Phone calls
Call patients from the browser or through your mobile, answer inbound calls from the call bar, and find every call — with its recording and transcript — as a card in the conversation.
Calls used to be the one channel that left no trail — a number dialled from someone's cell, a voicemail nobody logged. In Ona a call is a message like any other: it's placed from the person's conversation, it shows up there while it's happening, and once it's over the recording and transcript stay on the chart.
Calling someone
Open a patient or lead and pick their Calls tab, or use the Call entry in the contact menu on any patient or lead row. Two ways to place the call:
- Call in your browser — the call runs through your computer's microphone and speakers. Your practice number is the caller ID.
- Call from my phone — Ona rings your own mobile first; when you pick up, it dials the patient and connects you. Handy on the move, or when a headset isn't. The number it rings is the one on your profile, and you can override it per call.
While a call is live the call bar sits at the bottom of the screen — the person's name, a timer, mute, and hang up. It follows you across every page, so you can open the chart while you talk; the name in the bar is a link straight to the patient's page.
Answering an inbound call
When a patient calls the practice number, everyone in the answering group rings — in the browser, and on their mobile too. In the browser a bar appears at the bottom of the screen with the caller's name (if Ona recognises the number), their number, and Answer / Decline. On your mobile the practice number calls you; pick up and press 1 to take the call. The first person to accept, in either place, takes the call; everyone else stops ringing.
Who rings is a practice setting — everyone, the front desk, or a named list — as are whether mobiles ring, how long everything rings before the fallback, and the voicemail greeting callers hear (Setting up your channels). A browser only rings while Ona is open; a mobile only rings if your profile has a phone number. The This browser and My mobile rows on the settings page say where you stand.
A call from a number Ona doesn't recognise is matched to a patient or lead if one exists; otherwise the caller becomes a new lead the moment the call arrives, so the conversation is already there when you answer.
When nobody picks up
After the ring window one of two things happens:
- AI receptionist enabled — the receptionist answers, books or takes a message, and the call ends as Answered by AI. The transcript lands in the conversation for the team to review (Setting up the AI Receptionist).
- No AI receptionist — the caller hears your voicemail greeting and can leave a message after the tone. The call ends as Voicemail, with the recording and transcript in the conversation — or as Missed if they hang up before the tone.
All of these outcomes need a human afterwards, so they mark the conversation unread. Missed calls and voicemails raise a bell notification for the answering group; AI-answered calls do too if you've turned that on. Opening the notification takes you to the caller's conversation.
The call card
Every call is a card in the person's Calls tab, written at the moment it starts and updated as it goes: Ringing…, then In progress with who answered, then the outcome — Completed with the duration, Voicemail with the message length, Missed, No answer, Answered by AI. The thread list follows along, so a call that just ended sorts to the top like a new message would.
Click a card to open the call details panel:
- Channel (browser call, mobile bridge, or phone), Answered on (browser or mobile phone, for calls your team took), Duration, and Outcome
- Recording — a player with a scrubber; calls are recorded from the moment they're answered
- Transcript — each turn labelled by speaker, ready a few minutes after the call ends; clicking a line seeks the recording to it
Recordings and transcripts are stored with the same protections as the rest of the chart and are visible to whoever can see the conversation.
Details that matter
- One call at a time. The call buttons are disabled while you're already on a call; finish it first.
- Calls and texts share a number. The number patients call is the number they text, so a missed call is one click from becoming a text back — same person, same conversation.
- Ringing never marks a thread unread. Only a missed call, a voicemail, or an AI-answered call does, once. A call your team answered leaves the badge alone — someone was on the line.
- Outbound calls belong to whoever placed them. They appear in the Calls tab like any other, with the recording and transcript, under the member who dialled.
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