> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.voxworks.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Configuring Your Receptionist > Give your AI receptionist a name, a voice, a greeting and instructions, switch on what she can do — booking, message taking and warm transfers — and learn how her settings round-trip safely with the full script editor. ## Overview Every receptionist is configured from her own editor. Open **AI Receptionist** in the sidebar (under **Inbound Calls**), choose a receptionist from the **AI Receptionists** list, and switch to the **Settings** tab. The editor has three tabs — **Overview**, **Settings** and **Calls** — with **Test** and **Save** buttons in the header. An **Unsaved Changes** badge appears as soon as you edit anything, and **Test** saves pending edits first, so a test call always uses your latest configuration. This page covers the two Settings cards that define who your receptionist is and what she can do: * **Your receptionist** — name, voice, greeting and further instructions * **What *\[Name]* can do** — the tool toggles: booking, message taking and transfers The other cards have their own pages: **Your phone number** is covered in [Receptionist Number & Call Forwarding](/receptionist/phone-number), and **What *\[Name]* knows** plus **Post-Call Summary** in [Receptionist Knowledge & Post-Call Summaries](/receptionist/knowledge-and-summaries). *** ## Name, voice, greeting and instructions The **Your receptionist** card — *"Give your assistant a name, a voice, a first greeting and further instructions"* — defines the persona. | Setting | Description | Default | | ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Name** | The persona's name. It appears throughout the editor ("What Ava can do", "What Ava knows") and becomes the receptionist's name in your AI Receptionists list. If you clear it, it saves as **Ava**. | `Ava` | | **Voice** | The voice callers hear, chosen with the voice picker (below). | The voice you picked when creating the receptionist | | **Greeting** | The receptionist's opening line when she answers — spoken **word-for-word**, exactly as you write it. | Empty — e.g. *"Hi, thanks for calling! How can I help you today?"* | | **Instructions** | Extra guidance followed after the greeting — tone, what to ask, what to avoid — while she works out what the caller needs. Unlike the greeting, instructions are never read out. | Empty — falls back to a standard prompt: work out what the caller needs, acknowledge anything they have already said rather than asking again, and ask a short clarifying question if their need is unclear | The **Overview** tab shows **Needs setup** — *"Add a voice and a greeting in Settings so she can start answering."* — until every step of the setup checklist is complete, and **Ready** once they all are. Writing a greeting **and** instructions together tick off the *"Write greeting and instructions"* step; see [AI Receptionist Overview & Quickstart](/receptionist/overview) for the full checklist. ### The voice picker The **Voice** dropdown shows one row per voice: a play button, the voice's name, a gender icon, country flag(s) for the accent, and a blue **HQ** badge on high-quality voices. Playing a sample neither selects the voice nor closes the dropdown, so you can audition several before committing — only one sample plays at a time, and clicking again stops it. A play button beside the closed picker auditions the currently selected voice. All voices speak English, across Australian, American, British and Indian-accented options. To browse the full catalogue with **Accent**, **Gender**, **Age** and **Tone** filters, use the [Voice library](/voices/library) on the **Voices** page — it is browse-and-audition only; the selection itself happens here. *** ## What *\[Name]* can do — tool toggles The **What *\[Name]* can do** card lists three tools, each with a switch. Tools give your receptionist the ability to take actions on a call; anything switched off is simply never offered to callers. | Tool | In-app description | What enabling it does | | ----------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Book appointments** | "Checks your calendar and books callers into open slots." | Adds a booking path powered by your connected calendar | | **Take a message** | "Captures the details and notifies you." | Adds a message-taking path that captures the caller's details | | **Transfer to a human** | "Patches the caller through to your team." | Reveals the transfer routes editor — each route is a warm transfer to a number of yours | ### Book appointments The toggle is disabled until a calendar integration is connected — the row reads *"Connect a calendar integration to enable booking."* Once one is connected, the receptionist automatically uses your connected booking tool. Clicking anywhere on the row (outside the switch) opens the tool configuration panel — the same panel the full script editor uses — where you can pick exactly which booking tool the receptionist should use and adjust its input and output mappings. See [Calendar Tools](/tools/calendar/overview) for the settings each calendar integration offers. ### Take a message No configuration needed. When a caller wants to leave a message, the receptionist captures their name, best contact phone number and the reason for their call one item at a time, confirms the phone number back to them, and lets them know someone will be in touch shortly. The captured details appear in the call's transcript and summary — turn on **Post-Call Summary** to have that summary sent to you by **Email** or **SMS** after the call ends (see [Receptionist Knowledge & Post-Call Summaries](/receptionist/knowledge-and-summaries)). ### Transfer to a human Switching this on reveals the transfer routes editor with one empty route ready to fill in. As the helper text puts it: *"Each route is its own warm transfer — the assistant dials that route's number whenever its conditions match."