Inbound calls. Distributed. Across a team.
A hunt group routes one inbound call to a list of users — sequential, simultaneous, or round-robin — until someone picks up. Catcher voicemail handles the calls nobody answers. Configurable in the admin portal at app.kelir.io. Rings land on each member's real cellular eSIM line, not a softphone session.
Hunt groups on Kelir.
A hunt group is a routing rule that takes one inbound call and rings a configured list of users in some order until one of them answers. The classic UCaaS feature — RingCentral, Dialpad, 8x8, Vonage Business, and Nextiva all ship the same primitive. Kelir's implementation is the same conceptually; the difference is what gets rung at the end. On Kelir, each member's line is a real cellular eSIM — so the hunt group rings users' actual phones via the native dialer over VoLTE, not through a softphone app session.
Three distribution strategies are available, configured per group: sequential cascade (member 1 rings, then member 2, then 3, in the order set), simultaneous (every member rings at once, first to answer takes the call), or round-robin (the call goes to whoever's been ringing least often, distributing load). Sequential is typical for on-call rotations; simultaneous for sales rooms; round-robin for support teams that want even load.
Configuration happens in the admin portal at app.kelir.io. Create the group, name it, pick the strategy, add members from the team directory, set the per-member ring timeout (default 25 seconds), and configure the catcher — what happens when nobody answers. Catcher options include: route to a shared department voicemail, forward to an external number (an answering service, the office manager's personal line), or play a custom busy message.
Hunt groups are activated on Team Starter ($29.99/seat/mo) and Team Pro ($39.99/seat/mo). Pro adds skill-based routing on top — agents tagged with skills (Spanish-speaking, enterprise-tier, billing-trained), inbound calls tagged with attributes (CRM lookup, IVR selection, caller history), and the routing engine matches before falling back to the standard hunt-group order.
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 → Hunt groups.
- 2
Click New hunt group. Name it ("Sales line", "Support team", "On-call rotation").
- 3
Pick a routing strategy: Sequential, Simultaneous, or Round-robin.
- 4
Add members from the team directory. For sequential and round-robin, the order in the list is the order of ring.
- 5
Set the per-member ring timeout — how long each member's phone rings before moving on (default 25 seconds, max 60).
- 6
Configure the catcher: shared department voicemail, forward to an external number, or play a busy message.
- 7
Optionally set working-hours rules so the hunt group only rings during business hours; otherwise route to voicemail or a covering number.
- 8
Pick which inbound number(s) feed this hunt group. The company main number, a department number, or an IVR menu option can all route here.
- 9
Save. The hunt group is live on the next inbound call.
Where hunt groups earns its keep.
Sales line — round-robin distribution
5 sales reps configured as a round-robin hunt group. Inbound sales calls distribute evenly across the team — the rep who's been ringing least often gets the next call. Each call rings on their cellular eSIM line; recording is enabled.
On-call provider rotation
Group practice with 4 providers on rotation. Hunt group is sequential — primary on-call first, secondary if no answer in 25 seconds, tertiary, then practice manager. Order updated weekly in the portal Sunday night.
Customer support — simultaneous ring
Small support team. Inbound rings everybody at once, first available picks up. Catcher is a shared department voicemail the team works through together. Picking up is a race — accountability is built in.
Crew dispatch for contractors
Field crew of 6. Office manager dispatches inbound calls to the crew via a sequential hunt group ordered by the day's schedule. Catcher forwards to the office manager's personal cell as the final fallback.
Multi-team agency with department routing
Agency with sales, client services, and finance teams. Each team has its own hunt group, fed by its own department-level inbound number. The auto-attendant routes to the right department; the department's hunt group distributes within the team.
The same feature.A real cellular line.
Hunt groups are a standard UCaaS feature on RingCentral, Dialpad, 8x8, Vonage Business, and Nextiva. Same routing primitives, same configurability. The differences sit in what happens when the hunt group hands the call to a user.
- The selected member's eSIM rings via VoLTE on their actual phone's native dialer — not a softphone session that might be backgrounded, suspended, or disconnected from Wi-Fi.
- If a member's phone has bad cellular signal, the call falls through the hunt-group cascade exactly the same way it would if their personal cell line had bad signal — predictable behavior.
- Members don't need to keep an app open to be "available" for the hunt group. Cellular reachability is the availability test.
- Skill-based routing on Team Pro lets the routing engine prefer agents tagged with relevant skills before falling back to the standard cascade.
- Catcher voicemail is a real shared inbox the whole team can see, in the admin portal — not a per-user voicemail that traps messages on one agent's account.
- Configurable from the admin portal at app.kelir.io — same surface as the rest of the routing config, no separate "hunt group manager" tool.
Common questions
No. Hunt groups distribute inbound calls across multiple users, which inherently requires multiple seats. They activate on Team Starter ($29.99/seat/mo) and Team Pro ($39.99/seat/mo). On Solo, inbound calls just ring your single line.
Sequential rings members in order — member 1 first, then member 2 if no answer in 25 seconds, etc. Simultaneous rings everyone at once; first to answer wins. Round-robin distributes evenly — each call goes to whoever has been ringing least often. Sequential for on-call rotations, simultaneous for sales rooms, round-robin for support teams that want even load.
Yes. A user can belong to as many hunt groups as makes sense — sales, support, on-call rotation. The user's working-hours and DND rules apply consistently across all groups they're in.
By default, the hunt group skips them and proceeds to the next member in the cascade. Optionally, the routing rule can include the member's busy state as a different signal — falling through immediately rather than waiting for the ring timeout.
Yes — the hunt group can include external numbers as members or as the catcher. Useful for fallbacks like the office manager's personal cell or an answering-service number. External members can't have skill tags or full routing-engine integration; they're just numbers in the cascade.
Tag agents with skills (Spanish-speaking, billing-certified, enterprise-tier). Tag inbound calls with attributes from the IVR selection, CRM contact lookup, or caller history. The routing engine prefers agents whose skills match the call's tags before falling back to the standard hunt-group order.