At a glance
- A department is your ring group. Send a call to it and every member's phones ring together.
- Departments have no extension. You pick them by name — in a call menu, a phone-number route or a forwarding rule.
- Routes follow the people. Add someone to Reservations and they start taking its calls; nothing else changes.
- A department can have its own mailbox, so a message left for “Accounts” is there for the whole team.
- Need a ring order? Ring a department from a call menu to choose round robin, longest idle or fewest calls.
On this page:
1What a department does
A department is a group of people who share work — Reservations, Kitchen, Accounts. It is a fact about your organisation first: attendance, payroll and reports use it too. On the phone system it becomes a ring group: one destination that rings everyone in it.
Because a department is chosen by name and not dialled, it uses none of your extension numbers — and nobody has to update a route when the team changes.
2Create a department
- Open Office → Departments and click Add New.
- Type the Name and, if you like, a Description.
- Pick a Color and an Icon — they mark the department on reports and wall boards.
- Choose the Manager Extension: the person responsible for the team.
- Tick Enable Department Voicemail if callers should be able to leave the team a message.
Your plan sets how many departments you can have: 1 on Mini, 2 on Small, 10 on Medium, unlimited on Large.
3Add people
There are two ways, and both do the same thing:
- One person at a time — under Assign on the Departments page, every employee is listed with their extension. Pick a department beside their name and click Add.
- A whole team at once — click the people button on a department's row. The page lists its Current members beside everyone Available; move people between the two.
Only people with an extension ring. A housekeeper without a phone can still be in Housekeeping for attendance and payroll — they simply do not take its calls. Give them an extension on Phone & Extensions → Extensions when they need one. See Extensions and numbering.
4Send calls to it
Wherever Filantis asks for a destination, Department is one of the choices:
A phone number
On Trunks, point a number — or the whole line — at the department.
A call menu
A key, the Ring to Department step, or an after-hours destination.
A forwarding rule
On an extension's Call Transfer: “when I'm Away, ring my team”.
A dial route
On Call Control → Dial Routes, send a dialled pattern to the team.
A department called directly rings every member together for up to 45 seconds. If nobody answers, the caller goes to the department's shared mailbox when it has one; otherwise the call ends. For customer lines, ring the department from a call menu, which adds music on hold, a ring order and a destination of your choice for when nobody is free.
5Choose who rings first
When a call menu rings departments, its Ring Strategy decides the order. Here is what each does to a three-person team:
Everyone at once
All phones ring; the first to answer wins. Fastest pickup.
Take turns
One at a time, moving along the team, so calls are shared out.
Freshest first
Whoever has waited longest since their last call.
Least busy first
Whoever has taken the fewest calls so far.
The same step sets Ring Time (per try), Max Wait Time (the longest a caller waits) and Music on Hold. A call menu can ring several departments as one team — useful when two small teams cover for each other.
6A shared mailbox
With Enable Department Voicemail ticked, the department has a mailbox of its own. A call to the department that nobody answers ends up there automatically, and you can send callers straight to it with the Department Voicemail destination — the usual choice for after hours.
To listen, click the voicemail button on the department's row on Office → Departments. Messages are listed by day, with who called, how long they spoke, and whether anyone has listened yet.
A department mailbox is reached through routes and menus only — it has no number, so nobody can dial into it by mistake. For personal mailboxes see Voicemail and greetings.
7Questions
What happened to department extension numbers?
Departments used to take a number from your plan. They no longer do: you choose a department by name, so the number could not drift out of step with the team. The range stays reserved in Settings → Extension Scheme.
Does a person on a call still ring?
Yes — a department rings every member, so someone already on a call hears it as call waiting if their phone allows it. Use a call menu with Round Robin or Longest Idle to spread calls instead.
Can someone out of the office take the team's calls?
Yes. Install the mobile app on their extension and their phone rings with the rest of the team, wherever they are.
If I delete a department, what happens to its people?
They stay employees with their extensions. Any route that pointed at the department needs a new destination, so change those first.
Your team, organised once
The department that rings for reservations is the same one on the attendance sheet, the payroll and the wall board — set it up once and every part of Filantis uses it.
- People firstStaff, departments and extensions in one register.
- Fair sharesRound robin and fewest-calls spread the work.
- No lost callsShared mailboxes catch what nobody could take.
What to do next
Put a greeting in front of your teams in Build a call menu (IVR), and bring your phone numbers in with Connect your carrier.
Still stuck?
Write to hello@filantis.com with your workspace name and what you were trying to do.