Monitoring calls with the live calls dashboard

What's my plan?

Using the live calls dashboard, team managers can see at-a-glance all ongoing calls, listen in on agent conversations, and join calls when agents need support or escalation.

This article contains the following topics:

• Understanding live calls dashboard permissions
• Viewing the live calls dashboard and monitoring calls
• Auditing call monitoring activity

Understanding live calls dashboard permissions

To give agents access to the live calls dashboard, you'll need to understand the following permissions:

Who can view the live calls dashboard?

To access the live calls dashboard, an agent must have the following permissions:

• A user account of the type "staff member"
• A Talk role of "Admin" or "Team lead"

Who can listen in on and join calls?

To listen in on calls, your agents must have the following permissions:

• A user account of the type "staff member"
• A Talk agent role of "Team lead" (admins cannot listen in on calls)
• On Enteprise plans, a Talk agent must be a member of a custom role with the permission "Manage channels and extensions". Users with only the Analytics > View Zendesk Talk dashboard permission cannot monitor calls.

For more information about configuring Talk permissions, see Giving agents access to Talk.

Viewing the live calls dashboard and monitoring calls

The live calls dashboard contains the following information for each live call:

• The agent on the call
• The group the agent belongs to
• The call type (inbound or outbound)
• The caller number
• The ticket related to the call
• The call duration

Use the procedure below to learn how to open the live calls dashboard and monitor calls.

Note: When you monitor calls, ensure that your custom greetings provide adequate notice in accordance with your state or country's telephone recording laws. Default greetings created before call monitoring was launched on March 14th, 2017, do not alert callers that their call might be recorded and monitored.

To view the live calls dashboard and monitor calls

1. From the product tray, select Talk.

   

2. In the new tab that opens, click the live calls icon in the sidebar.

   

   The dashboard opens. You can filter the dashboard by agent or group name using the search field in the upper right.

   

3. In addition to viewing live call information, the dashboard enables you to take the following actions:
   • Listen into a call: To monitor a call without notifying the agent or caller, click Listen.

     

     Note: If a call shows a status of IN MONITORING, it means that another administrator is already listening to the call. Only one user can listen to a call at a time.
   • Join an existing call (barge): Click Barge to join the call. The agent and caller will both hear a beep notifying them a third party has joined.

     

     Click End barge to leave and return to listening in to the call.

     

     Note: Only one agent can barge into a call at a time. The original agent must remain on the call; if they disconnect, the call will end.
   • Stop listening in: Click Leave call to stop listening to the call.

Note: You can continue to listen to and barge into calls even if they have been transferred to an external number.

Auditing call monitoring activity

You can export a comma-separated values (CSV) file containing an audit report of call monitoring activity.

To the call monitoring activity report

1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Talk.
2. Click the Usage charges tab.
3. Click the Export CSV button, then select Export Monitoring CSV.

   

The report will be emailed to the address associated with your user account.