Calls and VOIP numbers to use for Text Messaging for your subscription.

To use this feature, the first step is to request activation of the "Calling & Messaging" application from the "Automation Hub".

Using the “App Switcher”, select “Administration” and then click on the “Automation Hub” menu. Scroll down until you see the card for “Calling & Messaging” and click on “Request” ⤵

The app will then display as “Add Pending”. Once one of the Pipeliner team has activated the feature for your subscription, it will then become available as an option in the “Tools” menu in the Pipeliner web application ⤵

In order to use the "Text Messaging" feature, users have to use a purchased Pipeliner VOIP number. These phone numbers can be purchased by "Subscription Administrators" or by individual Users if their User Role is set to allow them to purchase VOIP numbers. These numbers can also be used for Outbound Calling.

Users can also be granted access to use “company” VOIP numbers as well as their assigned VOIP number for Outbound Calling and Text Messaging. Purchased VOIP numbers can be enabled as “Company Phones” by Pipeliner Administrators from the "Settings › Company Phones" tab in the Admin Module.

NOTE: VOIP numbers are currently only available for purchase in the following regions: US, Canada, UK, and Australia.

NOTE: Purchased VOIP numbers will be billed by Pipeliner post-purchase.

You can enable an existing “personal” number — e.g. your Mobile number — to use for Outbound Calling but not for text messaging.

Each user needs to activate either “Outbound Calling” for just calling or “Outbound calling and Text Messaging” for both using a Pipeliner VOIP number.

Clicking on the "Calling & Messaging" option for the first time will prompt each user to activate the feature for themselves ⤵

Clicking on “Outbound calling”, prompts you to add your personal or existing phone number directly by clicking on “Add Your Phone Number”. If you add your phone number directly, you’ll need to enter a valid number, including country code, and then choose “Call Me and Verify” ⤵

You can also activate the feature from your "User Settings". Open the "Apps" tab in your User Settings and scroll down to find “Calling & Messaging” and then click on “Activate” ⤵

When you activate for the first time, you’ll need to choose “Add New Phone Number” and will then need to enter a valid phone number, including country code, and click on “Call Me and Verify” ⤵

Once you’ve added a number and click on “Call Me and Verify”, the verification process will call your number and you will need to enter the verification code that will be displayed on the screen into your phone ⤵

Once that’s completed, you’ll receive confirmation that the verification has been completed successfully ⤵

Click on “Try Calling Integration” to initiate your first call.

Click on “Outbound Calling & Text Messaging” and then choose your region and click "Search" to see a list of available VOIP numbers and the estimated monthly cost ⤵

Please note that VOIP numbers are only available for certain regions — US, Canada, UK, and Australia — if you select another region, no numbers will be displayed for selection.

Fill in the name for the "VOIP" number ⤵

We recommend adding an email address to use the "Message Forwarding" to Email option to receive a Pipeliner email notification of a text message reply to the "VOIP" number ⤵

We also recommend adding a backup personal phone number for "Call Forwarding". This will let a call be forwarded to an answerable phone number if the recipient of a text message calls the number rather than replying by text. Without call forwarding, their call would not be connected.

You can edit these choices from "User Settings › Apps › Calling and Messaging" and then clicking on the "Configure" button ⤵

Select your Pipeliner VOIP number and choose "Edit" to change the name or forwarding details ⤵

Clicking on "Add Phone Number" will allow you to set up an existing phone number to be used for "Outbound Calling" only ⤵

NOTE: You can only have one Pipeliner VOIP number set up to use for text messaging

If you no longer want to use the number, click on "Delete" ⤵

Please notify your Admin that you are no longer using the number so they can remove it from the billing.

