CallForge Documentation — Complete Setup & User Guide

1 Getting started

CallForge is an AI phone receptionist. It answers your business calls, books appointments straight into your calendar, texts customers back, and can sync with your CRM — so you never lose a job because nobody picked up the phone. Setting it up for the first time takes four steps, all reachable from the Setup menu at the top of every page:

1Business Profile — your business name, industry, timezone, booking hours, and what the AI says on a call.
2Services & Service Areas — what jobs you offer and where you work, so the assistant knows what it can book.
3Default Knowledge Base — FAQs, pricing, and policies so the assistant can answer real questions.
4Phone Numbers — pick a number and go live, or test on the free shared trial line first.

Once you're live, the main menu across the top — Overview, Calls, Messages, Flows, Appointments, Team — is where you'll spend your day-to-day time reviewing calls, jobs, and how the business is doing.

2 Business Profile

Setup → Business Profile

This is the foundation everything else builds on — your business identity, when you take bookings, and the exact words your AI receptionist opens a call with.

Business info

Business name *: Your company's name. It's inserted anywhere your greeting uses {company}, so keep it exactly how you want customers to hear it (e.g. "Ridgeline Plumbing", not a legal entity name like "Ridgeline Plumbing LLC").
Industry *: What kind of business you run (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc). This tunes the assistant's default behavior and vocabulary for your trade.
Timezone *: Every booking hour, appointment time, and report on your dashboard is shown in this timezone. Get it right the first time — it affects the whole account.

Why it matters — getting these three right means every appointment time the assistant reads back to a caller, and every report you look at, is accurate — nothing to double-check by hand.

Booking hours

A row for every day of the week. Tick Closed for days you don't take appointments, or set an open/close time for the hours you do. This does not stop the assistant from answering the phone — it answers calls 24/7, every day. It only controls which appointment time slots it's allowed to offer a caller.

Why it matters — no caller is ever offered "Tuesday 2am" by mistake, and you never get an appointment booked outside the hours you can actually staff.

What your AI assistant says

Opening message (optional): The first thing a caller hears, e.g. "Thanks for calling {company}, how can I help?" Use {company} to auto-insert your business name. Leave it blank to use a sensible default. By law, CallForge always adds a short disclosure that the caller is speaking with an AI and the call may be recorded — right after your greeting, automatically. You never need to write that part yourself.
Extra instructions (optional): Anything specific you want the assistant to do, ask, or mention — written the same way you'd brief a new employee on their first day. For example: "Always ask which city they're in before discussing service", "we don't do free quotes", or "mention our 1-year warranty on repairs if pricing comes up." This can't override the core booking and compliance rules CallForge always enforces — it only adds your business's personality and policies on top.

Why it matters — every caller gets the same professional, on-brand introduction and follows your specific business rules — even on your busiest day, even at 2am, without you lifting a finger.

3 Services

Setup → Services, or the Services tab on any Flow

Services are the specific jobs your business can actually book an appointment for — the difference between the assistant just talking about something and being able to book it.

Services vs. the Knowledge Base — what's the difference? The Knowledge Base lets the assistant answer questions ("do you do drain cleaning?", "what's your warranty?"). Services are things it can act on — each one is a bookable item it checks real calendar availability for and puts on your schedule. If a service isn't listed here, the assistant can discuss it but can't book it.

Service name *: What the job is called, in plain words a customer would use — e.g. "Drain Cleaning", "AC Repair", "Emergency Callout".
Duration (minutes) (optional): How long the appointment takes. The assistant uses this to space out the time slots it offers, set the appointment's end time, and avoid double-booking two jobs into the same window. Leave it blank and CallForge assumes 60 minutes.
Price ($) (optional): A "from" price, or a "from / to" range. If a caller asks about cost, the assistant can give this rough figure — it will never invent a price that isn't here.
This is an emergency/urgent service: Tick this for jobs like burst pipes or no-heat calls. The assistant prioritizes these when a caller describes an urgent situation.

Why it matters — the assistant only ever offers to book what you actually do — no more "sure, we can do that!" for a service you don't offer, and no missed revenue because a real, bookable service wasn't on the list.

4 Service Areas

Setup → Services page (below Services), or the Service areas tab on a Flow

Tells the assistant exactly which cities, states, or countries you actually work in.

