Targets are the receiving party of any call routed through the Ringba platform.

A typical call flow starts with a call generated by you or a publisher and ends with a target accepting and answering the call.

The functions described in this article are included in all subscription packages. This article is intended for admin users.

This article contains the following sections:

• Targets
  • Priority Among Target, Buyer, and Campaign
  • Priority Between Target and Target Group
• Targets List Screen
  • Available Actions
• How to Create a Target
• How to Add a Target to a Routing Plan
• How to Export a Spreadsheet of Targets
• Targets FAQ
  • How can I send button pushes to a target that requires using their IVR to connect to an agent?
  • How does the Priority Bump slider work?
  • Why isn't my target receiving calls even after I reset caps?
  • What should I do if I need help with configuring and using targets?

Targets

A target is defined in Ringba with an inbound phone number or SIP address. When you create a target, you configure options that include:

• Giving the target a name and ID.
• Entering the phone number to dial to connect to this target. If you use a phone number, you should enter it in E.164 format. Consider using a SIP address if possible to help prevent spam calls. 
• If the target belongs to a buyer, indicating the buyer.
• Setting hours of operation and time zone.
• Enabling call recordings if you want to review recordings of the calls later.
• Enabling revenue recovery to reroute calls the target ends too early.
• Setting call volume and concurrency capping
• Restricting duplicate calls from the same caller ID
• Configuring predictive routing to customize how Ringba calculates the target's revenue per call 
• Defining shareable tags to make tags from the call available to the target, if the target also has a Ringba account
• Creating dynamic tag routing filters to configure rules about what calls Ringba routes to this target based on the tags on the call

Note: The value you set in the Connection Timeout field may be slightly exceeded if a connection attempt, later in the process, is started and has a longer effective timeout.

Once you have configured your target, you add it to a routing plan, either in the Call Routing section of the campaign or on the Call Flows > Routing Plans screen.

Priority among target, buyer, and campaign

Some settings you configure when you create a target look similar to settings you configure when you create a campaign. For example, you can configure all the following kinds of fields at both the target and campaign level:

• Call recording
• Shareable tags
• Restrict duplicate calls
• Predictive routing
• Revenue recovery

In all these cases, you can choose to have your target default to the settings on the campaign.

In some cases, you can also find these settings on the buyer, if the target has an associated buyer. When all these entities have settings configured, Ringba must choose which settings to honor. Ringba uses the following hierarchy to prioritize the settings:

• Campaign settings are the least specific and therefore the default. Ringba follows the campaign settings only if they are not overruled by settings on the buyer or target.
• Buyer settings are more specific than campaign settings. If they exist, Ringba uses these settings for all targets and ring tree targets associated with the buyer.
• Target settings are the most specific. Ringba always favors target settings if they exist.

Priority between target and target group

A target group lets you bundle together several targets and add them to a routing plan as if they were one target. The target group gives you the option to dial all targets in the group simultaneously and lets you override some of the target settings for calls that go to the target via the group.

When you configure your target group, you choose whether the target group settings override the target settings. When considering priority among target, buyer, and campaign, Ringba treats the target group like a target.

Targets List Screen

You navigate to the Manage Targets screen by clicking Targets > Manage Targets in the left navigation bar. From here, you can create, update, configure, and manage targets. You can use the search bar at the top of the screen to search for targets by name or ID. 

A table appears with a row for each target in your account. You can control which columns appear in the table by clicking the gear icon to the right of the search.

The table contains a row for each target in your account. The following columns appear:

• Name: The name of the target.
• Buyer: The name of the buyer, if this target is associated with a buyer.
• Type: An icon that indicates whether this target uses a DID number or SIP. Hover your mouse over the icon to see what the icon means. 
• Destination: The target phone number or SIP address.
• Rate: Indicates whether this target incurs an additional fee per minute a call is connected. This occurs when the target has a phone number from a country other than the United States or Canada. If you see High in this field, you can hover your mouse over the icon to see the per-minute rate.
• Live: The number of calls currently connected to this target.
• Hour: The number of calls to this target in the last 60 minutes.
• Day: The number of calls to this target today.
• Month: The number of calls to this target this month.
• Total: The total number of calls to this target since it was created.
• Status: Indicates whether the target is open, closed, capped, or disabled. Hover your mouse over the dot to see the status.
• Actions: Icons you use to perform actions on a target. See the next section for details.

You can click most of the column headers to sort the table by the value in that field. Click the header again to reverse the sort and click it a third time to remove the sort. You can use the icons in the Actions column to perform other operations on targets from the list screen.

