Overview

CTI: Cloud Telephony Integration is used to link a Cloud Telephony platform with an external business application like CRM or Ticketing management solutions. A lot of standard CRM applications or Ticketing applications like Zoho CRM & Zoho Desk offer Telephony Integration APIs to integrate with Cloud Telephony platforms like Exotel. Exotel made use of these APIs and integrated with Zoho CRM & Desk to offer some major calling  functionalities on those platforms. By making use of this functionality, users can control the calling and reporting on the Zoho platform instead of navigating between Exotel and Zoho to call and update details respectively.

Features

• Call Notifications/ Pop-up:  Inbound and outbound call pop-ups appear as soon as the agent starts receiving a call or initiates an outbound call. This gives a heads-up to the agent to be prepared beforehand and have a pitch accordingly. If a registered user calls the Lead or Ticket details are also visible to the agent.

• Adding Follow-Up Event & Disposition: User has option to add follow-up activities like events & tasks. The user also has the ability to add dispositions and notes and the same gets updated in lead/ tickets.

• Outbound Call/ Click2Call: Click2Call option is enabled under Leads, Contacts & Activities to initiate calls directly from the CRM.

• Call Details: Call recordings & call duration are available under activities section. Call recordings can also be downloaded from the Zoho CRM/ Desk.

• Missed Calls: Missed calls are updated under Activities section in Zoho CRM and in Zoho Desk a new ticket gets created for new callers and if there's an existing ticket against the number, the previous ticket gets updated. 

About Zoho Plug-in

Zoho Corporation is an Indian multinational technology company that makes web-based business tools. It is best known for its online office suite named Zoho.

Exotel - Zoho CRM Plugin enables contextual association of calls with lead, contact, task and event. It enables an agent to have Incoming Call intimation, visualize the call details and provide Click2Call capabilities, all within Zoho CRM dashboard. A seamless integration for an enhanced agent productivity and better experience.

Pre-requisites

• Active Exotel and Zoho accounts. 
• KYC Status should be completed, to get your KYC approved, please contact your Sales Account Manager or write to hello@exotel.in. 
• Verified agents/users on Exotel and Zoho.
• API Key and Token of Exotel account. (https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials)

Setting up Exotel Call Flow

• Step 1: Log-in to your Exotel Account. Under Co-Workers and groups add agents by clicking on “Invite Co-Workers”. 

• Step 2: Add agents to relevant groups. For Bigin/CRM integrations, name the group as “Sales'' and for Desk integrations name the group “Support”. 

• Step 3: Navigate to “App Bazaar” and click on “Create” under “Custom Apps” and create a call flow.

• Step 4: Add a greeting applet and add your greeting message.

• Step 5: Add the connect applet in “Next”. Select the relevant group “Sales” or “Support”.

• Step 6: Select other call parameters, like distribution of call, whether the call needs to be recorded, time limit etc.

• Step 7: In the “Create Pop-Up” section, add the following end-points. (This will do a pop-up in Zoho Bigin/CRM and Zoho Desk)

For Bigin/CRM: https://zohocrmplugin.exotel.com/callback/exotel/{account_name}/createpopup

For Desk: https://zohoplugin.exotel.com/callback/exotel/{account_name}/createpopup

{account_name} : Account Sid from here: https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials

• Step 8: In the “After the call conversation ends” section, drag and drop the “Passthru” applet.

• Step 9: In the Passthru applet, add the following Endpoints and Do Not check the “Make Passthru Async” button.

For Bigin/CRM: 

https://zohocrmplugin.exotel.com/callback/exotel/{account_name}/incomingcallhungup

For Desk: 

https://zohoplugin.exotel.com/callback/exotel/{account_name}/incomingcallhungup

{account_name} : Account Sid from here: https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials

• Step 10: Under the “In Response” section of Passthru applet, add “Hangup” applet for both “200 OK” and “If the url returns anything else” section.

