Phone

Overview

Connect the system your practice's calls run through and every call lands on the client's record by itself — who rang, who answered, how long for — with nobody writing a file note. When a client rings about the letter they got this morning, whoever answers can already see the last call, the last email and the letter.

OneHQ works with three phone systems: 3CX, Microsoft Teams Phone and VXT. A practice connects one of them, not several — they all write to the same call history, so a firm on two would see every call twice.

Which system

3CX

Who is ringing, before you pick up — the client, what is open for them, what you last spoke about. Dial from a click. Every call logged on the client's record. A missed call becomes a chase for whoever should ring back.

Microsoft Teams

Every call made or taken in Teams is filed to the client's record. Calls arrive after the call, not during it — usually within half an hour, sometimes up to two and a half — and nothing pops while the phone is ringing. A missed call is not reliably recorded. That is how Microsoft's call records work, not a setting.

VXT

Every call and voicemail on the client's record once the call ends, and a voicemail arrives with what the caller said written out. Nothing pops while the phone is ringing, and you dial from VXT rather than from OneHQ. The record starts the day VXT is connected — there is no earlier history to bring across.

If you are choosing a phone system and the live screen-pop matters to you, that is 3CX. If you already run Teams or VXT, the call history alone is most of the value.

Setting it up

Everything is under Settings → Integrations → Phone. Choose your system on that row first; the steps below are what each one needs.

3CX

Microsoft Teams

One approval by your Microsoft 365 administrator covers the whole organisation, the same way the Files and Staff calendars connections do. Press Connect, sign in as an administrator, accept — and from then on OneHQ reads Teams' call records and files each client call. There is nothing to install and nothing per person.

VXT

VXT has no settings to read from, so the connection runs the other way: OneHQ gives you a webhook address and a key, and you paste them into VXT. From then on VXT tells OneHQ about each call and voicemail as it ends. Because nothing can be fetched from VXT after the fact, make sure you are happy that history before the connection stays in VXT.

What lands on the record

The caller's number is matched to your client records — the client's own numbers, their contact people and their group — so the call files to the right client. A number nobody has is kept on the Calls screen as an unknown caller; put a name to it there and the call, and any earlier ones from the same number, move onto that client.

• Every call, in or out, with who took it and how long it ran, on the client's timeline beside their email and texts.
• Missed calls (3CX) become a callback for the right person rather than a note on a pad.
• Voicemail is its own queue — see the Voicemail guide.

Staff members' own mobiles are kept for colleagues to ring each other; they never appear to a client and never become a client's number.

Frequently asked questions