Available Actions

The Actions column contains icons you can use to manage targets:

Click the icons in the Action column to:

• Edit: Edit the target. 
  Tip: You can also click the target name to open the target for editing.
• Pause/Enable: Temporarily stop calls from connecting to this target or restart calls.
• Duplicate Target: Make a copy of this target.
• View Reports: Go to the Reporting screen with a filter enabled to limit the reporting data to only this target.
• Reset Caps: Click to reset the target's numbers to zero. This tool lets targets start receiving calls again if they had stopped due to hitting a cap.
  Note: Resetting a buyer's cap does not affect the buyer's targets' caps and vice versa. 
• Delete Target: Click to delete this target. When you click this icon, a confirmation window appears so you can see the buyers, campaigns, target groups, and routing plans associated with the target before proceeding.
• Show References: Show a list of routing plans, target groups, and other items that reference this target.
• View Activity: Click to see a change history of this target.

How to Create a Target

Use the following steps to create a target:

1. Navigate to Targets > Manage Targets from the main menu and click Create Target.
2. Configure all your target’s settings, capping rules, and tag routing filters.
3. Click Create Target to create and save your target.

Important: If you create a target with a phone number that is from a country other than the United States or Canada, calls connected to this target will be charged a per-minute rate in addition to the regular per-minute rate for your numbers. You can see this rate on the Manage Targets screen by hovering your mouse over the icon in the Rate column.

Once configured, you can use the target in routing plans, add it to target groups, and assign it a buyer.

How to Add a Target to a Routing Plan

Use the following steps to add a target to a routing plan:

1. Navigate to Campaigns from the menu.
2. Find the campaign where you want to add the target and click Edit under Actions.
3. Scroll down to Call Routing, find the target, and click the arrow button to add it to the routing plan.

From here, you can set your campaign-level target settings including Priority / Weight and Conversion Settings.

How to Export a Spreadsheet of Targets

You can export a CSV file that contains all the targets in your account. The CSV contains the same data you see on the Manage Targets screen.

To export a spreadsheet of targets:

1. Navigate to Targets > Manage Targets from the main menu.
2. Click the Export CSV button in the upper right corner.

A CSV file is downloaded to your browser's downloads folder. The CSV contains a row for each target. It contains the following columns:

• Name: The target name
• Type: Indicates whether the target uses a number or a SIP
• Destination: The number or SIP the target uses
• Live: The number of calls connected to this target at the moment you exported the report
• Hour: The number of calls that have connected to this target in the last hour, as of the time you exported this report
• Month: The number of calls that have connected to this target in the current month
• Total: The total number of calls that have ever connected to this target
• Status: A value that indicates whether the target is open, capped, or red-disabled
• Buyer: The name of the buyer associated with this target, if it exists
• Enabled: A value that indicates if the target has been disabled
• Rate: Contains the per minute surcharge for the target

Note: If a target with a Status of red-disabled has FALSE in the Enabled field, it is disabled. If it has TRUE in the Enabled field, it is closed.

Targets FAQ

How can I send button pushes to a target that requires using their IVR to connect to an agent?

You can use the Dial IVR field that appears near the top of the screen when you create a target to indicate the IVR input you need to send to the target to get connected to an agent.

In this field, you can enter:

• Numbers: If you type a 3 in this field, Ringba send the tone for the 3 key to the target.
• w: A lowercase w tells Ringba to wait 0.5 seconds. You can use this before entering numbers or in between numbers. You can place multiple lowercase w's together to create a longer waiting time.
• a reference to a tag with a numerical value: If you refer to a tag with a numerical value, Ringba gets the tag value and sends the tones that correspond to the digits in the value. For example, if you enter [tag:gather:zipcode], Ringba gets the value of the zipcode gather tag. If the value is 12345, Ringba sends the tones each digit in order.

How does the Priority Bump slider work?

When you configure the Predictive Routing Settings on a target, you can set a value between -10 and 10 on the Priority Bump slider. This tool lets you manually affect the target's ranking in the predictive routing engine when you want a target to receive more or fewer calls.

The predictive routing engine considers many components, and its exact calculations are proprietary, so the exact mathematical effect of choosing a value on this slider is not available. However, this table contains a rough estimate of the effect on the target's conversion rate of choosing each value on the slider:

Why isn't my target receiving calls even after I reset caps?

If your target has a buyer, the buyer's call caps also apply to the target. If your target still isn't receiving calls after you reset the cap, check the related buyer to see if it is capped.

Resetting the caps on the buyer does not affect the buyer's targets' caps. Likewise, resetting the target's caps does not affect the related buyer's caps.

What should I do if I need help with configuring and using targets?

If you have any questions or need additional help, please reach out to our support team via chat or email at support@ringba.com.