Enable and use Front’s Aircall integration [new]

Aircall is an AI-powered customer communications and intelligence platform that unifies channels, automates tasks, and provides insights for high-performing teams. With the Aircall integration, Front users can seamlessly manage SMS and voice channels directly alongside email, live chat, and more in one unified workspace.

Use Front’s Aircall 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 teammates focused with automatic Busy status updates

• Send and receive SMS messages directly from Front

🎥 Check out a demo below:

You must have both Aircall admin permissions AND Front admin permissions to set up Aircall channels in Front.

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

1. In Aircall, company admins need to:

   1. Establish phone numbers and associate teams and users to the phone numbers.

   2. Set up any call distribution logic, voicemail inboxes, call recording, etc. 

   3. Be on Aircall's Professional plan if you plan to use the Aircall SMS integration. See this Aircall article for more information.

   4. Optional: Set up the MCP integration to connect your Aircall AI Voice Agent to Front. See this Aircall article for more information.

2. In Front, admins need to:

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

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

• Teammates need to be signed in with the same email address in Front and Aircall.

• Teammates will be prompted to login to Aircall 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.

• Teammates must enable microphone access for Front.

• If logging in to Front via web browser, teammates must have third-party cookies enabled in the browser for the call widget to function. Check your web browser's instructions for guidance (e.g., Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox).

• For a teammate 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 should be set up separately.

• Calls are routed through Aircall. Front will notify teammates based on the Aircall call assignment. Because of this, a teammate must log into Front and the Aircall 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 teammate that picked up the call.

• Each call to or from a customer will create a new conversation or will thread into an existing conversation, depending on your channel settings.

• As long as an Aircall 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 Aircall to Front.

These instructions assume you’ve already set up phone numbers and call distribution in Aircall, and are applicable for both Aircall voice call and SMS channels.

Step 1

Click the gear icon, navigate to company settings, then select App store.

Step 2

Select Aircall from the list of integrations.

Step 3

Select the Settings tab, then adjust the toggles for the following company-wide settings:

• Set status to “Busy” during calls: 

  • Toggle on if you want to automatically set teammate statuses to “Busy” when they’re on calls. 

  • If toggled off, teammate will stay “Available” in Front during calls.

• Sync Front status to Aircall: 

  • Toggle on if you want to automatically sync Front status changes to Aircall. e.g. “Available” in Front to “Available” in Aircall, “Out of office” in Front to “Unavailable” in Aircall. 

  • If toggled off, Front status changes will not affect Aircall statuses. e.g. Teammate can be “Available” in Front and “Unavailable” in Aircall.

Step 4

Your changes will automatically save.

Step 1

In Front, click the gear icon and navigate to workspace settings in the left sidebar.

Step 2

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

Step 3

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

Step 4

Navigate to the Voice by Aircall option or SMS by Aircall option, then click the Connect to Aircall button on the next page.

Step 5

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

Click Login to continue.

Step 6

Click Authorize on the next page. 

Step 7

Select all numbers you’d like to add to Front, then click Add numbers. The pop-up will automatically close.

Step 8

Select the phone number you want to connect to Front. Select multiple channels to connect them in bulk.

Click Continue.

Step 9

In the Threading mode setting, select how calls from the same customers translate into Front conversations. You can hover over each option to learn more. If you’re bulk connecting Aircall channels, the setting will apply to all of them by default, but they can be changed in your channel settings.

See the Threading section for more details.

Step 10

Select when you want conversations to automatically close using the Close conversations setting. 

• If you selected the “Group calls per customer” threading mode, we recommend setting when conversations should permanently close based on how long you'd like calls to be grouped into the same conversation.

• If you plan to use AI features with your inbox, we do not recommend selecting Never. See this article to learn how the Close conversations setting affects AI features.

Click Continue.

Step 11

In the Route to inbox page, select whether you want to route the channel(s) to a single inbox, or multiple inboxes.

Option 1: If routing to a single inbox, use the dropdown to select the inbox.

Option 2: If routing to multiple inboxes, use the dropdowns to select the Aircall channels, then select the corresponding inboxes in the other dropdowns.

Step 12

Click Continue to finish. All calls and messages from your channels will route to the selected inboxes by default.

Your team can now use these Aircall numbers with Front to make and receive calls, access call recordings, etc. if you connected voice channels, or send and receive messages if you connected SMS channels.

During the authentication process, you can choose from two threading options in Front. Afterwards you can change the threading mode at any time, which only applies to new conversations going forward.

• Threading behavior: Each customer call creates a new conversation. Callbacks made from an existing conversation stay there.

• Use case: Use this threading option if you want to treat each call as a separate “ticket”.

When using the “One conversation per call” threading mode, we recommend using the Relationships panel in your sidebar to check if missed calls were addressed, or if a teammate is currently on a call with the customer.