* *** ## Transfer routes Each route has three fields. **Add transfer route** adds another; the remove button appears once you have more than one. | Field | Required | Description | | ------------------ | -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Route name** | Optional | Who the route reaches — e.g. *Owner*, *Front desk*. It is announced as the person's name during the warm transfer; left blank, the route is treated as *Reception*. | | **Phone number** | Effectively required | The number dialled for this route. Local numbers are converted to international format when you save (Australian by default, so `0412 345 678` becomes `+61412345678`); a number that can't be recognised is kept exactly as typed, so a typo stays visible rather than being silently changed. Give every route a number — the transfer feature only switches on once at least one route has one (see below). | | **Transfer when…** | Optional | A plain-language description of when this route applies — e.g. *"caller reports an active leak"*. Left blank, it defaults to *"The caller needs to reach \[route name]"* — or *"…a team member"* if the route has no name either. | ### How routes map to Warm Handoff Behind the scenes, each route becomes a step using the same **Warm Handoff** tool available in the full script editor. The mapping is automatic: * **Phone number** → the dial destination * **Route name** → the agent name announced to the caller * **Transfer when…** → the routing condition that sends the caller down this route * A standard merge message — *"Thanks for holding — you're now connected."* — is spoken once the human joins During the transfer the caller is placed on hold while the receptionist dials your team member and privately briefs them on the call so far, then merges the two together — see [Transferring Calls](/routing/transferring-calls) for the full runtime story. If you want finer control — a custom failure message, extra briefing detail, a wait-for-answer confirmation — open the receptionist in the full script editor and configure the transfer step directly; every setting is described on the [Warm Handoff](/tools/warm-handoff) page. ### When no transfer is set up A transfer only counts as configured when the toggle is on **and** at least one route has a phone number. Otherwise, callers who ask for a person are offered a call back instead: the receptionist explains that no one is available right now, offers to arrange a call back, and confirms the best contact number and any preferred time. *** ## How it all becomes a call Your receptionist is, under the hood, an inbound call script built from a fixed set of named steps. Knowing the shape helps you read her call transcripts — and matters if you open her in the full script editor (next section). | Step | What happens | | --------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Greeting** | Speaks your **Greeting** word-for-word, then hands over to the Reception Hub. | | **Reception Hub** | Works out what the caller needs, guided by your **Instructions**, and routes them to the matching tool. Callers come back here after booking — or after a failed transfer — until the conversation is finished. | | **Book appointment** | Runs your connected booking tool, then returns the caller to the Reception Hub. | | **Take a message** | Captures the caller's name, number and reason, then moves to Wrap Up. | | **Transfer: \[route name]** | One per transfer route. Warm-transfers the caller; on success the receptionist's part of the call ends, and if the transfer can't be completed the caller returns to the Reception Hub. | | **Offer Callback** | Present only when no transfer is configured — offers to arrange a call back, then moves to Wrap Up. | | **Wrap Up** | Thanks the caller, confirms any message or call back that was arranged, then says goodbye and ends the call. Every conversation ends through this step — except a successfully completed transfer, which ends the receptionist's part of the call directly once the human joins. | *** ## Editing in the full script editor — the safe round-trip Receptionists also appear on the **Call Scripts** page, where opening one launches the full [script editor](/scripts/editor-guide) — flows, steps, conditions and all. You can use both editors on the same receptionist, because saving from the receptionist editor **merges** rather than rebuilds: **Preserved exactly as the full editor left them:** * Any steps you add with your own names, plus stages and flow variables * Routing you add on the Reception Hub to your own steps — those steps stay reachable after a receptionist save * The wording of **Greeting**, **Reception Hub** and **Wrap Up** — the first two round-trip into the receptionist editor's Greeting and Instructions fields, and the Wrap Up wording (personalised with your business name when the receptionist is generated with AI) survives saves even though the receptionist editor has no field for it * The booking step's tool choice and its input/output mappings * Script settings edited in the full editor — for example **Max Call Duration (seconds)**, which starts at `600` for a receptionist, and **Key Terms** **Rebuilt from your receptionist settings on every save:** * The steps with the reserved names above — `Greeting`, `Reception Hub`, `Book appointment`, `Take a message`, `Offer Callback`, `Wrap Up`, and any step named `Transfer: …` — along with their routing conditions * The wording of **Take a message** and **Offer Callback**, which reset to their standard prompts * Each transfer step's destination and announcement, regenerated from its route Two practical rules follow. Keep the reserved step names: renaming a managed step turns it into an ordinary custom step, and the receptionist editor will recreate the managed step alongside it on the next save. And don't hand-edit the wording of **Take a message** or **Offer Callback** in the full editor if you still save from the receptionist editor — those edits won't survive. Managed steps keep their identity between saves, so custom routing that points at them stays valid. If someone else changes the receptionist while you have her open, saving shows *"This receptionist was changed since you opened it. Reload to get the latest version before saving."* — reload and reapply your edits. *** ## Next Steps * [Receptionist Number & Call Forwarding](/receptionist/phone-number) — assign the number callers dial, or forward your existing number to Voxworks * [Receptionist Knowledge & Post-Call Summaries](/receptionist/knowledge-and-summaries) — quick facts, FAQs, and automatic Email/SMS summaries after each call * [Warm Handoff](/tools/warm-handoff) — every setting behind the transfer routes, for when you need more than the defaults * [Voice library](/voices/library) — browse and audition the full voice catalogue by accent, gender, age and tone