Country: Add every country you do business in. Most businesses only need one.
Cover the entire country: Tick this if you serve everywhere in that country with no exceptions — simplest option for businesses that don't limit by region.
Postal / ZIP code: If you only serve specific areas, list each ZIP/postal code you cover instead of ticking "entire country". Add as many as you need.
Surcharge $ (optional): An extra travel fee for a specific ZIP code, if you charge more to reach certain areas.

Why it matters — the assistant can tell a caller instantly and correctly whether you serve their area, instead of booking a job you'd have to cancel later because it's outside your service radius.

5 Knowledge Base

Setup → Default Knowledge Base, or the Knowledge base tab on a Flow

This is where you teach the assistant facts about your business — FAQs, pricing details, warranty terms, parking instructions, anything a caller might ask. There are two levels:

Default Knowledge Base — facts true across your whole business (hours, address, general policies). Kept once, shared by every Flow that opts in.
A Flow's own Knowledge base tab — facts specific to that one line of business or number.

Label *: A short name for this source so you can recognize it later, e.g. "Pricing FAQ" or "Warranty Policy".
Paste text (optional): Type or paste any FAQ, pricing list, or policy text directly.
Upload file(s) (optional): Attach .txt, .md, .pdf, or .docx files instead — pick several at once, each becomes its own source. Scanned/image-only PDFs aren't supported since there's no text to read from them.
"Use the Default Knowledge Base" toggle (on a Flow): Lets this specific Flow also search the shared Default Knowledge Base, on top of its own. Turn it off if this Flow's number needs completely separate answers.

After you add a source, it briefly shows Processing while CallForge reads it and builds a search index, then flips to Ready (or Failed with a reason, if something went wrong).

Why it matters — the assistant answers real questions from your actual policies instead of guessing — and if something genuinely isn't in here, it says so honestly and offers a callback instead of making up an answer.

6 Flows & the Assistant

Flows in the main menu

A Flow is one complete, self-contained AI receptionist — its own greeting, voice, instructions, services, knowledge, and phone number(s). Most businesses only ever need one Flow (your account starts with a Default one), but you can create more to run a different department, location, or after-hours line under separate settings, all billed and managed from the same account. Every Flow has these tabs:

Assistant tab

Organized into collapsible sections — click any heading to expand it:

Basics — Flow name, Opening message: Same idea as the Business Profile fields, but scoped to this one Flow. Useful when you run more than one Flow and need each to sound different.
Voice & instructions — Voice, Extra instructions: Voice picks the gender/tone the assistant speaks in — it doesn't change what it says, only how it sounds. Extra instructions is the same free-text briefing as in Business Profile. There's also a "Write in plain words what you want, and let AI phrase it" helper — type a rough note like "be friendly, always ask which city they're in" and click Generate to have it turned into properly phrased instructions you can review and edit before saving.
Call limits — Max call length (seconds): A hard ceiling on how long any single call can run, so a stuck or confused call can't quietly run up credits forever. 480 seconds (8 minutes) is a sensible default; almost every real call ends well before this.
Booking hours: Same as Business Profile's booking hours, but specific to this Flow — handy if one department keeps different hours than another.

Services, Service areas, Knowledge base tabs

The same Services, Service Areas, and Knowledge Base screens described in sections 3–5 above, scoped to this one Flow. If you only have one Flow, editing them here or from the Setup menu is the same thing.

Numbers tab

Shows which phone numbers currently route to this Flow, lets you move a number here from another Flow, and includes the same "Buy a number" search covered in section 7. Every call to a number attached to this Flow uses this Flow's greeting, voice, services, and knowledge.

Insights tab (only shown if "Learn from calls" is on)

Turn on "Learn from calls" on the Business Details page (section 8) and this tab appears. It reviews real recent calls and surfaces three kinds of suggestions — nothing reaches your live assistant until you approve it:

Questions your agent couldn't answer: A real gap — type the correct answer and click "Save & add to knowledge base" to teach it, right from this page.
Suggested facts: Something the AI noticed stated in a transcript that might be worth saving permanently — pre-filled, editable, Approve or Reject.
Communication suggestions: A recurring pattern worth adding to the assistant's instructions — same Approve/Reject flow.

Why it matters — the assistant keeps getting sharper the more it's used, without you having to guess what questions callers are actually asking — and you always see and approve the change before it goes live.

7 Phone Numbers

Setup → Phone Numbers

Where you get a real phone number for callers to dial, or test the assistant before committing to one.

