Dial prefixes for click-to-call

When a technician selects a number on the extension's Call button, QuantumOps passes the number to their phone application as a dial string: the number from HaloPSA, tidied up, with an optional prefix in front. The prefix is usually the digit your phone system needs for an outside line, or the digits that route a call to another site. This page is for the administrator who sets those prefixes and wants to know exactly what gets dialed.

Before you start. To set the default prefix you need the Administrator or Q-Director Configuration role, and the Call Center Operations module must be on, because the field is on the Call Taking tab. To set a white-label partner's prefix you need the Administrator role and the White Label Federation module. Technicians see the effect in the Call button of the extension. Leaving both prefixes empty is valid and often right.

Which prefix is used

QuantumOps picks one prefix each time someone selects a number, in this way:

1. It looks at the ticket the person is working on. When QuantumOps holds the ticket and it came from a white-label partner, that partner's Dial prefix is used.
2. With no ticket to look at, as on the User tab, or a ticket QuantumOps holds no record of, the partner the person is attributed to stands in for the ticket's partner.
3. When that partner has no prefix, or there is no partner because the customer is your own, your Default dial prefix is used.
4. When that is empty too, no prefix is added and the number is dialed as tidied up.

A ticket from your own customers never uses a partner's prefix, and a partner's customers never use your default when their partner has one.

Set the default dial prefix

1. Open Q-Director Settings (Q-Director Config in the sidebar) and select the Call Taking tab. The Settings sub-tab opens first.
2. Scroll to the last group, Click-to-Call.
3. In Default dial prefix, type the prefix. The field is marked optional and its hint is e.g. 9. Under it the page says that the prefix goes in front of the numbers on the Call button for your own customers, that a white-label partner's customers use that partner's own prefix, and the rule below.
4. Select Save Changes at the bottom of the tab.

To remove the prefix, clear the field and save. A prefix takes effect the next time someone selects Call; nothing needs restarting.

The prefix may contain only the digits 0 to 9, the star * and the hash #, and at most 10 characters. Spaces inside it, letters, a plus sign and a dash are all refused. A space at either end is dropped. When the text is not valid, the page says so under the field as you type: A dial prefix can only contain digits, * and #, and at most 10 characters (no spaces). If you select Save Changes anyway, the same sentence appears at the top of the tab, starting Default dial prefix:, and nothing on the tab is saved until you fix it. Call Taking settings describes the rest of the tab.

Set a white-label partner's dial prefix

This is for an organization that receives tickets from white-label partners. Each partner is a white-label source on the White Label Federation page, which is under Configuration in the sidebar, at /whitelabel/federation. The link is there for Administrators, and only while the White Label Federation module is on for your organization.

1. On the page, find the White-label sources card. Its table has a Dial prefix column that shows each source's prefix, or a dash when it has none.
2. To change an existing source, select Edit on its row, change Dial prefix and select Save. The page confirms with a banner such as Source 'contoso' updated.
3. To set it when you create a source, fill in Dial prefix under Add a source, then select Add source.

The field takes the same characters and length as the default prefix, and an empty field means no prefix. An invalid value shows the same sentence under the field, and a banner at the top of the page that begins Dial prefix:; the source is not changed. Setting a prefix does not change how the partner's tickets are imported or attributed.

How a number becomes a dial string

QuantumOps takes each number as it is written in HaloPSA and applies these steps in order:

1. Cut a trailing extension. x204, ext. 12, extension 12, extn. 12 and #7 at the end of a number are removed, also after a comma, semicolon, colon, dot or dash, or inside brackets: 555-0100, ext. 12 and 555-0100 (ext 12) both become 5550100. Digits stuck on the end would otherwise reach a different number. A field that holds only an extension keeps its digits.
2. Tidy the number. Everything except digits is removed, apart from a plus sign at the very start. A field with no digits left, such as n/a, is not offered at all.
3. Add the prefix, if there is one. It goes in front, unless the number already starts with it, so a prefix is never doubled.
4. Drop the plus when a prefix is added. A plus sign is only valid as the first character of a dial string, so behind a prefix it would not dial. With no prefix the plus stays, so a number written in international format keeps working.

The first row shows the extension cut and the prefix added. The second shows the plus dropped. The third shows the plus kept when there is no prefix. The last shows a prefix that is not doubled.

When to leave it blank

• Your phones dial numbers as they are. If your phone application or phone system already handles outside lines and international numbers, a prefix only gets in the way.
• The prefix would be wrong for some numbers. A prefix goes in front of every number on the list: mobile, home, site and the client's own number as well. There is no prefix per label. If only some numbers need one, leave the default blank and let people dial the exceptions themselves.
• Local numbers start with your prefix. A number that already starts with the prefix is left as it is. With a prefix of 9, a local number that begins with 9 is dialed as it stands, without a second 9, and your phone system then reads its first 9 as the outside-line digit instead of part of the number. Check a few numbers before you rely on it.
• You want different prefixes for different customers. Use the Default dial prefix for your own customers and each partner's Dial prefix for theirs. A partner with no prefix of its own uses your default.

To check what a number will dial, open the Call list in the extension and hover a row: it says Dials and the dial string.

Related pages

• Call a customer from the side panel shows what technicians see.
• Call Taking settings lists the other options on the Call Taking tab.
• Connecting your phone system covers calls that open QuantumOps by themselves.
• Q-Director Settings is the page that holds the tab.