Each team. Their own line.
Departments give Sales, Support, Finance, or any business unit their own US business number, their own working-hours schedule, their own voicemail box, their own hunt group, and their own routing rules. Configurable from the admin portal at app.kelir.io. Members can belong to multiple departments without using extra seats.
Departments on Kelir.
A department on Kelir is a logical grouping of users plus the routing infrastructure that surrounds them — a dedicated US business number, working-hours schedule, voicemail box, hunt group, and routing rules. Sales has a sales line that rings the sales team. Support has a support line that rings the support team. Finance has a finance line that goes to a shared voicemail because nobody answers finance calls live. Each department is independent.
The classic UCaaS feature — RingCentral, Dialpad, 8x8, Vonage Business, and Nextiva all let you carve up a multi-user account into departments. Kelir ships departments on every Team plan (Starter and Pro), with the same primitive: a department contains users (members), exposes a number (the department's main line), and ships its own routing chain (auto-attendant greeting → optional IVR → hunt group → catcher voicemail).
Members can belong to multiple departments without using extra seats. A small business owner might be in Sales (taking new-customer inbound), Support (handling escalations), and Operations (routing internal calls). Each department's working-hours schedule and routing rules apply independently to that user when calls come in via that department's number.
The cellular-delivery angle still applies. When the sales department's hunt group rings a member, the call lands on that member's real cellular eSIM line. The native dialer rings. CarPlay routes it. The member's personal SIM is unaffected. Departmental calls show context on inbound (the dialer can show "Sales line" or the calling caller-ID with department tag) so the user knows which line they're answering.
Configuration happens entirely in the admin portal at app.kelir.io. Create the department, name it, assign a number (or port one in), set working hours, assign members, configure the hunt group, set the catcher voicemail. Per-department settings layer over user-level and company-wide defaults — the user's individual hours apply on their direct line, but the department's hours apply when calls come through the department main number.
Setup walkthrough.
Configured from Admin portal at app.kelir.io. The setup below assumes a working Kelir account and an active eSIM.
- 1
Open app.kelir.io and sign in as an admin. Navigate to Routing → Departments.
- 2
Click New department. Name it ("Sales", "Support", "Finance", or whatever fits).
- 3
Pick the department's main number — assign a new US number from inventory or submit an existing number for porting.
- 4
Set the department's working hours — per-day schedule with holiday overrides. Independent of user-level and company-wide hours.
- 5
Configure the auto-attendant greeting for the department line, with separate in-hours, after-hours, and holiday greetings.
- 6
Add members — assign users from the team directory. Members can belong to multiple departments.
- 7
Configure the department's hunt group: pick sequential, simultaneous, or round-robin distribution; set per-member ring timeouts; configure the catcher voicemail.
- 8
Optionally set up an IVR for this department line — useful if Sales has "Press 1 for new accounts, 2 for existing" sub-menus.
- 9
Set the department's voicemail behavior — shared voicemail (everyone in the department sees missed messages) or per-user voicemail (each member's individual mailbox).
- 10
Save. The department line is live and routes the next inbound call.
Where departments earns its keep.
Sales / Support / Finance separation
Three departments, each with their own number, hours, hunt group, and voicemail. Sales hours 8–7 weekdays; Support 7–8 weekdays plus weekend mornings; Finance 9–5 weekdays only with shared voicemail (no live answer).
Multi-office routing
Departments per office: "Boston office", "Austin office", "Remote team". Each has its own number, members are office-staffed, calls route to that office's team. Useful for businesses with geographic divisions.
Tiered support escalation
Two departments: "Tier 1 support" (front-line agents, default routing) and "Tier 2 support" (senior agents, escalation routing). Calls start at Tier 1 hunt group; transferred calls go to Tier 2.
Provider-specific lines at a clinic
Each provider gets a "department" — Dr. Chen, Dr. Patel, Dr. Reyes. Each has their own direct number, individual working hours, and personal voicemail. Front desk has a separate "Reception" department for general calls.
Per-account-team agency setup
Agency with 3 client account teams. Each is a department: "Acme team", "Beta Corp team", "Gamma Inc team". Members assigned to multiple. Each team has its own inbound number for the client to call directly.
The same feature.A real cellular line.
Departments are a standard multi-user UCaaS feature. Differences sit in configuration depth, plan availability, and what happens at the cellular line when the department routes.
- Departments are on Kelir Team Starter ($29.99/seat) — most softphone competitors gate departments / extension trees behind their mid-tier business plan ($25–35/seat or higher).
- Each department has its own US business number — not just an extension. Customers calling the department reach that number directly with its own inbound display.
- Per-department working hours, holiday calendar, voicemail greeting, and hunt-group rules are independent. Edit one without affecting others.
- Members in multiple departments don't need extra seats. The user's seat count is by user, not by department membership.
- When the department's hunt group rings a member, the member's eSIM line rings on cellular VoLTE — same as a personal call. No softphone in the path.
- Department-level call analytics on Team Pro — see volume, missed-rate, and peak hours per department, not just per user.
Common questions
No. Departments require multiple users — Sales department, Support department, etc. — so they activate on Team Starter ($29.99/seat) and Team Pro ($39.99/seat). On Solo, your single line handles everything; routing is configured at the user level.
Yes — and they typically do. A small-business owner might be in Sales, Support, and Operations. The user's seat count is by user, not by department membership. Each department's hours and routing rules apply independently when calls come in via that department's number.
Yes — a department exposes a US business number that customers can call. You can either assign a new number from Kelir's inventory or port in an existing department number from another carrier. Port-in is free, takes 1–3 business days for simple ports.
Per-user hours apply to the user's personal direct line. Per-department hours apply when calls come in via the department main number. They're independent. A user can be available 9–6 on their personal line but their department (Sales) might run 8–8 with the user available for the 9–6 portion of that schedule.
Yes. Each department's main number can have its own IVR menu, with its own options and routing. Useful when sales needs "Press 1 for new accounts, 2 for existing" but support needs "Press 1 technical, 2 billing, 3 account."
Two options. Shared voicemail (the whole department sees missed-call messages in a team inbox; anyone can mark resolved or assign to a teammate). Per-user voicemail (calls that route through the department but ring an individual user fall through to that user's personal voicemail). Configurable per department.
Adjacent features.
Hunt groups
Each department contains a hunt group that distributes inbound calls.
Multi-level IVR
Department-specific IVR menus for sub-routing within a department.
Admin portal
Where departments, hours, members, and routing are configured.