Setting up call divert when your phone system is in the cloud

Our call divert guide for UK trades covers the dial codes that work on mobile networks like EE, O2, Vodafone and Three, and on a BT or Virgin Media landline. If your number is a normal SIM or a normal line, that guide is the one you want.

Some tradespeople will try those codes and get nothing. Usually that is because the number isn't really on a mobile network or a landline at all. It is on a cloud phone system, and a cloud system does its own call routing before your handset is ever involved.

Are you on a cloud phone system?

Plenty of people are on one without ever having heard the phrase. A few practical signs:

• You answer business calls in an app on your phone, or on a computer, rather than in the normal phone dialler.
• Your number was set up online, in a few minutes, rather than by a phone company sending an engineer or posting you a SIM.
• You sign in to a web portal to see your calls, your voicemail or your team.
• Two or more of you share one business number, and it rings all of you.
• You pay a monthly fee per user, on a card, rather than a line rental on a phone bill.

If several of those are true, you are almost certainly on a cloud system. UK providers in this space include CircleLoop, and there are many others.

Why the dial codes don't work here

The codes in the other guide are GSM codes. They are instructions to a mobile network, typed on the keypad, telling that network what to do with calls to your SIM. A cloud provider replaces the network layer. Your calls arrive at the provider's platform, the platform decides where to send them, and only then does anything ring on your phone. There is no network sitting behind your business number to take a keypad instruction, so there is nothing for the code to talk to.

Nothing is wrong with your phone and nothing is wrong with the codes. They are simply aimed at a layer you are not using.

The upside is that cloud systems usually give you more control than a dial code ever did, once you find the right screen.

The four behaviours that matter

Whatever your provider calls them, these are the four you are looking for:

1. Forward when unanswered after a set number of seconds. The most useful one for most trades. Your phone rings for, say, 15 or 20 seconds, and if nobody picks up, the call goes to AllCalls instead of to voicemail.
2. Forward when busy. You are already on a call, so the next caller gets answered rather than queued or dropped.
3. Forward when offline or unreachable. Your app is closed, your phone is off, or you are somewhere with no signal.
4. Unconditional (every call). Everything goes to the assistant first, all the time.

What the setting is likely to be called

Terminology varies a lot between providers, which is the main reason people give up looking. In your portal or app, check anywhere named:

• Call forwarding, or call diversion
• Call handling, or call routing
• Call flow, or call plan
• Routing rules, or rules
• Ring groups, or teams
• Failover, or fallback destination
• Out of hours, or business hours, or schedules
• No answer timeout, or ring duration

The settings are sometimes on your user profile and sometimes on the number itself, and on some systems they are in both places with the number's rules taking priority. If you change something and it doesn't behave the way you expect, that split is usually why.

Not every provider offers all four

This is the part worth knowing before you commit to a provider or a plan. Some cloud systems let you set each of the four separately. Others give you unconditional forwarding and nothing else, so the only choice is between everything going to the assistant and nothing going to the assistant.

If that is your situation, it is a real decision rather than a technical detail. Forwarding everything means AllCalls answers every call, takes the details and notifies you, and you call people back. That suits some people very well. It is not the same arrangement as an assistant that only picks up the calls you miss, so it is better chosen deliberately than discovered a week in.

What we can tell you about CircleLoop

CircleLoop is a UK cloud phone provider, and we see its call data because our own pilot business uses it.

From that live data we can say two things. It records a missed call as a distinct kind of event from an answered one, so missed calls are identifiable rather than something you have to work out. It also treats a call that reached voicemail as a different event from one that simply rang out, so those two are told apart.

One limitation is worth knowing: its call records do not say why a call was missed. Busy, rejected, out of hours and no answer all arrive as the same single "missed" state, and no ring duration is recorded on a missed call. So its call history will tell you a call was missed, but not what your system did or did not do.

We have not tested what CircleLoop's own settings screens offer, so we are not going to give you step-by-step instructions for them. Use the questions below with their support team.

If you can't find the settings, ask your provider

Support teams answer these quickly, and the answers are useful whoever your provider is. Ask:

• Can I forward calls to an external number that isn't one of my users?
• Can I forward only when a call is unanswered, and can I set how many seconds it rings first?
• Can I forward only when I'm already on a call, and only when I'm offline?
• Or is unconditional forwarding the only option on my plan?
• Where is that setting: on my user, on the number, or in a call flow?
• Does forwarding an external call cost me anything per minute?
• Does my voicemail take the call before forwarding gets a chance, and how do I stop that?

That last one catches people out. If voicemail is set to pick up after 15 seconds and your forward is set for 20, voicemail wins every time and the forward never fires.

Test it before you rely on it

Set the rule, then ring your business number from a different phone and let it ring out. Do the same while you are already on a call. If it goes where you expect both times, you are set. If it goes to voicemail, your timings are fighting each other.

Once it is working, see what happens to the call on How it works, or check the FAQ for the rest of the setup.