How does Kolio get your phone number?
Kolio answers calls on a SIP account you hold with your telephony provider: you enter that account's credentials in Kolio, Kolio registers with the provider using them and takes over the incoming calls from there. This is the BYO SIP trunk model (bring your own): the number, the contract and the invoice stay yours; Kolio is just the device that picks up the phone.
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the standard protocol for setting up phone calls over the internet (RFC 3261). A SIP account is the combination of the provider's server, a username and a password; with these three values Kolio signs in and answers calls on the numbers tied to that account.
There are three ways to get a number for your phone call center:
- You already have a SIP provider (e.g. Zadarma, Twilio or any other SIP trunk provider): enter the existing SIP account and number in Kolio. This is the fastest route.
- You have a landline or mobile number with a carrier (e.g. Telekom Slovenije, A1): order a SIP account with a number from the carrier or a SIP provider and then forward your existing number to that SIP number (call forwarding is configured at the carrier). Customers keep calling the old number; the call ends up at Kolio.
- You have no number yet: buy a number together with a SIP account from any SIP provider and enter it in Kolio.
What do you need from your provider?
To connect you need exactly four values from your SIP provider's control panel: the SIP server address, the SIP account's username and password, and the number (or numbers) tied to that account.
| Field in Kolio | Example | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Zadarma · Twilio · Other (generic) | Your choice; for Zadarma and Twilio the server address is prefilled, for "Other (generic)" you type it in. |
| SIP server (host) | sip.zadarma.com | SIP account settings at your provider (often "SIP server", "Registrar" or "Domain"). Some providers use regional servers — take the one listed for your account. |
| Username | 100000-101 | The SIP account at your provider ("SIP login", "Username", "Auth ID"). |
| SIP password | (hidden) | The SIP account at your provider ("SIP password"). Not the same as the password for the provider's web portal. |
| Phone numbers (DID) | +38612345678 | The list of numbers the provider has tied to this SIP account. One per line or comma-separated. |
| Dedicated VPS (optional) | (empty) | Leave empty. The field is for installations where calls do not run through the shared Kolio server — use it only when support tells you to. |
There are no fields for port, transport or codec: Kolio registers over UDP on the provider's standard SIP port and uses G.711 (alaw/ulaw, ITU-T G.711) for voice, which every SIP provider supports.
How do you connect a SIP account to Kolio?
You connect the SIP account in the SIP telephony section of Settings → Telephony; you need the nastavitve (settings) permission (the account owner always has it). In this phase one Kolio account has one SIP account, which can carry several phone numbers.
Open the telephony settings
In the menu open Settings → Telephony and scroll to the SIP telephony section.
Settings → Telephony → SIP telephonyPick a provider
In Provider choose Zadarma, Twilio or Other (generic). For the first two, SIP server (host) is prefilled; check it against your provider's data (it may be a regional server) and correct it if needed.
Enter the credentials
Fill in Username and SIP password from the SIP account at your provider. The password is stored encrypted (AES-GCM) and is never shown in the interface again; when editing later, leave the field empty if you are not changing it — Kolio keeps the existing one.
Enter the phone numbers (DID)
In Phone numbers (DID) enter every number the agent should answer — one per line or comma-separated. The format does not matter:
+386 1 234 56 78,0038612345678,38612345678and01 234 56 78are the same number and are stored uniformly as+38612345678.Save
Click Save. Below the form a card appears with Account status (Active), Registration status (initially not checked yet) and the list of numbers marked active.
Wait for registration
The configuration reaches the telephony server automatically within 5 minutes at most. Reload the page: Registration status changes to registered. Only then does the agent answer calls.
The Deactivate button temporarily switches off the SIP account and all its numbers (the agent stops answering, the settings remain); Activate turns it back on. Both reach the telephony server on the next synchronisation.
What does registration mean and when do settings take effect?
Registration means that Kolio's telephony server has successfully signed in at your provider with your username and password, and that from that moment the provider sends incoming calls to your numbers to Kolio. Registration renews automatically (every 10 minutes); without a valid registration calls stay with the provider.
| State | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| not checked yet | The settings are saved but the telephony server has not picked them up yet. | Wait up to 5 minutes and reload the page. |
| registered | Sign-in at the provider works; the agent answers calls. | Make a test call. |
| rejected (check password) | The provider rejected the sign-in — usually a wrong username or password, sometimes registration from an external device is not allowed. | Correct the credentials and save; check the SIP account settings at the provider. |
| not registered | The provider's server is unreachable or registration has not succeeded yet. | Check the SIP server (host) address; if it persists, contact the provider or us. |
Below the state you see the time of the last check (Checked) and the server's raw message in monospace.
How settings reach the telephony server
Kolio pushes nothing to the telephony server; the server pulls the configuration itself every 5 minutes, applies it and reports the state of all registrations back to Kolio. Hence: every change in the SIP telephony section (new password, added number, deactivation) takes effect within 5 minutes at most, and the registration status in the interface refreshes on every run — even when nothing changed, so that an outage at the provider is caught.
On an incoming call the telephony server determines whose call it is primarily by the SIP account the call arrived through (each customer has their own); the called number is only an additional, fallback route. When looking up by number, Kolio compares every spelling of the same number (+386…, 00386…, 386…, 01…) with an exact match — there is deliberately no matching on trailing digits, so a call can never land with the wrong customer. If the same number in different spellings belonged to two accounts, the server rejects the call with the error did_ambiguous instead of guessing.
