How To Set Up A Call Flow IVR in WorkZen
Open Call Flows in Company Settings, create a flow in the visual builder by chaining steps (business hours, menus, ring groups, voicemail, AI), then assign your phone numbers to the flow's entry point and click Publish Flow. Incoming calls follow the flow from that moment on.
Every call going to one phone is a recipe for burnout and dropped jobs. A call flow routes each inbound call by purpose, time of day, and team, so the right person picks up, after-hours callers get handled, and nobody's dinner is the front desk.
Create a flow
- Go to Company Settings > Call Flows (under Telephony) and click Create Flow.
- Name it (and describe what it does, your future self will thank you). If you skip the name and click Save as Draft or Publish, the builder asks for it before continuing.
- The visual builder opens with an Entry Point, the step where every call begins. Build the flow by adding steps and connecting them.
The building blocks
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Entry Point | Where calls arrive; holds the phone numbers assigned to this flow |
| Business Hours | Branches the call into Open and Closed paths, using your company hours, a custom schedule, or always open/closed |
| Menu (IVR) | Plays a prompt and lets the caller choose with their keypad ("press 1 for booking...") |
| Ring Group | Rings one or more team members simultaneously, with a ring timeout, caller ID display options, and optional external numbers ringing alongside (same country rule as Forward to External) |
| Ring Physical Phone(s) | Rings registered SIP desk phones simultaneously |
| Forward to External | Sends the call to an outside number in your company's country (the US and Canada count as one region); premium-rate numbers are refused, and other countries need support to enable them |
| Transfer to AI | Hands the call to your AI receptionist |
| Play Message | Plays a message, either text-to-speech or your own recording |
| Voicemail | Plays a greeting (default, text-to-speech, or your own recording) and records the caller's message |
| End Call | Hangs up |
The classic small-shop flow: Business Hours → open goes to a Ring Group of whoever's on deck, closed goes to the AI receptionist or Voicemail. Add a Menu in front when different callers need different destinations.
Record your own prompts and greetings
Text-to-speech is the default for every spoken step, but a real voice sounds like your business. Three steps accept a recording:
| Step | Setting | Choose |
|---|---|---|
| Play Message | Message Type | Recording |
| Voicemail | Greeting Type | Custom Recording |
| Menu (IVR) | Prompt Type | Recording |
Once the type is set to a recording, two buttons appear:
- Record captures audio from your microphone. Your browser asks for permission the first time. Click Stop when you are done (recordings cap at two minutes) and the clip is processed and attached automatically.
- Upload file attaches an existing mp3 or wav file instead.
A small player shows the attached clip so you can listen back. Click the trash icon to remove it and record or upload again. A step set to Recording with nothing attached counts as a validation error, so the flow will not publish until you attach a clip or switch back to text-to-speech.
Assign numbers and publish
- Click the Entry Point and choose Assign Phone Numbers. Pick the numbers that should use this flow; each number belongs to one flow at a time, and the picker shows where every number currently lives.
- Click Publish Flow.
The builder validates first and refuses to publish a broken flow: it flags incomplete paths, disconnected steps, menus missing a prompt or options, a missing AI personality on a Transfer to AI step, and other dead ends, so callers can never fall into a hole.
Editing safely
A published flow keeps serving calls exactly as published while you edit. Your changes save as a draft on top; the builder shows an "unpublished changes" banner until you either Update Published (make them live) or Discard (revert to the published version). You can also Duplicate a flow to experiment on a copy, and flows you're still designing can sit in Draft indefinitely.
Step by step
- 1
Create a flow
In Call Flows, click Create Flow, name it, and open the visual builder.
- 2
Chain your steps
Start from the Entry Point and add steps, business hours checks, menus, ring groups, voicemail, AI, connecting each branch to what happens next.
- 3
Assign your numbers
On the Entry Point, click Assign Phone Numbers and pick which numbers use this flow.
- 4
Publish
Fix any validation issues, then click Publish Flow. Calls to the assigned numbers follow the flow immediately.
See it in action
Frequently Asked Questions
This article answers:
- How do I set up a phone menu?
- How do I route calls to my team?
- What is a call flow?
- How do I send after-hours calls to voicemail?
- Why can't I publish my call flow?
- Can I record my own greeting or menu prompt?
- How do I upload an audio file to my call flow?