The gear icon to the right of the "Start Call" button accesses your "Audio Settings" — you will need to give the widget permission to access your microphone and speakers prior to your first call ⤵

If you start a call by clicking on the “Calling & Messaging” option from the “Tools” menu, you will be prompted to select the number to call ⤵

Click on “Select a number to call” and type in the number yourself or search within your "Accounts and Contacts" to find a number saved in Pipeliner already ⤵

If you type, or paste, in a number, you can then click on “Start Call” ⤵

Searching within Accounts and Contacts will bring up all matching options. Choose the person or company you want to call and then use the “Call Now” option ⤵

Click on any phone number saved in Pipeliner and select the “Call from Browser” option to initiate a call ⤵

The Calling widget will display the number you’re about to call and will also remind you of the number that you’re using and which will be shown as your caller ID. You can choose a different number to call from the small icon to the left of the "Start Call" button.

Cancel the call by clicking the "red cross" in the top right corner.

To proceed with the call, click on “Start Call” ⤵

The display will change to “Ringing” and you can “Hang Up” at any time ⤵

Once the call is answered, the call duration will be tracked and you will also be able to mute yourself if desired ⤵

If the number you have called requires you to then select additional options from the phone tree, click on the "dial pad" icon so you can enter the options you need ⤵

As soon as you finish your call by hanging up, you’ll see that the call has finished and it will display the total duration of the call. The duration of the call automatically updates into the "Call Duration" field for every call made using the "Calling" feature

Log the details of your call immediately by adding your call notes into the "Description" field and select the "Call Outcome" from the dropdown ⤵

Click on “Save as a New Task” to save the call straight into the "Activities and Feed" for the "Contact" (or "Account") ⤵

Or choose “Edit Task” to open up the standard New Task screen from Pipeliner so you can add your call details and fill in any additional fields required in your Pipeliner setup ⤵

Click on the red cross to close the Calling widget completely or select a new number for your next call.

When you are reporting on Calls logged by your users, you’ll be able to include 2 new system fields in your Report — “Call Outcome” (you can also filter by different outcomes) and also “Call Duration” which will show you how long each call lasted. ⤵

If you want to change the options available in the “Call Outcome” field, you’ll need to have access to the Administration module and will then find the "Call Outcome" field under "Fields & Forms › Tasks" tab.

Find “Call Outcome” in the "Fields" list and click on it. Add or change the values your users can select from in the panel on the right hand side ⤵

Once you have a purchased VOIP number, you can send both “Standard” and “Mass” text messages from Pipeliner ⤵

A standard text is sent to a single recipient whereas a mass text is sent to multiple recipients at the same time.

The easiest way to send a standard text is to click on any "Mobile" phone number attached to a contact or account record and then choose to "Send Text" ⤵

Type in your message and click on “Send” or “Send & Close” to send it ⤵

If you have access to any “company phone” numbers, you will be able to select one of them from the drop-down next to "Send Text" from. By default the text will be sent from your Pipeliner VOIP number ⤵

You can change the number to “Send Text to” by typing a new number or searching within Pipeliner for a different number for your Contact.

If you want to log and report the number of texts being sent, your users need to check the box to “Log text as task”.

NOTE: If you’re an Enterprise or Unlimited Tier customer, remember you can create custom task types — e.g. Text — to track these even more efficiently.

Users can also choose to schedule a follow-up task directly by checking the “Create follow up …” option and selecting which type of Task to plan and for when by choosing the "+" days or a specific date.

Finally, by default, the Text message will link to the Contact whose number you are sending to (and will be visible on the Feed for that Contact) but you can select additional records to link to if you need to ⤵

Open the "Contact’s Feed" to see the text and carry on the conversation ⤵

Open up the main "Feeds" menu to see all texts ⤵

NOTE: You’ll need to make sure that “Text Messages” is ticked in your "Feeds Record Settings".

If you want to create a "Feeds Profile" to show you just text messages, uncheck all options except "Text Messages" and then click on the gear icon and “Save as” to save your profile with a new name ⤵

The easiest way to send a "Mass Text" message is using the List View with your filter (to identify the Contacts you want to send to) already applied ⤵

Click in the checkbox in the top left to select all your filtered contacts and then navigate to the “Create Text Message” option on the menu bar and click on “Mass” ⤵

Choose which phone number to use from the "Contacts’" records ⤵

Type your message and click on “Send” ⤵

NOTE: if some of your selected Contacts have no Mobile phone number (and this is the number you have selected to send your text to, they will not be included in the Mass text)

You’ll see each text individually on the main Feed and on each record’s Feed too. If you chose to also log the text as a Task, you’ll also see a completed Activity on the Activities tab.

