> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.orbit.devotel.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Paging groups, ring groups & call park

> Three group call-distribution primitives: page a group with one-way audio, ring a hunt list with your choice of strategy, and park a live call in a numbered slot for retrieval from any phone.

# Paging groups, ring groups & call park

Orbit ships three sibling primitives under **Voice** for distributing
calls to a group of people or devices. They solve different problems —
pick the one that matches how the call should be handed off.

* **Paging group** — one-way broadcast. You dial the group's extension,
  speak, and every member's phone plays your voice over its speaker.
  No ringing, no answering, no return channel.
* **Ring group** — call distribution. An inbound call rings members of
  a hunt list using the strategy you pick, and the first member to
  answer owns the call.
* **Call park** — personal call hand-off. Put a live caller into a
  numbered slot on hold, then retrieve them from any other phone or
  softphone by dialling the slot.

## Which one do I use?

| Goal                                                                                         | Use                                                    |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Announce something to a room or team ("customer at the front desk", "closing in 10 minutes") | Paging group                                           |
| Answer inbound calls with the first available person                                         | Ring group                                             |
| Move one live call to a colleague or another physical phone                                  | Call park                                              |
| Queued, skills-based call center traffic                                                     | Use [Queues](/guides/voice-queues) instead             |
| A call that must follow one person across devices                                            | Use follow-me / colleague forwarding, not a ring group |

You can combine them: a common pattern is a ring group that falls
back to voicemail on no answer, while the front desk pages "call
parked on 1" for live calls that need a human hand-off.

***

## Paging groups

A paging group is a named set of devices and extensions that all play
an announcement the moment you dial the group.

### Create a group

1. Open **Voice → Paging groups** and click **Create paging group**.
2. Give it a name and an extension (the number staff dial to page).
3. Add members in the members editor: pick **SIP extensions**
   (deskphones and softphones receive a direct page call that
   auto-answers on supported hardware) and/or **users** (team members
   who receive the page as an in-app notification).
4. Save. Dialling the extension from any registered device starts the
   page immediately.

### Simplex vs duplex

Paging groups run in two modes:

* **Simplex (members listen only)** — the classic overhead page. The
  caller speaks, members hear it, members cannot talk back. This is
  the default and the right choice for announcements.
* **Duplex (talk-back)** — the members editor accepts a duplex mode
  for intercom-style groups. Desk phones currently still receive the
  one-way announcement when a duplex page fires (they ring and play
  the message); the full talk-back bridge is a follow-on. Treat
  duplex as a softphone-side capability for now.

### How a page reaches a phone

Orbit pages each member with a direct SIP call to that member's
registered device (unicast delivery). Phones that support auto-answer
pick up in milliseconds and play the announcement straight off the
speaker after an optional chime; phones that do not ring normally and
play the message once someone answers. SIP multicast paging is not
part of this feature — every page is one call per member, so keep
group sizes sane (tens of members, not thousands).

### Page from a phone

Dial the group extension from a registered deskphone or the Orbit
softphone, speak, hang up. There is no answer step — the page starts
as soon as the group picks up.

<Note>
  A page never rings. If members need to react to the announcement
  with a call, combine paging with call park ("call parked on 1") so
  anyone can retrieve it.
</Note>

***

## Ring groups

A ring group is a hunt list: one extension or DID routes into the
group, and members ring according to the group's strategy until
someone answers or the ring timeout expires.

### Strategies

Pick the strategy per group under **Voice → Ring groups → Create ring
group**:

| Strategy         | Behaviour                                                                                  | Best for                                                        |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Simultaneous** | Ring every member's phone at once; first to answer takes the call.                         | Small teams where anyone can answer (front desk, support line). |
| **Sequential**   | Ring members one at a time, in list order, until someone answers.                          | Escalation chains (try the junior first, then the senior).      |
| **Round robin**  | Ring members one at a time, starting where the last call left off, so load spreads evenly. | Fair distribution across equal teammates.                       |
| **Longest idle** | Ring the member who has been idle longest first.                                           | Teams where you want to reward/pick the least-busy person.      |
| **Fewest calls** | Ring the member with the fewest answered calls first.                                      | Balancing total handled volume across the team.                 |

### Ring timeout and fallback

Set the **ring timeout** (5–300 seconds) per group. When it expires
with no answer, the call falls through to the route's fallback —
typically voicemail, or the next rule on the inbound route (queue,
IVR, hang-up). Configure that fallback on the route that points at
the ring group, not on the group itself. A route with no fallback
hangs the caller up; always give inbound routes a voicemail target.

