Note: Call monitoring is disabled by default.

Admins can enable call monitoring then add groups that can use monitoring features (listen, whisper, barge, take over). If granted permission by the Zoom Phone admin, phone users can use call monitoring features on other phone users, common area phones, call queues, and shared line groups.

The following scenarios illustrate possible use cases:

• Front desk receptionist: If there is a high-priority call for an employee who is busy on another call, the receptionist can barge in and inform the employee of the important call.
• Call center supervisor: Supervisors can silently observe an agent's call with a customer to ensure high-quality service, then barge in to calls to assist.
• Group trainer: A group trainer can listen to an agent's call with a customer then whisper to the agent to provide advice on handling the customer.

This article covers:

• Call monitoring features
• Limitations of call monitoring
• How to enable or disable call monitoring
• How to add groups that can use call monitoring
• How to edit a call monitoring group

Prerequisites for setting up call monitoring

• Account owner or admin privileges
• Zoom Phone license

For more information on user prerequisites, see the user guide for call monitoring.

Call monitoring features

Call monitoring consists of these features:

• Listen: Listen to a call without the parties being aware.
• Whisper: Speak to a phone user in a call without other parties being aware.
• Barge: Join a call and speak to all parties. The call will become a 3-way call.
• Take over: Take over the call from a Zoom Phone user.
• Conference Barge: Take over a shared line group call. This allows multiple members to barge into a call that is received by the shared line group, regardless of who answered the call. Up to 10 total members can join the call. This feature requires phone users to have client or app version 5.8.0 or higher.
  Note: This feature is only available when setting up call monitoring for a shared line group. If selected, you can't enable any other call monitoring feature.

Limitations of call monitoring

Take note of these limitations when setting up call monitoring:

• You assign up to 100 monitors and 100 phone users being monitored to each call monitoring group.
• Phone users can belong to multiple call monitoring groups, but monitor/monitored pairs can't be duplicated. For example, if Grant (monitor) and Carly (monitored) are in group A, you can't create another group with Grant as a monitor and Carly as a phone user that can be monitored. 
• If the monitoring privileges are changed and the associated phone users' have desk phones, the phones will reboot.
• Common area phones can be monitored but not act as the monitor.

How to enable or disable call monitoring

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Account Management then Account Settings.
3. Click the Zoom Phone tab.
4. Click the Monitor toggle to enable or disable it.

How to add groups that can use call monitoring

After enabling call monitoring, you need to create groups of phone users that can use the feature. Each group contains the following:

• Monitors: Phone users that can use call monitoring on other phone users.
• Monitored: Phone users that can be monitored.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Phone System Management then Monitoring.
3. Click Add.
4. Specify the following information:
   • Type: Select what extensions to enable call monitoring for.
     Note: You can't change the type after adding the monitoring group. 
     • Users & Common Area Phones: Allow specific phone users to monitor common area phones and other phone users.
     • Call Queues: Allow specific phone users to monitor specific call queues (if the phone user being monitored makes or receives a call from the call queue's extension or direct numbers)..
     • Shared Line Groups: Allow all members of specific shared line groups to monitor each other (if the phone user being monitored makes or receives a call from the shared line group's extension or direct numbers).
     • Shared Line Appearance: Allow phone users (executives and assistants) part of a call delegation (also known as shared line appearance) setup to monitor each other.
   • Name: Enter a display name to help identify the group.
   • Site (only visible if you enabled multiple sites): Select a site to assign the group to.
     Note: You can still add phone users from other sites to the group.
   • Monitors: Select the phone users or call queue that can use call monitoring.
     • If you set the Type to Call Queues, the call queue admin is the monitor by default. If you don't see a name in this setting, manually select a call queue member.
     • If you set the Type to Shared Line Groups, only members in the same shared line group can monitor other members. If you add multiple shared line groups, this doesn't mean members can monitor all other members of the shared line groups added.
     • If you set the Type to Shared Line Appearance, only the executive and assistants in the same call delegation setup can monitor each other. 
   • Privileges: Select the call monitoring feature that the monitors can use.
   • Monitored: Select the phone users or common area phones that can be monitored.
     • If you set the Type to Call Queues, the call queue you set in Monitors will be added here by default.
   • Prompt: Enable or disable a disclaimer prompt that warns call participants their call may be monitored. This setting is only visible after clicking Save.
     • Conference Barge Tone: If you're setting up call monitoring for a shared line group select Conference Barge as the call monitoring feature, enable this to play a tone whenever a member barges into the call.
5. Click Save.

Notes:

• Associated desk phones will automatically reboot to apply the changes. Desk phones may reboot multiple times.
• A line key called BLF (Monitoring) will be automatically added to the monitor's line key settings. This line key will allow the monitor to see the call status of the monitored and use call monitoring on desk phones.

How to edit a call monitoring group

After adding a call monitoring group, you can edit its settings and membership.

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
2. In the navigation menu, click Phone System Management then Monitoring.
3. Click the display name of the group you want to edit.
4. (Optional) Click Rename to change the display name.
5. See the previous section for details on settings you can edit.