Pipeliner users can reply to an existing conversation in the Mobile but cannot initiate new conversations.

Recipients can unsubscribe from communication by using any of the following “stop” words

STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT

If a recipient unsubscribes from text messages, they are marked as "Unsubscribed" in Pipeliner ⤵

NOTE: Currently emails and texts shares the same "Unsubscribe" value. So when the Contact or Account is unsubscribed from emails, then it is also automatically unsubscribed from Text messaging and vice versa.

To track the total duration of calls made by users as well as the number of call credits used, your Pipeliner Admins will click on “Automation Hub”, find the “Calling” application and then click on “Configure” ⤵

This will then show the "Usage Overview" ⤵

If the Admin is also a Subscription Administrator, they will be able to use the “buy calling credit” clickthrough to add additional credits to the subscription and also to access VOIP numbers and Logs.

See this article for how to add a Subscription Administrator.

Pipeliner Subscription Admins can manage "Calling & Messaging" by adding "Call Credits". First, you need to log in to customer-portal.pipelinersales.com and then click on the "Calling & Messaging" menu ⤵

From the “Credit” tab, click on “Purchase Calling Credit” to add credits for calls and texts made via the "Calls & Messaging" feature in the web application ⤵

NOTE: You will need to pay by credit card and the minimum number of minutes that can be purchased in a single transaction is "100".

From the VOIP Numbers tab, click on “Purchase VOIP number” to add a number that can be used for Text Messaging. Choose a region by country code and then click on “Search” to find available numbers. Users, whose User Role allows, can also purchase VOIP numbers for their own use ⤵

Choose the number you prefer from those available. “Capability” shows whether the number can be used for "Calling" and/or "Text Messaging" and the estimated cost of the number is also displayed ⤵

The Subscription Admin can configure the VOIP number in the purchase wizard or the user can do this in "User Settings › Apps › Calling & Messaging" for their own purchased numbers ⤵

We recommend using the "Message Forwarding to Email" option to receive a Pipeliner email notification of a text message reply to the VOIP number ⤵

We also recommend adding a backup number for "Call Forwarding". This lets a call be forwarded to a genuine phone number if the recipient of a text message calls the number rather than replying by text. Without call forwarding, the call would not be connected.

Click on the “Logs” tab to see a list view of all calls and messages with user, numbers, and cost ⤵

In Logs, a Subscription Admin user can see the following costs in the header

All of these costs are deducted from the total Credit purchased. AI costs are updated daily not after each call ⤵

Filtering the display does not change the costs displayed ⤵

NOTE: You can filter by period, user, numbers used, or status of the calls/messages.

The Recording Cost displays the cost of each individual recording once added to the List View.

Users can delete their VOIP number when they decide to stop using it from their "User Settings". When they do this, they are prompted to notify their Admins as, even though the deleted phone number will be unassigned from the user, it still exists on the subscription, so you will continue to be charged for this number unless you delete it!!

You can keep track of all numbers from the "VOIP numbers" tab. The status of each number shows if it’s "Assigned" to a user or "Unassigned". You can then "Delete" it to remove it from your billing completely. ⤵

Or you can “Assign” it to another user if it’s a "Personal VOIP" number or makes it a company number ⤵

NOTE: All VOIP numbers will be billed manually by the Pipeliner team.

You also need to be an Administrator user (not only a Subscription Administrator) if you want to manage "User Role" access to "Calling & Messaging".

From the "Admin Module › Units", "Users & Roles" menu, click on the "Roles" tab and select the Role you want to update. Click on "Edit Role" ⤵

You’ll find the options relating to "Calling & Messaging" on the "Features" tab under the "Tools" section. You can allow all users based on the role to purchase VOIP numbers by ticking the option and can also specify if "All" or "Selected Company" "Phone Numbers" can be accessed.

You can also completely remove access to the "Calling & Messaging" feature by switching it off completely ⤵