Place and receive calls

8x8 Work for Desktop enables you to quickly and flexibly place and receive calls, ensuring that your calling experience seamlessly adapts to your situation. Your call will be intuitive and easy to handle regardless of whether you are making or receiving a call, speaking with a company or external contact, or handling your call from one of several devices.

• Place calls
• Receive calls
• Communicate with your contacts using Video Elevation (Beta)

Place calls

There are several ways to place calls from 8x8 Work for Desktop, to suit where you are in the app at the time. Most of the time, you might place calls from your list of contacts or from the dial pad. By default, you make calls in 8x8 Work for Desktop using your computer microphone and speakers. However, you can dial from 8x8 Work but send the call through your desk phone, your headset, or another available device.

Notes: 
- While on a call, you can quickly switch between the audio devices available on your computer (such as an integrated speaker or paired Bluetooth headset) without the option to switch to your desk phone or an external device, as this would disrupt an active call.
- When an app is in full-screen mode and covers the 8x8 Work for Desktop, the system displays a notification for incoming calls. Users can now accept or decline incoming calls in full-screen mode within another app. In addition, users can view the caller's name and number.

To place a call from the contact directory:

1. Open your list of Contacts .
2. Go to Favorite, Company, or My Contacts.
3. Hover over the desired contact, and click the Phone option that appears to place a call.

To place a call from the dial pad:

1. Open your list of Calls .

2. Click Dial pad to bring up the dial pad.

   Note: While on an active call, you can now paste large numbers copied directly into the keypad when entering an account or phone number into the IVR menu.

3. Dial the desired number, or paste a copied number, to place a call. 8x8 Work for Desktop ignores leading zeroes, spaces, and non-numeric characters (such as the parentheses in a US area code), allowing you to paste and dial E.164-formatted phone numbers.
   Once you place the call, you hear a ringback tone specific to each country while waiting for the call to be answered.
   

Note: If your 8x8 Work for Desktop application window is large enough to support two panes of information side-by-side (also known as Expanded Mode), you can also see which country you are about to call.

If a country has only one time zone, the local time of the country appears as well.

Ability to silence incoming calls

You can now silence incoming calls instantly by clicking the X button on the incoming call banner without declining the call. The call will continue to ring on the caller's side until they hang up or call forwarding rules kick in. The ringtone will stop playing immediately, and the incoming call banner will be dismissed automatically, giving you a more seamless and distraction-free experience. The call will continue to ring on the caller's side until they hang up or call forwarding rules kick in.

Receive calls

Note: If you are in an 8x8 meeting when you receive a call, the incoming call notification shows up without ringing audibly to avoid interrupting your meeting.

Upon receiving a call in 8x8 Work, a Call Control notification will appear as a banner within the app or as a pop-up card on your screen if the app is minimized and this feature is enabled. The notification will present the Caller ID and number, show which number or queue the call is coming from, and provide options to accept or decline the call:

• Click Accept to take the call and begin speaking.
• Click Decline to decline the call and send it to voicemail.

• Note: When receiving a call through 8x8 Contact Center, the incoming call notification is displayed. The agent now only sees the Answer . The expert connect/transfer calls controls are no longer displayed.

When you receive calls through Contact Center channels, the incoming call banner displays both the channel name and channel number, so the UC users know exactly where each call is coming from before answering.

Note: This feature is currently on Limited Availability (LA). For feature enablement, contact us at [email protected].

As a member of a ring group, auto attendant, or call queue, you can discern whether you are receiving a call for yourself or on behalf of your work group.

Note: Ring Groups show information based on the settings configured by the admins in the Ring Group Caller ID section of the 8x8 Admin Console. To view your personal or company contacts upon receiving a call, you must enable the Resolve Ring Group calls against available Contacts option. This setting also influences how ring group calls are displayed in 8x8 Work for Mobile.

View the AI Studio summary before answering a call

When a call arrives through an AI Receptionist configured in 8x8 AI Studio, an AI-generated summary appears in the incoming call banner before you answer. The summary includes the caller's intent and key details the AI receptionist collected, such as their account number. You arrive at every call already informed, without asking the caller to repeat themselves.

Before you answer

Review the AI-generated summary in the incoming call banner to understand the reason for the call and any key details the caller has already provided.

After you answer

When you accept the call, the Summary panel opens automatically next to the active call interface.

If you close the Summary panel, select Open call context in the active call controls to reopen it. If the summary is long, scroll through it as needed.

Transfer behavior

The summary travels with the call if it is transferred to another user, a call queue, or a ring group. The summary and collected details are preserved for the next agent.

Communicate with your contacts using Video Elevation (Beta)

Video Elevation is an integrated solution that allows 8x8 Work for Desktop regular users to establish a one-way video connection while on a call with an external number.

With this feature, you can switch from a phone interaction to a one-way video interaction with a few clicks. This new feature ensures you can get a clear visual of the contact’s problem by extending a video call invitation to gather all necessary information for a quick call resolution. The contact can simply click the link received from you via SMS to establish the video connection without having to install any software.

NoteNote: The live video feed provided by the customer is exclusively accessible to the agent and the customer. The customer cannot view the agent during the video interaction.

To use Video Elevation during a call with an external number:

1. Place a call from the dial pad to an external number.

2. During the call, click Video invite to switch your call to a video meeting:

   

3. In the Video invitation via SMS window, enter the contact number for the video invitation. Let the contact know they will receive a link via SMS, which they should click to join.

   

   The contact number must be in international E.164 format (such as +14155552671), which ensures your message is delivered successfully.

   Note: E.164 is the standard format for international phone numbers. It starts with a +, followed by the country code and number (no spaces or dashes). 
   Example: +14155552671

4. Once the contact accesses the link, the call will be upgraded to a one-way video meeting. Customers can quickly establish a video connection by clicking the link via SMS without any software installation.