PhoneDesk
PhoneDesk day to day

Six scenes from an
ordinary working day

Not a feature catalogue, but the sequence: what your team sees, and what happens in the background at the very same moment. From the first ring to the retention deadline.

Scene 01

A customer calls

Forty seconds from the first ring to a finished call record. Nobody types anything up.

What the user sees

The phone in the browser rings — whichever Odoo screen they happen to be on. The call card shows the customer's name, not just the number. They answer, type two lines into the notes field during the call and hang up. Afterwards the call sits in the customer's history: direction, duration, contact, note.

No second window, no second password

What happens in the background

The number dialled belongs to exactly one company — in a multi-company setup a call cannot end up in the wrong one. The server holds the state of the call, not the browser: ringing, active, on hold, ended. Every step is checked against a fixed transition matrix, and every event lands in a log that can only grow.

The browser reports, the server decides
01

The first forty seconds

a typical inbound call to a browser seat
Second 0
The call reaches your PBX
The destination number belongs to one company and to a dialplan you wrote in Odoo.
Second 1
The seat rings
The dialplan branches to the extension of the member of staff responsible. The phone in the browser announces the call.
Second 2
The number becomes a contact
Resolution only on an unambiguous match. If it is ambiguous, PhoneDesk shows no match rather than the wrong one.
Second 6
Answered
Odoo creates the call record. From here the call has a number, an owner and a history.
during the call
Note, quality, safety net
Notes go into the field, voice quality and packet loss onto the record. Pressing F5 does not lose the call.
Second 40
Hung up — and documented
The note is saved, the record closed. Anyone who asks later finds the call on the customer.
Second 2

The screen shows a customer, not a phone number

The call card pulls in the contact, the history and the company the dialled number belongs to — before anyone picks up. If the number is not unambiguous, the field stays empty rather than wrong. For your working day that means you greet people by name and see the previous calls, without having to ask a colleague first what last time was about.

If several companies share one Odoo database, the dialled number decides which company the call belongs to. A call cannot end up in the wrong file. The server holds the state of the call, not the browser — reload the page by accident and the call is still there. Voice quality and packet loss are written onto the record as well.

  • You answer, type two lines into the notes field and hang up.
  • PhoneDesk resolves the number, assigns company and extension, and creates the call record the moment you answer.
  • What stays behind is an entry in the customer history: direction, duration, contact, note — findable by anyone who asks later.
odoo · PhoneDesk · inbound call 09:14
Ringing · +49 40 228641-17 → seat 21
Call card · number matched unambiguouslyBergmann GmbH — Mr Vogt
  • Contact Bergmann GmbH · the destination number belongs to company Nord
  • The dialplan branches to extension 21 · sales
If a number is ambiguous, PhoneDesk shows no match rather than the wrong one.
History with this contact
  • 12 Mar inbound 4:12 · delivery date, callback promised
  • 28 Feb outbound 2:05 · item 4 of the quotation discussed
  • 19 Feb inbound 0:48 · new invoicing address noted
Answered · second 6Odoo creates the call record: direction, duration, contact, notes field — and the seat it belongs to.The server holds the state: ringing, active, on hold, ended. Pressing F5 does not lose the call.
Scene 02

Calling back from inside the lead

The number is already in the record. So that is where it gets dialled — not typed into a desk phone.

What the user sees

Next to every phone number in Odoo there is a handset — on the contact, the lead, the ticket, the quotation. One click and the call is running. Anyone who prefers to search types the name into the phone's contact search or dials on the keypad. If the caller is unknown, they create the contact straight from the phone.

One click instead of twelve digits

What happens in the background

The browser sets the call up itself, straight to the PBX. No Odoo server process sits in the voice path — that is why a call does not slow your business application down. Each member of staff gets their own credentials, stored encrypted; the password is never shown to them.

Separate paths for voice and business data
02

What else the seat can do

all in the same window, with no extra device

Your own call list

Everyone sees their own calls with direction, duration, contact and note — and jumps from there back into the Odoo record.

An honest status display

The header of the phone shows whether the seat is really registered with the PBX. If audio drops in one direction, the interface says so instead of keeping quiet.

Consultation and conference

Put the caller on hold, speak to a colleague, then transfer — server-side, from a desk phone as well. Bringing several people into one call likewise. Both are switched on at commissioning.

Scene 03

The AI answers when nobody is free

It rings at twenty past six in the evening. Instead of an answering machine, a voice replies that listens, asks and takes notes.

What the caller hears

A greeting you wrote yourself — with placeholders for company and time of day. After that, a normal conversation: the AI asks follow-up questions, remembers what was said before, and starts speaking before it has thought the sentence through to the end. That is why it sounds like a conversation and not like an announcement.

Greeting freely configurable per company

What happens in the background

Audio runs fifty times a second in both directions through a service of its own: detect pauses in speech, recognise the sentence, formulate the answer, speak the answer. Speech recognition, language model and voice are preset to local services in the product; on the PhoneDesk Box they run on your own machine. The AI only listens again once it has finished speaking — otherwise it would transcribe itself.

