Enable and use Front’s Dialpad integration [new]

Dialpad is an AI-powered business communications platform delivering future-proof solutions that will drive the next wave of how businesses connect with and serve their customers. With the Dialpad integration, Front users can seamlessly manage SMS and voice channels directly alongside email, live chat, and more in one unified workspace.

Use Front’s Dialpad integration to seamlessly:

• Place and receive voice calls directly in your Front inbox

• Listen, comment, and tag teammates on voicemails, call recordings, and transcripts

• Get up to speed fast with AI summaries of past calls

• Keep agents focused with automatic Busy status updates

• Select phone number for outgoing SMS

You must have both Dialpad company admin permissions AND Front admin permissions to set up non-personal numbers in Front.

Exception: Personal Dialpad phone numbers assigned to specific agents must be connected by those agents in Front.

• Only Voice by Dialpad channels are supported. Agents cannot send SMS messages using the SMS by Dialpad channel.

• Admins cannot connect these channels on behalf of agents.

To set up the Dialpad integration in Front, admins will need to complete most setup steps in both Dialpad and Front. 

1. In Dialpad, company admins need to:

   1. Establish a call center/department by purchasing phone numbers and creating users.

   2. Set up the call center/department with routing logic (e.g. by round robin, area code, etc.), voicemail inboxes, and call hours.

   3. You must assign phone numbers to call centers/departments to see those conversations in Front. Calls routed to call centers/departments that do not have phone numbers are not supported.

2. In Front, admins need to:

   1. Log into a Front account using the same email address you use with Dialpad.

   2. Connect phone numbers to the Front inbox you would like the voice call or SMS conversation to be in using the Dialpad channel integration.

Non-admins can follow the steps in the “Enabling the integration” section to connect personal Dialpad phone numbers to their individual (personal) inboxes.

• For an agent to be notified or for a call conversation to show up in Front, the number will need to be connected as a channel in Front. SMS and Voice for the same number must be set up separately.

• Calls are routed through Dialpad. Front will notify agents based on the Dialpad call assignment. Because of this, an agent must log into Front and the Dialpad integration with the same email address.

• The conversation will display in the Front inbox where the channel is connected. For voice calls, once the channel is connected, the conversation will get assigned to the agent that picked up the call.

• As long as a Dialpad channel is connected to a Front inbox, admins can leverage Front rules according to their needs.

The inbound caller will be mapped to the appropriate Front contact, as long as the number being used to make the call matches a number stored in your Contacts. Front can successfully match to contacts in the Contact Manager or synced from a CRM plugin (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, etc).

Note: The format of the numbers must match exactly, including parentheses, spaces, and the leading country code.

If a contact already exists in Front with a matching phone number, then the message will display their name as the sender. If the contact does not already exist in Front, a new contact will be created for that phone number. Contact information like first and last names will not sync from Dialpad to Front.

• Agents need to be signed in with the same email address in Front and Dialpad.

• Agents will be prompted to login to Dialpad once a channel they have access to is connected. If they do not log in then, or if their login session expires, they will be prompted to log in before making an outbound or receiving an inbound call.

• Agents must enable microphone access for Front.

These instructions assume you’ve already set up a call center in Dialpad, and are applicable for both Dialpad voice call and SMS channels.

Step 1

In Front, click the gear icon on the top right and select company, workspace, or personal settings in the left sidebar, depending on the space you’re working with.

Step 2

Click Inboxes in the left menu and create a new shared inbox, or an existing inbox you would like to connect your Dialpad number(s) to.

Step 3

Click Channels in the left menu, then click the Connect a channel button.

Step 4

Navigate to the Voice by Dialpad option or SMS by Dialpad option, then click Connect. Click the Connect to Dialpad button on the next screen.

Step 5

A pop-up will open prompting you to sign in with your Dialpad account. Make sure the email address in the Work email field matches the email address you use to log into Front.

Click Log in to Dialpad to continue.

Step 6

Click Allow on the Access Approval page. The pop-up will automatically close.

Step 7

Using the dropdown, select the phone number you want to connect to your Front inbox. Click Continue.

Step 8

Select the inbox to connect to your channel. All calls and messages from your channel will route to this inbox by default. Click Continue to finish.

Your team can now use this Dialpad number with Front to make and receive calls, access call recordings and transcripts, etc. if you connected a voice channel, or send and receive messages if you connected an SMS channel.

Once a Front admin has enabled the integration, agents can use Dialpad inside Front.

To make an outbound call, select the arrow next to the Compose button, then select New call.

Enter a phone number in the Keypad tab or select a contact in the Contacts tab, then click the call (phone) button.

Click the Go to conversation button in the call widget to navigate to the conversation.

You can also make outbound calls from your Front Contacts plugin.

When there’s an incoming call, you’ll hear a ringtone and see a call widget pop-up at the bottom left. To answer the call, you can either:

• Click Answer via Dialpad in the call widget

• Click Answer in the conversation

The call will automatically assign to you when you answer it.

Click the Dialpad icon to expand the widget to take additional actions (mute, transfer, etc.) using the toolbar icons. Use the caret (^) icon to minimize the widget. You can always re-open it using the Dialpad icon in the conversation.

After you end a call, you’ll see a Call ended activity update in the conversation and conversation list.

Call summaries, transcripts, and call recordings are available for applicable conversations.

Use Front’s comment feature to take notes during or after the call. This is useful for adding call summaries, action items, and more. You can also add contextual comments on the call transcript.

When you’re done with the conversation, follow your team’s specific workflows that may include archiving or tagging the conversation.

If no one is available to answer a call, a conversation will be created and marked as marked as Call missed or Voicemail in the conversation list.

For voicemails, Front will display call recordings and transcripts generated by Dialpad.

To send an SMS message, click the Compose button. In the From field, select the phone number you want to send from. In the To field, enter the phone number you want to send a message to. 

Enter your message in the composer and add emojis, attachments, message templates, or knowledge base article links as needed. Once finished, send the message using one of Front’s sending options. 

Messages from the same customer will thread together into the same conversation. To separate topics into new conversations, use the Split conversation feature in the message’s three-dot menu.

See this article for more instructions on how to update your Dialpad channels and unpin your Dialpad plugin.

Front uses the assignment rules set up in Dialpad to route calls to agents. Incoming calls are automatically assigned to the Front user who answered the call. Outbound calls are automatically assigned to the Front user who made the call. If you’d like to change this, you can create Front rules to automatically unassign conversations.

Call summaries, transcripts, and recordings won’t be available in Front if Dialpad doesn’t generate them. Dialpad may not generate these resources if the agent doesn’t have access to the feature, doesn’t turn on the feature, or the call does not meet length requirements. See this Dialpad article for more information.

No. The integration does not support user extensions.

Yes. Images and videos will be visible inline when viewing the message.

Yes. You can use MMS messages to send outbound replies with media files up to 500 KB.

Not yet, but analytics and CSAT support are on the roadmap for future updates.

Yes. All calls and SMS messages will be visible in both Front and Dialpad for each phone number connected to Front.

This feature is available on the latest Growth plan or above.