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Exotel Integration with Zoho Desk

Overview​

Integrate Exotel with Zoho Desk to enable telephony features directly within your helpdesk platform, including click-to-call, automatic ticket creation, and call activity logging.

Key Capabilities​

  • Click-to-call from tickets and contacts — Agents can dial any phone number in Zoho Desk with a single click, without switching to a separate dialer
  • Automatic call logging — Every inbound and outbound call is recorded as an activity on the corresponding ticket, with duration, timestamp, and outcome
  • Call recordings attached to tickets — Recordings are linked directly to the ticket thread, giving supervisors and agents full context for every interaction
  • Screen-pop on inbound calls — When a customer calls in, Zoho Desk surfaces the matching ticket or contact record so agents can respond with full context
  • New ticket creation from calls — Calls from unknown numbers can trigger a new ticket automatically, ensuring no customer interaction falls through the cracks
  • Agent availability control — Agents can set their status (available, busy, offline) from the Exotel CTI widget embedded in Zoho Desk

Prerequisites​

Before configuring this integration, make sure you have:

  • An active Exotel account with at least one virtual number (ExoPhone) provisioned
  • Your Exotel Account SID, API Key, and API Token — available under Settings > API in the Exotel Dashboard
  • Administrator access to your Zoho Desk account
  • Agents who will use the integration must have a valid Exotel agent mapping (phone number or SIP endpoint configured in the Exotel Dashboard)

Setup Steps​

  1. Log in to Zoho Desk as an administrator and navigate to Setup > Marketplace > All.
  2. Search for Exotel in the marketplace and click Install on the Exotel CTI extension.
  3. During installation, enter your Exotel Account SID, API Key, and API Token when prompted.
  4. Map your Exotel virtual number (ExoPhone) to the Zoho Desk department or queue that should receive inbound calls.
  5. Configure agent mappings: in the extension settings, match each Zoho Desk agent email to their corresponding Exotel agent ID or phone number.
  6. Set up your call workflow — choose whether inbound calls should search for existing contacts, open matching tickets, or create new tickets automatically.
  7. Enable call recording in your Exotel Dashboard under Settings > Call Recording if you want recordings attached to tickets.
  8. Ask agents to refresh their Zoho Desk browser session. The Exotel CTI widget will appear in the bottom-left corner of the interface.

What Agents See​

After setup, agents see the Exotel softphone widget docked inside Zoho Desk. From any ticket or contact record, a click-to-call button appears next to phone numbers. When a call is answered or completed, the widget prompts the agent to add a call note and select a disposition. All of this — the note, disposition, duration, and recording link — is saved automatically as a ticket activity, keeping the support history complete without any manual data entry.