Onboarding resources

Welcome to the phone system designed for teams. Here’s all you need to know to start connecting seamlessly with your customers on OpenPhone today.

Getting started with OpenPhone

Set up your OpenPhone workspace in five easy steps

Step 1

Take a tour of OpenPhone

You can get up and running on OpenPhone in minutes. Take a quick tour of the platform to get familiar with how to navigate your workspace and other basics. Learn More

For more information, check out our YouTube channel for more quick tutorials. Learn More

Step 2

Add or port your numbers to your workspace

Start setting up your workspace by adding new numbers based on city, area code or toll-free options. Learn More

Alternatively, if you have existing number(s) with your current carrier, you can port those numbers to OpenPhone. Learn More

Pro tips

You can work collaboratively with your team on OpenPhone by using shared phone number to distribute workload, help a teammate when they are out of the office, effectively manage your team, and more!

Step 3

Invite your team

Invite your team to your workspace to start collaborating! You can allow team members to choose their own phone numbers or assign them to an existing number in your workspace. Learn More

Teammates can be added to your workspace and to phone numbers as owners, admins or members. A teammate’s role can be different in your workspace vs. on a phone number. Learn More

Pro tips

You can invite multiple teammates to your workspace at a time by separating email addresses with a comma.

If you have pre-chosen numbers for your team or are using a shared phone line, make sure that you invite teammates directly to that number.

You can save time adding your colleagues by claiming your team’s domain so that your teammates can join your workspace themselves.

Consider organizing your team in groups to easily share contacts and snippets or mention groups in your workspace.

Step 4

Customize your workspace and phone settings

OpenPhone allows you to customize your phone settings for each number for maximum flexibility. Learn More

You can also upload a contact list to have a dedicated address book in OpenPhone that can be shared with your team. Learn More

Pro tips

If you are porting your phone numbers, you can also get a head start on customizing your phone settings so that you can hit the ground running once your numbers port over to OpenPhone.

Learn to fully optimize OpenPhone for you and your team.

Step 5

Integrate your tech tools

Help improve your team’s workflows and gain insight into your business by integrating other tools you already use with OpenPhone. Learn More

Pro tips

Use a no-code solution like Zapier to integrate or automate workflows between OpenPhone and your tech tools.

Create custom solutions using webhooks.

Optimizing OpenPhone

OpenPhone was designed to help you nurture relationships with your customers and grow with your team. Get the most out of OpenPhone by using these features that help streamline communications with your customers, facilitate team collaboration, and much more!

Collaborate with your team on shared numbers

Shared numbers allow your team to call and text from a single phone number simultaneously. Get full visibility into conversations and collaborate with your team behind the scenes using internal threads.

Boost your team’s productivity

Use snippets to create templated responses and schedule messages as part of your workflow to save your team time and increase efficiencies.

Keep your inbox organized

Mark conversations as “Done” to keep your inbox organized and help focus your team on the tasks at hand

Track and share information on your contacts

Custom contact properties and contact notes allow your team the ability to organize, track, and share important information with your customers.

Stay in touch with your customers

Set up auto-replies to set clear expectations with customers, increase speed to lead, share any other important information with your contacts, and much more! Check out this article for more inspiration!

US carrier registration

You may have heard that the large US cell phone carriers require businesses to comply with a new set of policies to decrease the amount of spam texts and calls their customers receive. In response to this, companies using cloud phone providers (like OpenPhone and others) are required to register their company with The Campaign Registry (TCR) in order to send messages to US phone numbers. To register, you’ll need to have a valid EIN, CCN, or similar business ID.

If you’re an individual, small business, or sole proprietor without a business ID and based in the US or Canada, we’ll share additional registration paths from our carrier soon. Stay tuned!

Check out this guide on how to register and the associated fees. Additional answers to US carrier registration FAQs can also be found by visiting this page.

Porting your existing numbers to OpenPhone

Looking to move your existing number to OpenPhone? Our team can help you through the process. We port most US, Canadian, and North American toll-free phone numbers free of charge. Not all numbers are portable. Our team will let you know as soon as possible if your number is not eligible for porting.

Icon
Submit your port request in app

Submit your port request directly in our app. You will be able to monitor its progress from your OpenPhone Dashboard.