Its own service, its own timing — not inside Odoo
03

Three excerpts of how it really sounds

including the limit we name before you buy
After hours
“Good evening, I wanted to ask about the delivery on Friday.”
PhoneDesk Good evening. My colleagues are available again from eight o'clock. I'll take down your request — which delivery is it about? The summary will be on the contact first thing tomorrow.
The limit, plainly stated
“What does item four on my quotation cost?”
PhoneDesk I can't look that up. I'll note the question with your quotation number, and then Ms Krause will get back to you. The AI does not answer from your documents. We say so before the contract is signed.
Handover to a human
“Can you put me through to somebody?”
PhoneDesk One moment, I'll try to reach someone. The colleague first hears a notice that an AI is on the call, and then answers. Switched on at commissioning.

The AI greets, asks, summarises and hands over. It does not know your catalogue — and does not claim to.

Scene 04

After the call: summary, sentiment, topics

The caller has hung up. A few seconds later the customer record says what it was about.

What the user sees

There is a card in the customer's history: three sentences on what the call was about, and below it the full transcript to expand. Next to it, sentiment, urgency and the topics detected. Anyone opening the record in the morning knows where things stand in ten seconds, without asking anybody.

On the contact, not in a log file

What happens in the background

The voice service sends exactly one message to Odoo — transcript, summary, both numbers — and identifies itself with a shared key. Odoo writes transcript and summary into encrypted columns and attaches the card to the history exactly once, even if the message were to arrive twice. Only people in the group intended for it may read it.

Stored encrypted, read behind a group
04

What comes out of the call

for a call the AI handled

A summary in three sentences

Plainly worded, without embellishment. It is produced after every AI call, not at the press of a button.

Sentiment and urgency

Every call gets an assessment and topic keywords — useful for follow-up and prioritisation. Switched on at commissioning.

Corrections leave a trail

If recognition mangled a name, the member of staff corrects it. Who changed what and when is in the audit trail, with a before and after checksum.

A transcript is produced where the AI took part in the conversation. For human-to-human calls it stays at note, duration and contact — we do not write down what we do not hear.

During the call

Reading along while the sentence is still being spoken

Every recognised sentence appears as a line in the call window, and on certain keywords PhoneDesk shows a hint. Both are off out of the box, are switched on at commissioning, and depend on the consent that is granted or withdrawn from the call window.

Day to day this takes away the pressure of writing while listening. The hint comes from a fixed keyword list, not from the language model: it reminds you to pin down the next step, and you either take it over or dismiss it. Consultation, transfer and conference stay reachable in the same window, even when the colleague is at a desk phone.

  • You listen, read along and decide on each hint: take it over or dismiss it.
  • PhoneDesk writes the recognised sentences live into the window and checks the keyword list alongside.
  • Nothing is left behind by the reading along itself: only what is produced after hanging up gets stored.
odoo · PhoneDesk · live transcript · 01:12
The price was a different one last time. Can you confirm that to me in writing by Friday?
Transcript · line 14Seat 21: I’ll look at item 4 and send you a written confirmation by Friday.The lines run live into the call window and are not stored. The transcript itself is produced after hanging up.
Hint on screenLock down the next step — name a date for the written confirmation.
CopyDismiss
The hint comes from a fixed keyword list, not from the language model. We say so before the contract is signed.
Reachable in the same window
  • Consult a colleague, then transfer — server-side
  • Bring several people into one call
  • Voice quality and packet loss go onto the record
Scene 05

A new extension for a new colleague

One record, one click, and the PBX knows about it. If it doesn't, the change rolls itself back.

What the user sees

The person responsible for IT creates a seat in Odoo: employee, extension, login name. One click generates the dialplan entry, a second deploys the device configuration to the PBX. After that the new colleague can be reached — with no ticket to a service provider and no session on the PBX server.

Minutes instead of days

What happens in the background

A deployment is a fixed chain: generate, dry-run, write, reload — and then ask the running PBX what it actually holds. A success message on its own does not count as proof. If what is read back differs, PhoneDesk restores the previous state and marks the deployment as rolled back.

Half-deployed PBXs are not allowed
05

How a change reaches the PBX

every stage logged, every stage reversible
Step 1
Author
Contexts, extensions, numbers and trunks are Odoo records with a form, a history and access rights. Nothing leaves Odoo until somebody deploys.
Step 2
Dry run
The PBX checks the generated configuration without adopting it. If the dry run fails, there is no deployment — and no entry.
Step 3
Deploy
Write and reload while the system is running, against a lock, so two people cannot deploy at the same time.
Step 4
Read back
PhoneDesk reads the actual state back from the PBX and compares it with what was meant to be deployed.
Step 5
Rollback
On any discrepancy the previous state is restored automatically. No night shift, no guesswork.
Step 6
History and drift watch
Every deployment stays on record. Three check runs report by themselves if somebody has changed the PBX by hand.

