Set up your phone in ten minutes

Set up your phone takes you from no phone to a working call in about ten minutes. It uses your own Twilio account: Twilio bills you directly for your number and your calls, and ContactRoll charges nothing for them.

Open Settings, then Calling and press Start on the Set up your phone card, or go straight to Set up your phone. Owners and Administrators can use it.

The seven steps

The list at the top of the page shows each step as done, next or still to do. If you stop halfway, come back to the same page: it shows exactly what is left. A step you finish on the Calling page counts here too.

1. Connect your Twilio account. If you don’t have one, the page links to Twilio’s sign-up. Make a Standard API key in Twilio, then paste the Account SID, the API key SID and the API key’s secret. Never paste the account’s Auth Token: ContactRoll refuses it.
2. Let ContactRoll set up Twilio. Press Set up Twilio for me. ContactRoll makes one TwiML App in your Twilio account, which tells Twilio where to send your calls. Nothing else in the account changes.
3. Get a phone number. Type a US area code and press Find numbers. Choose a number, read its price, and press Buy. The number is bought in your Twilio account and rings in ContactRoll at once.
4. Choose the number people see. The first number you buy is chosen for you.
5. Emergency calls. ContactRoll can’t call 911 or any other emergency number. Keep a phone that can. Press I understand.
6. What people see when you call. People see your number. To ask for your business’s name to be shown too, register a caller name (CNAM) in Twilio. Press I understand.
7. Make a test call. Switch on Taking calls at the top of the page, call your new number from your own phone, and answer it in ContactRoll. The page notices the call by itself.

Buying a number

• The price shown is the monthly price Twilio gives your account. Calls are billed by the minute on top.
• ContactRoll buys local US numbers only. For a toll-free number, or a number that needs an address on file, buy it in Twilio and send its calls to ContactRoll from the Calling page.
• ContactRoll buys at most two numbers a day for an organization, and ten in all. Buy more in Twilio itself.
• If Twilio doesn’t answer while a number is being bought, ContactRoll can’t tell whether it was bought. Press Check my numbers: ContactRoll looks in your Twilio account and settles it. Nothing else can be bought until then.
• If the price has gone up since the page showed it, nothing is bought. Check the new price and buy again.

Already have a number in Twilio

You don’t need to buy another one. On the Calling page, under Calls that come in, press Send its calls to ContactRoll beside the number.