Icon
We require specific information

You’ll need to provide specific information, such as your billing statement, carrier credentials, etc. Ports with incorrect or missing information will be rejected and delay the process! We suggest contacting your current provider for a Customer Service Record (CSR), if available, to verify the information you are submitting.

Icon
Porting can take 5-10 business days

Porting generally takes between 5 to 10 business days and is heavily dependent on how fast your current provider responds to our port request. SMS can take an additional 24-48 hours after your scheduled port date to work completely.

Icon
There are no service interruptions

There are no service interruptions! You will be able to continue to use your current provider until your scheduled porting date.

Icon
Make sure porting is complete

Do not cancel your plan with your current provider until porting is completed.

Icon
Customize phone settings while porting

While you are waiting for your port, you can get a head start by customizing your phone settings as soon as your port is submitted.

Additional resources

Other resources to help you and your team ramp up and make the most out of OpenPhone

Frequently asked questions

Can’t find the answer here? Check out our Help Center.

How do you use OpenPhone?
down arrow

OpenPhone is a softphone system that can be used on your web browser or on our app that can be downloaded on your desktop or mobile device. An internet connection is needed to use OpenPhone as we use your WiFi or cellular data to make or receive calls or messages. We help keep your business and personal conversations separate. Best of all, there is no additional hardware needed to use OpenPhone! Download OpenPhone here.

How does OpenPhone’s pricing work? Am I charged for each new number that I add?
down arrow

Each OpenPhone user you add to your workspace comes with one local or toll-free number. For each additional phone number, it’s $5 per month.

Can I add new numbers to my workspace myself? How do I assign team members to these phone lines?
down arrow

You can easily add new numbers to your workspace as your business scales. When adding a number, you can choose a number based on city, area code, or toll-free. Once a number is added to your workspace, an admin or owner can assign the number to a teammate.

How long does porting take?
down arrow

Porting generally takes between 5 to 10 business days. The timeline heavily depends on how long your current provider takes to respond to our port request. In some instances, SMS may take an additional 24 to 48 hours after your scheduled port date to work completely. Don’t cancel your plan until you make sure that both calls and text messaging can be made and received on OpenPhone. Porting can also be held up if there is a delay in signing the Letter of Authorization (LOA) or if incorrect or missing information is provided. Make sure always to double-check your porting information before you submit your request!

How do you control notifications in OpenPhone?
down arrow

Your notifications in OpenPhone can be managed in a number of ways. If you are hopping into a meeting, you can quickly silence notifications using DND. To create a more routine notification schedule, you can set your work schedule or business hours.

A work schedule is set by a user and applies to all numbers that the user has access to in their workspace. This is commonly used to set shifts for team members on a shared number.

On the other hand, business hours control notifications at the phone number level and allow you to create a different after-hour voicemail greeting and a separate set of after-hour auto-replies

Why isn’t my Caller ID showing up to my callers?
down arrow

Each carrier has its own policies regarding caller ID (also known as CNAM). So while we submit your information to caller ID databases, it is not possible for us to guarantee it will display correctly every time for everyone. It is up to the receiving carrier of your outbound call to display caller ID on their customer’s phones. Additionally, most Canadian carriers do not automatically update their caller ID database, which may cause your caller ID not to appear or show incorrectly, depending on the Canadian carrier. See this article to learn more.

Why should I share a phone number?
down arrow

Shared phone numbers allow multiple people on your team to call and text from a single phone number simultaneously. There are multiple use cases for sharing a phone number. Some reasons include distributing the workload of inbound calls (i.e. a shared phone inbox for a support team), gaining oversight into your team’s communications, helping a teammate when they are out of the office, and more! See this article for more details on the benefits of sharing a phone number.

Why am I experiencing call quality issues?
down arrow

OpenPhone relies on WiFi or your cellular data to make or receive calls. Therefore, call quality depends on the reliability and strength of your internet connection. If you are experiencing call quality issues, see this troubleshooting guide for more detail.

Can I get 1:1 onboarding support?
down arrow

Yes! Contact our sales team to learn more.

Ready to improve your team's communication?

Join thousands of businesses already using OpenPhone to communicate better with their customers.