Your numbers: Every dedicated number on your account, its monthly credit cost, and which Flow it's attached to. Click Release to permanently give one up — its charge stops immediately, but this can't be undone.
Try it first (shared trial line): Before buying a number, register your own personal phone number here, then call the shared trial number shown to hear your AI receptionist live — it still uses your credit balance, but there's no monthly number fee yet.
Buy a number — Type: Local (an area-code number) or Toll-free.
Buy a number — Area code: Search for a number starting with a specific area code (optional for toll-free).
Buy a number — Attach to flow: Only shown if you have more than one Flow — pick which one this number should route to.

Why it matters — a dedicated number means every call already comes with your caller ID and branding, and is billed predictably each month straight from your credit balance — no separate phone bill to reconcile.

8 Business Details

Setup → Business Details

Notification preferences, the integrations you can turn on with a couple of clicks, and the legal business/compliance details carriers require before they'll approve your number for text messaging.

Email notifications

After-call summaries: An email after each call with the caller, outcome, and any booking. Turn off if you'd rather just check the dashboard.
Billing & service alerts: Low credits, calls paused, a number suspended or released. Recommended to keep this on so you're never caught off guard.

Learn from calls

Turns on the Insights tab (section 6) for every Flow. A small credit charge applies each time your recent calls are analyzed — the free part (spotting a question the assistant couldn't answer) always runs; the paid AI-review part only runs periodically and only if you have enough credits.

HubSpot CRM

Turn the toggle on, click Connect to HubSpot, approve access on HubSpot's site, and you're sent right back — no setup needed on HubSpot's side. From then on, every caller is automatically created or updated as a Contact in your HubSpot account (name, phone, address when known), with a Note summarizing what happened on the call attached to their record. A repeat caller updates their existing Contact rather than creating a duplicate. Click Disconnect any time to stop.

Why it matters — your sales/support team sees every caller in the CRM they already use, with full context, and never has to manually type information off a voicemail again.

Google Calendar

Same one-click pattern as HubSpot: turn it on, click Connect to Google Calendar, approve access, done. Every appointment the assistant books also gets created on your connected Google Calendar automatically. CallForge stays the source of truth — cancelling an appointment here removes it from your calendar too.

Why it matters — your whole team sees new bookings the moment they happen, right in the calendar app they already check every day, with no extra step.

Business identity, address & contact person (compliance)

Phone carriers (not CallForge) legally require these details before they'll approve a business number for text messaging — this is standard across the entire industry, not a CallForge-specific rule. Fill in your real registered business name, address, and a contact person who actually answers if reached. Once complete, CallForge automatically files the verification for you — it can take a few weeks for carriers to approve.

Legal entity name, Website URL, Business type: Your registered business name (exactly as on file), a real website or Google/Facebook business page, and whether you're a sole proprietor, LLC, corporation, etc.
Registration authority, number (EIN), country: Only required if you're not a sole proprietor — where and under what number your business is legally registered.
Street address, City, State, ZIP, Country: Your registered business address.
Contact first/last name, email, phone: A real person carriers or CallForge support can reach about this number if there's ever an issue — use a direct line, not a toll-free number.

Why it matters — this is the one piece of paperwork that unlocks text messaging on your number — skipping it is the most common reason a business can't send SMS confirmations to customers.

9 Calls

Calls in the main menu

A complete log of every call your assistant has ever handled, and a full detail page for each one.

Date range: Today, Yesterday, This week, This month, or a Custom range — defaults to Today.
Search: Matches phone number, customer name, outcome, or a typed date — searches everything on the page at once.

Click any call to open its detail page, which includes:

Recording & transcript — listen to the actual call and read a full back-and-forth transcript.
Summary — a short AI-written recap of what happened.
Booking from this call — if it resulted in an appointment, its status, assigned technician, and full history live right here, editable without leaving the page.
Call back — a one-click button to call the customer straight from your browser, no phone or extra app needed.
Comments — a place for you or your team to leave notes on this specific call.

Why it matters — you can always hear exactly what was said and why a job was or wasn't booked — nothing about a call is ever a black box.

10 Messages

Messages in the main menu

A shared text-message inbox for every one of your phone numbers — the same date filter and search as the Calls page. Read and reply to real texts from customers, and see any AI-sent booking confirmations in the same thread. You can also call a texter back directly from their conversation.