• Step 11: Return back to “Connect” applet section and navigate to “If nobody answers” section and select “Go to” instead of default “Say sorry and hangup”

• Step 12: Drag and drop “Passthru” applet and add the following end points and Do Not check the “Make Passthru Async” button:

For Bigin/CRM: https://zohocrmplugin.exotel.com/callback/exotel/{account_name}/callmissed

For Desk: https://zohoplugin.exotel.com/callback/exotel/{account_name}/callmissed

{account_name} : Account Sid from here: https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials

• Step 13: In the “In Response” section of the passthru add “Greeting” applet, add the call back message and add “Hangup” applet and click on Save.

• Step 14: Now, Navigate to the Exophone section in the “Admin” panel. Click on “Assign Exophone to a flow”. Select the Exophone and search for the call flow created and map them.

Setting up Zoho Account

• Step 1: Add the phone numbers in your Zoho account for all the agents under the “User” section.

• Step 2: Once done, save this. Now the users are ready to make and receive calls.

How It Works - CRM/Bigin

• Step 1: Log-in to your Exotel and Zoho account.

• Step 2: Go to “Settings” in your Zoho CRM/Bigin account and click on “Telephony” under “Channels”.

• Step 3: Click on “Enable Telephony”.

• Step 4: Navigate to Plug-in interface: https://zohocrmplugin.exotel.com/

Enter your Account Sid and click on Submit. {account_name}. Account Sid from here: https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials

• Step 4: Click on Enable Integration.

• Step 5: Please give “Phone Bridge” permissions to Exotel.

• Step 6: Fill up the API Key and Token from: https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials and click on “Sync Exophone & Save”

• Step 7: In the next screen, you would see all your Zoho users. Here, you can either update the agent details manually or update using a csv.
  

To update entries directly on the UI, click on the Edit button against each user and update the details such as Name, Exophone to be used for Outgoing calls, Check the “Click to Call” button to enable Outgoing calls for that agent. Agent’s number (this number should be the same on Exotel under “Co-Workers and Groups” section and on Zoho “Users” section in “Setup”.

To update Entries in bulk, click on the Bulk Edit button on the right side top.

In the Dialog box, click on “Download CSV with Existing Data”

Update the entries similar to UI Entry and “Upload”. 

Now the agents are ready to receive and make calls from Exotel. 

In case you have added/updated agents in Zoho CRM after navigating to the “Mapping of Exotel & Zoho Users”, click on “Sync users” on top right, the new entries will be now visible.

Snapshots of different windows Zoho CRM/Bigin:

How It Works - Zoho Desk

• Step 1: Log-in to your Zoho Desk account and click on Settings button and select “Phone”.

• Step 2: In the next window, click on “Enable Telephony”

• Step 3: Navigate to the plug-in interface: https://zohoplugin.exotel.com/ and click on “Enable Integration”.

• Step 4: Sign-in to your Zoho Account and give permissions.

• Step 5: Fill up the API Key and Token from: https://my.exotel.com/apisettings/site#api-credentials and click on “Sync Exophone & Save”

• Step 6:  Map Exotel and Zoho Desk Users, update the details such as Name, Exophone to be used for Outgoing calls, Check the “Click to Call” button to enable Outgoing calls for that agent. Agent’s number (this number should be the same on Exotel under “Co-Workers and Groups” section and on Zoho “Users” section in “Setup”.

Resources

• Sign-up for Zoho: https://www.zoho.com/crm/signup.html
• Sign-up for Exotel: https://my.exotel.com/auth/register
• Want help in setting this up - reach out to your sales account manager or drop a request at hello@exotel.com 

Exotel-Zoho CTI Pricing

There are three SKUs under which costs of Zoho CTI solution is charged:

• Software Rentals: This is monthly fixed charge for availing the Exotels services
• User Access Rental: Certain user access is provided in every plan, above the limit a nominal fee of INR 199 per user/month is charged.
• Call Charges: Normal call charges, charged at pulse rate .

Known Limitations

• On-Call Events: For both Incoming Call and Outbound Call pop-ups, the call events (like CallAnswered, Ringing, etc.) will not be triggered. Hence, once the call is over, click on ‘Answered’ and do the subsequent action.
• Call Recording Upload: The call recordings will be uploaded under ticket details in an interval of 5 minutes. The agent need to refresh the Zoho Desk screen after 5 minutes of call completed, in order to see the respective call recordings.