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Talkdesk Voice Settings serve as the foundational engine for modernized enterprise telephony management. These settings enable administrators to curate site-level policies, manage users and devices, and implement deterministic call routing across the organization. 

Goal

The objective of this guide is to provide a clear path for managing global telephony settings within the Talkdesk platform. The following sections detail the operational tasks required to maintain a robust global telephony backbone through the Site hub: A centralized interface used to define geographic standards, enforce compliance via call restrictions, and customize dialing behaviors through an Intelligent Dial Plan.

Table of Contents

• Managing the Site Hub
  • General Details
  • Users
  • Devices
  • Call Restrictions
    • Managing Call Restrictions
    • Site-Level Restrictions: The Default Policy
  • Patterns
    • Internal Extensions
    • Custom Patterns
    • Call Routing Precedence Logic
• Configuring User Telephony Settings
  • Assigning a User to a Site
  • Bulk Assignment
  • Internal Extensions
  • Managing Granular Overrides: Policies and Patterns
    • Outbound Caller ID Control
    • Configuring the Default Outbound Caller ID 
    • Call Restrictions

Managing the Site Hub

Once a “Site” is created, the configuration is managed through five integrated tabs:

1. General Details

This tab defines the core identity and geographic standards for users:

• Geographic Foundation [1]: Sets the country, time zone, and physical address, which are crucial for emergency calling and call classification (e.g., International vs. Long Distance).
• Inter-site Dialing [2]: Configures the unique site prefix used for intuitive internal dialing and allows overlapping extension ranges across websites.
• Default Outbound Caller ID [3]: Defines the number displayed for outbound PSTN calls. Note: This is only applicable if no granular selection is made by users.

By clicking the Edit button in the top-right corner of the page, Admins can also manage the “Extension auto-assign range”, allowing them to define the start and end values for extensions automatically assigned to users within this site.

 

2. Users

Administrators assign individuals to a site to inherit its policies, including the Default Caller ID, Call Restrictions, and access to Dialing Patterns.

Note: A user can only be associated with a single site at a time.
 

3. Devices

This tab lists all SIP devices associated with the site in either “Common Area” or “Companion” mode.

4. Call Restrictions

Enforce organizational policies on outbound calling privileges. Users assigned to this site will inherit these restrictions immediately.

Managing Call Restrictions

These enhanced Voice Settings provide a multi-layered security model for controlling outbound calling privileges. Administrators can manage costs, ensure compliance, and mitigate fraud by defining rules at the Site, User, and Dial Plan levels.

Site-Level Restrictions: The Default Policy

The site is the primary enforcement point, setting the standard calling policy for all assigned users. This ensures that every user starts with a compliant, cost-controlled profile.

The following categories are managed within the Call restrictions tab:

5. Patterns

This tab is used to curate access to call patterns, defining rules for digit translation and specialized call routing. It interprets every dialed number to determine its precise routing path, facilitating internal connectivity, cross-platform integrations, and external routing.

By default, users inherit all Number Manipulation Patterns and Custom Patterns from their associated site. Administrators can selectively modify these inherited rules or provide access to unique patterns at the individual user level.

Call Pattern Types

Administrators customize call handling and routing through Call Patterns. These patterns define rules to manipulate dial strings, restrict calls to specific numbers or number patterns, and define call egress routes.

There are two types of Call Patterns to customize handling:

• Number Manipulation Patterns: Transforms dial strings using operations such as Strip, Replace, Prepend, or Append.
• Custom Patterns: Enables complex routing decisions, such as Block (explicit prevention) or OffNet (external routing with custom numbering).

Number Manipulation Patterns

These rules transform dialed digits before the system routes a call.

• Operations: Transformations include Strip (remove digits), Replace (exchange digits), Prepend (add to beginning), and Append (add to end).
• Wildcards: Use X to match exactly one digit (0-9) and the asterisk ( ***** ) to match zero or more trailing digits.

Valid inputs to configure a pattern include:

• Digits from 0-9
• *
• X
• \
• #
• +

In the list above, the “*” and X are of special significance as they are wildcard characters that mean the following:

Notes: 

• + & # are to match against these characters being part of the dial string.
• The \ is used as an escape sequence when the dial string contains a “*” character.

Number Manipulation Pattern Examples

Example 1

Pattern: #49

Description: Feature Access Code for  Conference Bridge

Operation: Replace

Value: +15552672917

If a Site, user or device has access to the above Number Manipulation Pattern and they dial “#49” from an endpoint, the dialled number will change to “+15552672917”.

Example 2

Pattern: XXXXXXXXXX

Description: Normalise to E.164

Operation: Prepend

Value: +1

If a Site, user or device has access to the above number Number Manipulation Pattern, and any 10-digit numerical string is dialed, the dialled number is prepended with “+1”, so that it is normalized to E.164 format.

Example 3

Pattern: 011*

Description: Normalise International Dialling to E.164

Operation: Strip

Value: 011

If a Site, user or device has access to the above number Number Manipulation Pattern, and the string 011441632960123 is dialled, then the dialled number is transformed to 441632960123.

In order to reduce the risk of introducing patterns into production environments that could lead to unexpected behaviour, administrators are provided with a provision to test patterns before they are assigned to a site, user or device. 