Why it matters — nothing about a text conversation lives on someone's personal phone — the whole team sees the same thread, and a booking confirmation and a customer's reply show up in one place.

11 Appointments

Appointments in the main menu

Every job the assistant has booked, filtered by its own scheduled date (not when it was booked) — defaults to Today, matching how most scheduling software shows "today's jobs".

Status: Scheduled → Contacted → Confirmed → Completed is the normal flow; No answer and Cancelled cover the exceptions. Change it any time from the job's row.
Assign a technician: Pick a team member from the dropdown — they'll get a text and can see this job on their own technician login (see section 12).
History / Add an update: Every status change and note is kept as a running history on the job, visible here and on the originating call's detail page.

Why it matters — you get a real job board without needing separate scheduling software — every booked call turns into a trackable job your team can act on.

12 Team & Technicians

Team in the main menu

Add team members and give each their own separate login.

Name, Email, Phone, Password: Their login details. Phone must be in E.164 format (e.g. +16025551234) since it's used to text them job assignments.

A technician's login is deliberately limited — they only ever see jobs assigned to them, on their own My appointments page. Opening one of their jobs shows the full call detail (recording, transcript, summary, and history) for that job, and they can call the customer back from their own browser, exactly like an owner can.

Why it matters — your team gets everything they need to show up prepared — no calling the office to ask what a customer said — without ever seeing calls, billing, or settings for the rest of the business.

13 Overview dashboard

Overview in the main menu — your home page

A single-screen picture of how the business is doing, in three collapsible sections. Click a section's heading to expand or collapse it — CallForge remembers what you had open or closed the next time you visit. Each heading also always shows a couple of headline numbers, even while collapsed.

7 / 30 / 90 days picker: Changes the reporting window for activity-based numbers (cost, calls made, appointments booked). It does not change point-in-time numbers like your current credit balance or currently open jobs — those always reflect right now, which each section's subtitle spells out.
Credits section: Your current credit balance, what's safely spendable, and what calls actually cost over the selected period — total, per call, and per appointment.
Appointments section: How many were booked in the period, your lead-to-booking conversion rate, what's open right now, what needs attention (past its scheduled time and still open), a status breakdown, average lead time, and team workload.
Calls section: Total calls, missed opportunities, average call length, a leads-vs-appointments chart, and a breakdown by outcome.

Why it matters — one page answers "how is the business doing" without digging through the Calls, Appointments, and Billing pages separately.

14 Billing & Credits

Credits balance shown in the top-right of every page

CallForge runs on a simple prepaid credit balance — no monthly seat license, no long contract. 1 credit = 1 cent. Credits are only ever spent when something actually happens: a call, a text, an AI action, or your dedicated number's monthly fee.

Credit balance: What you currently have available.
Top up: Add more credits any time from the billing page.
Safety floor / "Spendable now": A small reserve CallForge always keeps back so your phone number doesn't lapse mid-month. "Spendable now" is your balance minus that reserve — the real number available for calls and texts today.
Credit history: A full, itemized transaction log — every charge and top-up, in order.

Why it matters — you always know exactly what you've spent and on what — no surprise invoice at the end of the month, and a low-balance alert well before you'd ever be cut off.

15 Your profile & account

Profile, from your name/avatar menu in the top right

Profile Information: Your own name and login email.
Update Password: Change your password — you'll need your current one to confirm.
Delete Account: Permanently deletes your personal login. This cannot be undone — download anything you need first.

16 Glossary

Flow: One complete, self-contained AI receptionist configuration — greeting, voice, services, knowledge, and number(s). Most accounts only need the one Default Flow.
Credits: The prepaid balance everything is billed from. 1 credit = 1 cent.
Missed opportunity: A call where the caller engaged with the assistant but no appointment ended up booked — worth reviewing to see if something could be improved.
Knowledge Base source: One piece of pasted text or one uploaded file, indexed so the assistant can search it for answers.
Service Area: A country, or specific postal/ZIP codes within it, that you've told the assistant you actually serve.
Lead → booking rate: The percentage of calls that turned into a booked appointment.
Safety floor: The small credit reserve CallForge always protects so your number keeps working even right before a top-up.

17 Getting help

Can't find what you're looking for, or something looks wrong? Reach out through the contact form on the CallForge website, or send an email to your account contact — a real person will get back to you, usually within one business day.

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