Number Pools

What are number pools?

Number pools are a new way for you to manage your PhoneBurner Numbers (previously, Local ID and vPhone) to configure each number to work for you the way you want.

When purchasing a new number, it will automatically be added to a pool on your account on the Numbers settings tab.  From here, you can create new pools (by clicking “Add Number Pool”), buy additional numbers (“Get Numbers”), or manage your existing pools.

Managing Pools

When creating a pool or editing an existing pool, you’ll have two options - “Pool Name” and “Select a Routing Strategy”.  

The Pool Name is what this pool will appear as in the list of caller ID options when starting a dial session or setting up a preset.  We recommend naming these to keep track of which team seat the pool of numbers is assigned to for individual user pools (e.g. “My Phone”, “Bob’s Pool”, “VA3 Number”), and instead based on the campaign or other purpose when creating a shared pool for multiple members (e.g. “Team Numbers”, “East Coast Campaign”).

For routing options, multi-seat teams will have 4 routing options to start :

“Myself” (numbers assigned only to the team admin)

“Team Member” (numbers assigned to a specific team seat other than the admin)

“Best Member” (numbers shared across the entire team)

“External Number” (number routed outside the system to any verified caller ID in the Caller ID Library)

Note that Premium account features including SMS and inbound calling via the vPhone tab and browser extension will only be available on pools assigned to a single user (“Myself” or “Team Member”).  

Single-seat team users will only have “Myself” and “External Number” routing options.

Inbound Settings

When a contact calls back a number in a pool using “Best Member” routing, PhoneBurner will automatically route this call back to the team seat that most recently called the contact.  All calls to numbers in  “Myself” and “Team Member” pools will be routed to the seat that pool is assigned to.  

When a call is routed to a specific seat, the settings on the “Inbound” tab in Settings determines what happens to that call. 

For Standard and Professional members, the only option is to forward this number to an outside line, such as a personal cell or work number, or office line.  

Premium seats have two additional options:  

The “Softphone” option allows routing into our vPhone extension (or an active dial session, using the “Inbound Call Handling in the Dialer” feature in Labs). 

The “Voicemail” option will route the call into the voicemail inbox within PhoneBurner, which can be accessed from the vPhone tab.  

These options can be used in tandem if desired - doing so will allow inbound calls to ring both in the extension/dial session and on your forwarded number, or you could opt to have the PhoneBurner voicemail pick up instead of yours even when forwarding outside the system.

Note that the “External Number” routing option entirely bypasses inbound settings - numbers routed in this way will only ever be forwarded to the selected number.

More to Come

As we look to the future, PhoneBurner has several upcoming features that will interact directly with Number Pools.  “Call Flows” will add a new routing option that will let you create Phone trees and call queues instead of directing inbound calls to a single team seat. 

“Brand Profiles” will allow you to more easily manage numbers branded using our Branded Caller ID service directly through your back office by tying specific brands to specific number pools.  

Stay tuned for more information on these as we get closer to release!