Custom Patterns

Custom Patterns allow administrators to create patterns to pre-define outcomes specific to call routing. Like Number Manipulation Patterns, Custom Patterns have a specific input format, namely:

Valid inputs to configure a pattern include:

• Digits from 0-9
• *
• X
• \
• #
• +

In the list above, the “*” and X are of special significance as they are wildcard characters that mean the following:

Notes: 

• + & # are to match against these characters being part of the dial string.
• The \ is used as an escape sequence for instances where the dial string contains a “*” character.

The available pattern types are: 

• Block: This operation explicitly prevents calls to specific numbers or ranges to maintain "Do Not Call" lists or prevent fraud.
• OffNet: This sends non-E.164 dial strings to the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN), which is required for short-code dialing.
   

Call Routing Precedence Logic

The structure of Voice Settings follows a highly deterministic logic, utilizing a strict order of precedence to resolve every dialed string. This design ensures that routing remains precise and conflict-free, even in scenarios where multiple rules or patterns might match the same number.

By defining sophisticated rules at the Site, User, and Dial Plan levels, administrators ensure that every call routes efficiently and follows a predictable path for both internal and external connectivity.

1. Number Manipulation Patterns: Applied first to clean up or transform the digits.
2. Extensions (Intra/Inter-Site): Checked to see if the number is an internal Talkdesk user.
3. Custom Patterns: Evaluated for hybrid routing (OnNet, OffNet, Blocked) as defined by the administrator.
4. PSTN Dialing: Finally, the remaining number is routed to the Public Switched Telephone Network using Talkdesk's carrier infrastructure.

Configuring User Telephony Settings

The Telephony tab within each user's profile is the single source of truth for all calling privileges, routing, and device assignment.

By default, users provisioned in Talkdesk Workspace are not assigned to a Site. Features such as call restrictions, dial plan access, and extension dialing only apply once a user is assigned to a Site and their telephony settings are configured.

Assigning a User to a Site

To configure telephony settings for a user, follow these steps:

1. Log in to Talkdesk as an administrator.

2. Navigate to Admin [1] and select the Users [2] tab.
3. Select the specific user you wish to configure [3].

4. Click the Telephony [4] tab and click the Edit [5] button.

5. Configure the following mandatory fields:
   • Site: Select the Site to which the user belongs.
   • Outbound caller ID: Choose to inherit the Site value or define a custom number.
   • Extension: Enter a unique extension for the user.
   • Call restrictions: Choose to inherit Site-level restrictions or set custom values.
6. Click Save [6].
    

 Bulk Assignment

As an organization grows, manually assigning users to Sites can become time-consuming and error-prone. Bulk assignment lets Admins assign multiple users to a Site at once. The system automatically handles extension assignment, call restrictions, and call pattern access, ensuring consistency across all assigned users.

To use bulk assignment, follow these steps: 

• Within the tab “Users”, click on Assign users [1].

• Select all the desired users [2] and click Assign users [3].

Note: An extension auto-assignment range must be configured for the Site. Make sure the defined range is large enough to accommodate the number of users being assigned.

 

Internal Extensions

Every user assigned to a Site has a configured extension for peer-to-peer communication.

• Intra-Site Dialing: Users within the same Site (e.g., "London HQ") dial each other using their short extension numbers directly.
• Inter-Site Dialing: Users reach colleagues in other global Sites by dialing the target Site Prefix followed by the user extension.
• Unique Assignment: Each user maintains a unique extension to ensure they are reachable internally.

In the screenshot above, the user has inherited the following patterns as a result of their association to a Site:

•  \*88
• #244

Administrators can decide whether to enable all inherited patterns or selectively disable one or all of them. As can be seen from the example above, the administrator has decided to explicitly disable the pattern “#244”. Lastly, users can be provided access to patterns that are not associated with a Site. In the example above, the user has been provided access to the call pattern “91\#”, which is not associated with the user’s Site. 

Note: Patterns derived from a Site are explicitly labeled as "From site". 

Managing Granular Overrides: Policies and Patterns

Administrators can maintain global consistency through Site inheritance or provide flexibility through overrides. While the default behavior is to inherit Site properties, it is possible to override call restrictions, access to call patterns and the default outbound caller ID at a user level.

Outbound Caller ID Control

The administrator can define the user's preferred outbound identity using the following options, overriding the Site default if necessary:

1. Site Default: (Recommended) Uses the main Outbound Caller ID configured for the user's assigned Site.
2. Custom Caller ID: Allows selecting a specific number from the account pool, providing the most granular control over outbound presentation.

Configuring the Default Outbound Caller ID 

To configure the Default Outbound Caller ID for the user:  

1. Navigate to the Telephony tab of the given user and click on the Edit button. 

The caller ID settings can be changed in the “Outbound caller ID” tab. 

Call Restrictions

The user profile displays inherited restrictions (e.g., "Outbound PSTN: Disabled"). Administrators can modify these by selecting one of the following:

• Use Default: The user maintains the restrictions set by the associated Site.

• Use with Custom Values: This allows the administrator to selectively enable or disable specific restrictions, such as International Calling, regardless of the Site-wide policy.