Greeting (IVR): set up how your calls are answered

Greeting is Onoff Business's interactive voice response (IVR). It defines what happens when someone calls your company number: welcome message, keypad menu, transfer to your teams, voicemail.

A Greeting number belongs to the company and isn't assigned to any member. Each Greeting number requires a paid Greeting license, purchased by the account Owner.

Greeting is available on the Advanced and Max plans only. See the plans page.

How it works

• You choose the Greeting number's time zone. All time slots follow it.
• You create time slots (your business hours, for example): up to 10 slots, each at least 15 minutes long.
• The main flow applies when no time slot is active, usually outside business hours.
• Each time slot and the main flow contain a sequence of blocks that you add and order freely.

Available blocks

Messages

For each block that plays a message, you have three options:

• a pre-recorded message provided by Onoff;
• an audio file you upload;
• text converted to speech, with a choice of voice and language. Max plan only.

Limits: 10 audio files and 10 text-to-speech messages per block type. Messages are shared and reusable across the company.

Keypad actions

Example: with a 5-second wait and 2 repetitions, the menu plays, then repeats after 5 seconds. With no input 5 seconds later, the call follows the "No key" path.

Transfer to

Choose the members who will receive the call and, for each, the number to use. Up to 15 numbers per block.

The Skip if agent is busy option excludes members already on a call. If no one answers, the flow moves to the next block.

Redirect to

If no one answers, this block sends the call:

• to the start of the time slot: the caller hears the welcome message again and can make another choice;
• to a key (0 to 9) in the same time slot, as if the caller had pressed it.

Redirecting to another time slot isn't possible.

Hang up and voicemail

• Hang up ends the call. Turn on Play a message to play a closing message (recommended).
• Voicemail records the caller's message and sends it to the members you choose.

Common setup: the main flow sends calls to voicemail outside business hours.

Example flow

1. Welcome message: "Welcome to [company]."
2. Menu: "Press 1 for customer service, 2 for technical support."
3. Key 1: cascade transfer to the customer service team.
4. Key 2: simultaneous transfer to the support team; if no one answers, redirect to key 1.
5. No key: hang up with a closing message.

Greeting logs

The logs list every call received on your Greeting numbers: caller number, Greeting number, date, duration and status (answered, missed, voicemail). Each call's details show every step of the journey (message played, key pressed, transfer…), and you can listen to voicemails there.

• Calls: the last 6 months, with full details.
• History: older data, by month and year.
• Filters by date range and Greeting number. Export filtered data as CSV, Excel (.xlsx) or PDF.

Deactivate a Greeting

When a Greeting is inactive, its flow no longer applies: incoming calls are marked as missed but still appear in the logs.

Access by role

Related articles

• Transfer a call
• Roles and permissions
• Compare Onoff Business plans