Simultaneous ring

Ensure you never miss any important incoming calls by simultaneously ringing your teammates using OpenPhone's shared numbers. With shared numbers, your team can even be on separate calls at the same time.

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OpenPhone Simultaneous Ring settings

What is simultaneous ring?

Simultaneous ring is a feature that allows an incoming call to ring on multiple devices at the same time. With OpenPhone, you can have your business phone number ring on your cell phone, computer, or tablet all at once. This ensures that you never miss an important call, no matter where you are or what device you're using. Simply assign one phone number to share with specific teammates to receive incoming messages and start routing incoming calls.

Ring multiple phones with one number

With OpenPhone, you can easily ring multiple phones with one number. Our simultaneous ring feature allows you to have all your devices ring at the same time when a call comes in. This ensures you never miss a call, no matter where you are or what device you're using.

  • Simultaneous ring: This feature allows all your devices to ring at the same time when a call comes in. You can answer the call on any device you choose.
  • Device flexibility: OpenPhone works on iOS, Android, and desktop. You can switch between devices during a call without interruption.
  • Advanced Call Handling: OpenPhone offers a range of advanced call handling features, including auto-attendant, call recording, and voicemail transcription.
A screenshot of a phone app with a green button that says "send".

Benefits of simultaneous ring

There are many reasons why someone may need a simultaneous ring feature on their phone service:

Fast response times

In many cases, businesses rely on their phones to talk directly to customers, so it’s important that calls get answered — and answered fast. With simultaneous ringing, businesses can receive, respond, and answer questions or comments whenever a team member is available. Fast response times can leave a great impression on your clients.

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typing on the app

Shared access to numbers

Main office lines with one receptionist for your small business can unintentionally bottleneck incoming calls and messages. Simultaneous ringing takes the burden of answering off a single individual and allows that responsibility to be shared by your team. With shared access to numbers, teammates can monitor calls during business hours and silence incoming call notifications when they're unavailable.

Share the load

Help your distributed teams and international offices share their responsibility for phone calls without sifting through voicemails or internal notes. Tools like simultaneous ringing help to share the load without disabling other phone settings like call forwarding does.

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A phone screen with a message from Alan Benjamin.

Eliminate physical desk phones

Eliminate physical desk phones that remain tied to one location and limit your team’s availability with simultaneous ringing on all devices. Allow your team to reach customers from computers, mobile phones, laptops, and more from wherever they happen to be. Clients can get the help they need no matter while your team works from almost anywhere – in another room, on the road, or even at home.

How it works on OpenPhone

Here’s everything you need to know about how simultaneous ring works, specifically with OpenPhone.

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Start calling and texting in minutes

You can start calling and texting from OpenPhone in minutes. Create new phone numbers and invite your whole team to try simultaneous ring by getting a free seven-day trial of OpenPhone. Avoid long term training sessions or waiting for IT support to get up and running with a simple set up process that can be completed in minutes. 

Collaborate with teammates using shared numbers

Using shared numbers, incoming calls can ring up to ten available teammates on a device of their choice during your team’s business hours. As long as they have an internet connection, teams can take and make calls right from OpenPhone’s mobile, browser, or desktop app.

Simultaneous ring notifies all associated devices until the call has been picked up. If the call remains unanswered based on the ring duration you’ve set in your phone number settings, the call will go directly to your custom voicemail greeting.

Direct calls as necessary

Anyone can see who picked up the call inside the number’s shared inbox, then direct message teammates in your OpenPhone workspace as necessary. Managers can also jump in and listen to calls live, tracking performance and offering a helping hand, or provide coaching after playing back the call recording.

Turn simultaneous ringing off for individual teammates by allowing them to determine when they’re available to take incoming calls. Teammates can set their work schedules regardless of your number’s business hours to mute calls and other notifications while off the clock.

How to use simultaneous ring with OpenPhone

It only takes four steps to create and send text messages through OpenPhone.

1. Start with a free trial of OpenPhone.

2. Launch the OpenPhone web, desktop, or mobile app.

3. Import contacts and add teammates to your phone system.

4. Start using simultaneous ring immediately.

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Why use OpenPhone

Save time on routine tasks, provide a better experience to your customers and streamline communications using OpenPhone.

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Streamline your workspace

OpenPhone lets you create as many numbers as your team needs, all located in one simple, streamlined workspace. Assign one company number to multiple teammates. Shared phone numbers allow teams to answer calls, respond to texts, and collaborate on solutions together in the same conversation. You can even assign unique numbers to individual employees or let them pick out their new number. 

Unlimited calls and texts

Your team can make unlimited phone calls and texts (SMS and MMS) to anyone located in the U.S. or Canada without paying extra fees. If you have a North American toll-free number with OpenPhone, you won’t have to foot the bill for incoming toll-free calls.

Collaborate with teammates

Deliver the best experience to your work contacts using hidden internal threads tied directly to your external communications. Collaborate on your responses, ask questions, or even tag a teammate to answer for you — all through threads and mentions

Set business hours

You can also help ensure that your team maintains a work-life balance. Set business hours for your phone number and automatically mute notifications during your time away. 

OpenPhone is the modern business phone solution helping you save time on routine work by automatically logging calls and adding contacts from other sources. To unlock these and other automatic workflows, simply use our integrations. 

It all starts with a free one-week trial of OpenPhone.

No hidden fees

Find out how much you’re investing in your business phone solution upfront on our pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

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

What does simultaneous ring mean?
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Simultaneous ring allows callers to ring multiple phones with one number. This is best for distributed teams or hybrid workplaces that want to share the responsibility of customer communications. At OpenPhone, users are welcome to configure simultaneous ring functions on any plan.

What is the difference between simultaneous ring vs call forwarding?
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Call forwarding automatically redirects calls to another phone number. In contrast, simultaneous ring will notify all devices of an incoming call that shares the same number.

How does simultaneous ring work in OpenPhone?
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In OpenPhone, simultaneous ring starts with a shared number. Invite team members to use a specific phone number in your admin dashboard, then specify their access and role in the company. Using this, teams can receive and answer concurrent calls, text from the same phone number, and more.

What is sequential ring?
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Sequential ring is also known as round-robin call distribution, available on our Business plan. This refers to the process of ringing small batches of team members until the call has been picked up. Teammates may be rung in batches of one to ten people each.

What are the benefits of simultaneous ring?
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Simultaneous ring lets multiple team members and devices receive a call at the same time. This assists clients with faster service, and team members with better time management. For example, employees who have their number muted or set to ‘Do Not Disturb’ will not receive a barrage of phone calls while off the clock.

Ready to improve your team's communication?

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