How Do I Connect Our Phone System to Salesforce?
You connect a phone system to Salesforce with a telephony integration: your numbers and carrier on one side, a connector such as a CTI package or Service Cloud Voice in the middle, and a softphone in Salesforce for agents. Every inbound and outbound call is then linked to a customer record.
How it works in Salesforce
A telephony integration has three layers:
- Telephony: your phone numbers, carrier and call routing, usually cloud-based VoIP.
- Integration: the connector that passes call events into Salesforce, such as a CTI package, Service Cloud Voice or an Open CTI-based adapter.
- Salesforce experience: the softphone, screen pops, click to dial and automatic call logs agents use every day.
When choosing an option, check which countries your numbers cover, whether calls are logged automatically, how routing uses Salesforce data, and what happens to Open CTI-based setups after their 2028 retirement.
Example
A company moves from desk phones to a cloud telephony integration. Agents now call from Salesforce, inbound calls pop the right record, and managers see every call in their dashboards.
How 360 CTI handles it
360 CTI brings telephony, routing, AI and logging into Salesforce in one native app. Read Salesforce Telephony Integration: The What and the How for 2026.
Related questions
Follow-up questions
Is telephony integration the same as CTI?
They overlap. Telephony integration is the whole connection between your phone system and Salesforce; CTI is the part agents use inside the CRM.
Can I keep my existing phone numbers?
Often yes, through number porting. Check with your provider for the countries you use.
Does telephony integration need desk phones?
No. Most setups use a softphone in Salesforce with a headset.
See how 360 CTI handles this in your Salesforce org.