If the PBX has been rebuilt after an outage, PhoneDesk pulls its own configuration files back into Odoo records character for character. Device passwords are excluded — those are deliberately issued anew.

Scene 06

The audit: consent, audit trail, retention deadline

The supervisory authority asks about last year's calls. The appointment takes half an hour, not a week.

What the user sees

A menu of its own for consent: who agreed, refused or withdrew, and when, line by line. The company record holds the retention periods for calls, transcripts and recordings. The event log can be opened, filtered, exported — and not deleted.

Show it, don't describe it

What happens in the background

Access to a recording is blocked as long as no consent decision exists. The event log refuses deletion even with administrator rights — the only exception is the retention run itself. Numbers and secrets are stripped out of log lines before they are written.

Refusing is the default, not the exception
06

The life of a consent record

from the question to deletion, every step provable
Default
Ask first
Consent is preset as required. Without a decision, access stays blocked.
During the call
Decide
Grant, refuse or withdraw — straight from the call window, and afterwards too.
Afterwards
Record it
Every decision lands immutably in the consent register, with person, time and legal basis.
Ongoing
Retain
Periods per company for calls, transcripts and recordings. The run starts by itself every hour.
At the end
Delete
Anonymise or destroy the key: the content is gone, the proof of deletion remains.
The sentence we always say first: PhoneDesk manages recordings — it does not create them today. What PhoneDesk does create is the encrypted transcript and the summary of an AI-led call.
Talk to us about data protection

In a multi-company setup each company is cleanly separated: one company's calls, consent records and logs are not visible to the other — not even through a number that belongs to both.

Seconds after hanging up

The file sits on the customer, not in a folder

Summary, transcript, topics and sentiment hang in the contact’s history — stored encrypted, readable only with content rights and correctable with an audit trail. Anyone opening the record in the morning knows where things stand in ten seconds, without asking anybody.

The summary is three plain sentences, with the full transcript to expand below it — both are produced for a call the AI handled. Sentiment, urgency and topics come on top, once they are switched on at commissioning. If recognition mangled a name, a member of staff corrects it; who changed what and when stays as a line that cannot be deleted.

  • You open the contact, read three sentences and expand the transcript if you need it.
  • PhoneDesk attaches the card to the history exactly once and limits reading to the group intended for it.
  • What stays behind is an entry with a deadline: once it passes the content is gone, the proof of deletion remains.
odoo · contact Bergmann GmbH · history
Call ended · 6:24 · handled by the AIMr Vogt asks about the delivery in week 32 and about item 4 of the quotation. Promised: a written confirmation by Friday from sales. No complaint raised.
  • Topics Delivery time Price
  • Sentiment neutral · urgency medium
  • Full transcript, expandable in the history
Stored encrypted · readable only with content rights · deleted after this company’s retention period
Corrections leave a trailRecognition had heard “Vokt”. A member of staff corrects the line to “Vogt” — who, when, and the state before and after are in the audit trail as checksums. That line cannot be deleted.
Note added: confirmation Friday 10 a.m., Ms Krause is taking it on.
On the roadmap

What these scenes deliberately leave out

Six scenes are six scenes — not a complete telephony suite. What is missing today is stated here and not in the small print. Some of it is coming, some of it is not planned; we say both before the contract is signed.

  • Not planned: queues and call distribution, ring groups, voicemail, call park, a mobile app, listen-in by supervisors. If you need those, we will give you the name of the product that does them.
  • Not as a self-install: PhoneDesk is delivered as a managed service. Commissioning is a fixed-price package and switches on the 21 features that are off out of the box.
  • Q4
    Call recording by PhoneDesk itself — consent, retention periods, access log and deletion are built and waiting for the recorder. From Q4 2026.
  • Q4
    Bridges to CRM and Helpdesk — a call becomes a lead or a ticket, with the priority taken from the conversation. From Q4 2026.
  • Q1
    German-language interface — the interface is English today. A first translation is part of commissioning.
  • Q1
    Odoo 19 — PhoneDesk runs on Odoo today. The port is planned, but not yet built.
In action

This is what it looks like day to day

Inbound call

The call reaches the right seat

The number is resolved to a contact, the card opens, the call history sits alongside it.

Inbound call in the browserrecommended 1920 × 1080
Voice AI

The AI answers and speaks

Recognise, understand, answer — and hand over to a human when needed.

Live transcript during the callrecommended 1920 × 1080
After the call

The file writes itself

Summary, topics, sentiment and duration — on the right record, with no typing.

Call summaryrecommended 1920 × 1080
The next step

Six scenes, on your own PBX

A paid pilot with a fixed scope and a fixed end: one number for the AI, one deploy-and-rollback cycle, seats for your team — and a written list of what is still missing.

Request a pilot → See pricing