Where do you set the agent's greeting, language and voice?
The phone agent's greeting, language and voice live in the Conversation section at the top of Settings → Telephony and apply to all calls of the account; what the agent says after the greeting and what it may do is defined by the agent instructions and the knowledge base.
| Field | What it controls | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Greeting | The sentence the agent says verbatim immediately on pick-up, before the language model starts — the caller hears it without delay. If you leave the field empty, the agent greets the caller itself according to its instructions. | empty (e.g. "Hello, how can I help you?") |
| Bot language | The language the agent speaks and listens in. Automatic means your account's default language. | Automatic |
| Voice (TTS) | The agent's synthesised voice; choose from 12 multilingual voices (Nina, Maya, Emma, Sofia, Grace, Ruby, Noah, Mason, Oliver, Jack, Daniel, Owen). | Nina |
| Speech recognition model (STT) | The model that recognises the caller's speech. Change only when support tells you to. | stt-rt-v5 |
The Interruptions (barge-in), Echo cancellation (AEC) and Silence sections govern when the agent stops talking as the caller starts speaking, how it tells its own echo from speech, when it asks whether the caller is still there after silence (Nudge on silence, default 8000 ms) and when it hangs up (Hang up on silence, default 30000 ms). The defaults are tuned for Slovenian lines; change them only if the agent interrupts callers or does not hear them. All changes apply from the next call.
What is the softphone and how do you enable it?
The softphone is a web phone in the browser (SIP.js/WebRTC) with which members of your team call customers and receive calls directly from Kolio, without a desktop phone application. Kolio generates its credentials itself — they are unrelated to your SIP account — yet outgoing calls still go through your SIP account, so the customer sees a call from your number.
Open the Softphone section
On Settings → Telephony the Softphone section is visible only to members with the
Settings → Telephony → Softphonesoftphonepermission (the owner always has it; grant it to others under Users).Enable it
Tick Softphone is enabled and click Save. On the first save Kolio creates SIP credentials: a username of the form
ksp_+ your account slug (e.g.ksp_norevia) appears in the SIP credentials card; the password is stored encrypted and is shown nowhere.Wait for synchronisation
As with the SIP account, the softphone credentials reach the telephony server within 5 minutes at most.
Use the phone
The softphone appears as a floating button in the bottom corner of every page of the app. The state ready means it is registered. Type a number or a customer's name (Number or customer name searches your CRM contacts) and click Call; on an incoming call you see Incoming call with the buttons Answer and Reject. Under Devices (microphone and speaker) you pick the devices and use Test microphone to confirm the browser hears you.
Real-time transcription of softphone calls
Softphone calls are transcribed in real time by default and saved under Conversations as phone conversations, alongside the agent's calls. Transcription runs in two separate speech-recognition sessions (one per audio stream — yours and the customer's), so the record makes clear who said what; during a call the phone shows the label Call is being transcribed.
- The switch Transcribe softphone calls in real time is in the Softphone section (same form as enabling,
softphonepermission). - A change takes effect on the phone's next registration: reload the page after saving, otherwise an open softphone keeps using the previous setting.
- If the installation has no speech-recognition key (Soniox) configured, the switch is greyed out and calls are not transcribed regardless of the setting; the stored value is not lost.
How do you test the first call?
Test the first call by dialling one of the entered phone numbers from your mobile once Registration status shows registered; the conversation then appears under Conversations with the Phone filter.
Dial the number
The agent picks up and says the Greeting (or greets you itself if the field is empty). Ask it something that is in your knowledge base, e.g. opening hours.
Check interruption
Start talking during the answer — the agent must stop (if Allow interrupting the bot while speaking is on). Then stay silent: after 8 seconds it asks whether you are still there, after 30 seconds of silence it hangs up.
Review the conversation
Open Conversations, filter Phone. You see the transcript, the summary, the caller's number in the form
Conversations → Phone+386…and any task or appointment the agent created.
The call does not reach the agent
- Registration is not registered. Wait up to 5 minutes from the last save and reload the page. On rejected (check password) correct the credentials.
- The SIP account is Inactive. Click Activate; the numbers follow the account state.
- The provider does not allow registration from an external device or has an IP restriction enabled. Allow registration for this SIP account in the provider's control panel.
- The number is not tied to this SIP account at the provider (you have several accounts/lines) or the forwarding from the carrier's number is misconfigured. Call the SIP number directly to separate a forwarding problem from a Kolio problem.
- An "Other (generic)" provider sends calls from a different address than the one entered in SIP server (host) — see the note for the technical partner above.
- Credits are used up. The agent answers the call but runs in limited mode (below).
What happens when credits are used up?
When your plan's credits are used up, Kolio does not reject the call: the agent still answers, but switches to limited mode, in which it only takes messages for your team. Limited mode starts when usage reaches the period's included and purchased credits plus a 10% reserve of the included credits (up to that limit the agent works normally).
- The agent says it is currently only taking messages and that the team will get back shortly; it does not answer questions about the offer, prices, opening hours or appointments and does not book, move or cancel anything.
- It collects first and last name, phone or email and a short message, then creates a contact and a task for your team — the only two tools it has in this mode.
- Greeting, voice and language stay the same as usual; the call is recorded under Conversations.
- The softphone keeps working in limited mode — your team's calling and receiving calls is not tied to the agent's limited mode.