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Situation: You have four agents in the group and all of them are free. Yet, the third and fourth agents in the group don't receive the call if the first & second agents don't pick up!


The following applets or actions force Exotel to pick up a call:

  • Greeting
  • Gather
  • Voicemail
  • IVR Menu
  • Connect (until the dial whom person picks up)



On the contrary, Exotel can perform the following actions without picking a call up:

  • New call
  • (Sending an) SMS
  • Email
  • Hangup
  • Timing
  • Passthru
  • List Manager


When you call a number, the default ring time may be different depending on the destination parties' operator setting. We hear that it is typically a minute but has always been about and above 40 seconds. This is the amount of time you hear a 'tring tring' before you hear something like "The Airtel number you are trying to reach....".


If the following is your configuration in your connect applet:

  • 4 agents in a group
  • 30 seconds ring time


And, let's say the first applet in your call flow/app is a "Connect" applet, which means, Exotel will not pick the call up until one of your agents does. Then, by the time it finishes ringing the second agent, the operator time out kicks in, and the caller hears an audio prompt similar to "the number you are trying to reach...". 


Two ways of mitigating the problem:

  • Try to add one of the applets that pick up a call. Say, a greeting - "Thank you for calling us, please wait!". Because the call is picked up, you could now ring all the agents and the network will not interfere to cut the call!
  • Reducing the time to ring option to something like 20 secs. ( please note that we usually do not recommend reducing the ringing duration to less than 20 secs which might cause any issues ) This way you can accommodate about 4 agents.


If you have any questions or concerns, please connect with us using the chat widget on your Exotel Dashboard or Whatsapp us on 08088919888.