• Threading behavior: Calls with the same customer are grouped in one conversation until it closes. After that, the next call starts a new conversation. 

  • A conversation must be resolved, and the close conversation time must elapse for a new conversation to be created. For example, if a conversation was resolved, 24 hours pass per the Close conversations setting, then the conversation closes, the next call will create a new conversation.

  • If a conversation is resolved, but not yet closed, the conversation will re-open and new calls will thread into it.

  • If unrelated calls are grouped together, you can split out a call into its own conversation. Once a conversation is split, any new inbound calls will go to the newly split conversation, not the original one. The original conversation cannot be replied to (i.e. the callback action will be disabled). Once the newly split conversation is closed, the next call will create a new conversation.

• Use case: Use this threading option if your customers call repeatedly regarding a single issue, or you want to see all recent call activity together in one conversation.

Once a Front admin has enabled the integration, teammates can use Aircall inside Front.

In Front, you can see your Aircall status in your account menu.

If your Front admin has enabled automatic status updates between Front and Aircall:

• Your Front status will switch to “Busy” when you’re on a call, then switch back to “Available” when you’re ready to take your next call.

• If you change your Front status between “Available” and “Out of office” in Front, your Aircall status will automatically update to match.

• If you change your status to “Busy” in Front, this will not be synced to Aircall.

• If you change your status in Aircall, your status in Front will not change. You will see your Aircall availability next to the Aircall section in your user information. For example, if you switch your status to “Unavailable” in Aircall, you can still be “Available” in Front.

To make an outbound call, click the down arrow next to the plus icon (+), then select Call.

In the call widget, select the number you’d like to call from, enter a phone number or contact in the To field, then click the Call 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 Accept in the call widget

• Click Answer in the conversation

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

Click the arrow icon to expand the widget to take additional actions (mute, transfer, etc.) using the toolbar icons. Use the arrow icon again to minimize the widget. You can always re-open it using the Aircall 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 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 Call missed or Voicemail in the conversation list.

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

If you have call queues set up, you'll see a Held by you indicator in the conversation and conversation list, along with the customer's wait time. The next queued call will be assigned once a teammate is available.

To send an SMS message, click the plus icon (+) in the sidebar, then select Message. 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.

Use Front rules to automate team processes to help your team work more efficiently. See this article to learn more.

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

• You may have not given Front permission to access this phone number. See here for adding additional phone numbers to "Front V3".

• You can also sign into Aircall again from Front and grant this new set of credentials access to a different set of phone numbers.

Assignment logic differs between calls and conversations:

• Calls: Front uses the routing logic set up in Aircall. When a customer calls a phone number, the call is routed to a teammate in Aircall, then Front will notify (or “ring”) that teammate in Front if they are logged into Front with the same email address.

• Conversations: Front assigns the conversation to the teammate that answers the call. If a teammate does not answer a call, or the teammate that answers the call isn’t a Front user, then Front will not assign the conversation.

Call and voicemail transcriptions, summaries, and action items require an AI Assist Standard license for this content to be imported into Front.

Call summaries, transcripts, and recordings won’t be available in Front if Aircall doesn’t generate them. Aircall may not generate these resources if the teammate doesn’t have access to the feature, doesn’t turn on the feature, or the call does not meet length requirements. 

See these Aircall articles for more information:

• Activating the Call Recording Feature

• Why is my call not transcribed?

Front follows Aircall's browser limitations, and recommends Google Chrome if you're using the integration via web browser. Some features in the Aircall widget will not work as expected in other web browsers.

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 up to 5 MB for photos and up to 600 KB for PDF.

Front follows Aircall's file size, carrier, or geolocation limitations. See Aircall's documentation for more information.

No. The Aircall API does not support group messages at this time.

Yes. You can access voice metrics in the Key metrics chart of the Workload report or custom report. SMS analytics are included in any text-based metrics like reply time.

• Calls: Yes. You can still receive calls in Aircall if the Aircall phone number is connected to Front.

• SMS messages: No. Once an Aircall phone number is connected to Front, you can only send and receive SMS through Front.

Yes. Toggle on the Mute and hide incoming call banner setting in your notification preferences.

The conversation is first created in the inbox containing the phone number the caller dialed (e.g. Support 888-111-1111). If the caller is transferred to another number connected to Front (e.g. Sales 888-222-2222), the new activity will thread into the existing conversation, and the conversation will appear in both inboxes.

In the Aircall widget, click the menu button at the top left. Click your name, select Settings, then Call settings.

Toggle on the Automatically close conversation after the call Aircall setting. Moving forward, Front will automatically archive Front conversations created from calls after they end.

This feature is available on the latest Professional plan or above. Some legacy plans may not have access.