### Members and presence

Add members in the members editor: SIP extensions (existing or
created inline), raw external numbers, or another ring group as a
nested member. A member
whose status is **Do not disturb** (set under **Voice → Presence**)
is skipped during ringing; their phone does not ring and the strategy
moves to the next available member. When a member answers, the other
legs cancel immediately.

<Tip>
  Keep simultaneous groups small. Ringing 20 phones at once feels
  chaotic on the floor; 3–6 is the practical sweet spot, then let
  round robin or longest-idle distribute beyond that.
</Tip>

***

## Call park

Call park holds a live caller in a numbered slot so any phone can
pick the call back up. Think of it as shared hold with an address:
park the call on slot 1, walk to another room, dial slot 1, keep
talking.

### Park a call

From an active call in the Orbit softphone, choose **Park** — the
call moves into a numbered slot and you hear the slot number. On a
deskphone, your administrator maps a park key per slot (or a park
feature code) — pressing it parks the caller and confirms the slot.

### Retrieve a parked call

* From the softphone: open **Voice → Parked calls**, pick the call,
  choose **Retrieve**. The caller bridges onto your phone.
* From any deskphone or softphone: dial the slot's retrieval code
  (e.g. the slot number) — the held caller connects to you.
* **Release** on the Parked calls page drops the held caller — use it
  only when the caller should be disconnected.

### Timeouts

A parked call does not hold forever. Two tenant-configurable limits
govern the lifecycle (set per queue under your ACD queue settings):

* **Recall ringback** (default 30 seconds) — at this threshold the
  parking agent's softphone rings back and the dashboard shows the
  slot as recalled. The call stays parked; the agent still has time
  to retrieve it.
* **Maximum park duration** (default 300 seconds) — at this hard cap
  the slot is released automatically, the dashboard clears it, and
  the caller is disconnected. The slot frees up for the next park.

Between those two limits a forgotten caller rings the person who
parked them instead of silently timing out.

<Warning>
  Parked calls carry caller PII. The Parked calls page is a shared
  lobby — every operator with the voice role can see, retrieve, or
  release every parked call. Restrict operator roles accordingly.
</Warning>

***

## Example topologies

### Retail store — page + park

1. Create a **paging group** "Store floor" in simplex mode containing
   every floor phone.
2. Map park slots 1–4 on the desk phones.
3. A call for a floor associate arrives → the front desk parks it on
   slot 1 → dials the paging group and announces "Call for produce on
   1" → the associate dials slot 1 from any floor phone.

Outcome: the associate never needs a personal phone, and the front
desk never leaves the register.

### Clinic front desk — ring group + park during a call

1. Create a **ring group** "Front desk" with strategy
   **Simultaneous**, ring timeout 20 seconds, and the route's
   fallback pointing at voicemail.
2. Reception staff are members; anyone on shift answers inbound
   calls.
3. When a receptionist needs the nurse's desk to take over mid-call,
   they park the caller on a free slot and page "patient call on 2" —
   the nurse's desk dials slot 2 and picks up the conversation
   without a transfer-on-hold dance.

Outcome: inbound traffic still answers at the front desk, but live
call hand-off to back-office staff is a two-digit dial, not a warm
transfer chain.

***

## Troubleshooting

**The page plays on some phones but not others.**
Members whose status is Do not disturb, or whose devices are not
registered, do not receive the page. Check device registration and
each member's presence.

**Ring group rings nobody.**
The group has no available members — either the members editor is
empty or every member is on Do not disturb. Add members or clear
presence states.

**Caller's ring group call falls to voicemail immediately.**
A member answered and hung up, or the ring timeout is set too low.
Raise the timeout (up to 300 s) and review the fallback target.

**Parked call "called back" the front desk after \~30 seconds.**
That is the recall ringback working as designed — the caller sat in
the slot past the recall threshold. Retrieve calls promptly, or spot
them early on the **Parked calls** page, which shows a live "parked
for" counter per slot. After the maximum park duration (default
300 s) the slot releases on its own.

**A new park fails with a slot-occupied error.**
Only 9 slots exist per organization. Either pick a different slot,
release an expired one from **Voice → Parked calls**, or let the
automatic expiry free it. The Parked calls page shows every occupied
slot plus how long it has been held.

**Retrieve dials the slot and gets nothing.**
The call was already retrieved or released by another operator — the
Parked calls page is a shared lobby. The call detail record shows who
took it.

**Strategy saved but calls still ring everyone at once.**
You saved a strategy that was not yet implemented. Edit the group and
pick an implemented strategy (the dropdown disables unimplemented
ones) — saving is blocked until you do.

***

## Related references

* [Voice quickstart](/voice/quickstart)
* [Voice queues](/guides/voice-queues)
* [Voice call lifecycle](/concepts/voice-call-lifecycle)