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Out of hours, the usual way to reach someone is a list of personal mobile numbers, or one shared phone passed around the team. Neither works well. Callers end up with numbers they shouldn't have, and nobody is quite sure who has the phone tonight.

An on-call line works the other way around, like an old-fashioned pager: callers ring one number and wait in a queue, the person on call is woken, and they take the call in Amazon Connect. The caller never learns anyone's personal number. Here's how to build one.

The shape of it

1. A caller rings your on-call number, or your main number after hours.
2. A contact flow greets them and places them in an on-call queue, where they hear a hold message.
3. Whoever is on call is alerted that someone is waiting.
4. They answer the call in Amazon Connect, from that queue.

1. Create the on-call queue

In the Amazon Connect console, create a queue for these calls, for example On-call, with hours of operation that cover the times the line is staffed by on-call people (often 24/7). You can give it a dedicated phone number, or reach it from your existing flow, or both.

2. The flow callers hear

A simple flow is enough: a greeting ("our office is closed, so we're contacting the person on call for you now"), Set working queue to the on-call queue, then Transfer to queue. A customer queue flow plays hold messages while they wait.

Decide what happens if nobody answers. Holding forever is the worst outcome for a caller. A wait limit of a few minutes, then a message asking them to call back or leave a voicemail, is kinder.

3. Send your main number there after hours

In your existing contact flow, find the Out of hours branch of your Check hours of operation block. Instead of a "we're closed" message, send callers to Set working queue (the on-call queue) and Transfer to queue. During the day they reach your usual queues as normal.

4. Let the on-call people take the calls

Add the on-call queue to the routing profile of everyone on the rotation (Routing, then Routing profiles), at priority 1 with no delay. Without this, Amazon Connect never offers them the call.

To answer, the person on call signs in to the Contact Control Panel and sets themselves to Available. Two ways to take the call:

• The softphone, on a laptop or in a browser on their phone.
• Their own mobile, without the caller seeing the number. In the Contact Control Panel, an agent can choose Desk phone and enter their mobile number. Connect rings their mobile and connects the caller through itself, so the caller only ever sees your number.

5. Tell them someone is waiting

This is the part most setups miss. Nobody watches the Contact Control Panel at 3am, so the call sits in the queue until the caller gives up.

You need something that notices a caller waiting in the on-call queue and wakes whoever is on call this week, escalating to the next person if they don't respond. A CloudWatch alarm on the queue's QueueSize can notify a fixed list. A paging tool can follow your rotation. Standby does it with one rule: contacts waiting in the on-call queue above 0, notification then a phone call, even during quiet hours.

Everyone on the rotation should allow those calls through Do Not Disturb, or a silenced phone will miss them.

6. Test it

During the day, with the line pointed at a test rotation:

1. Call the number. Check you hear the greeting and the hold message.
2. Check the person on call is alerted within a minute or two.
3. Have them answer from the Contact Control Panel, both ways if you plan to use both.
4. Let a second test call wait past the limit, and check what the caller hears.

Allow a few minutes in total for someone to wake, sign in and answer, and set the wait limit to match. Then publish the number to the people who need it: building security, key customers, your own staff.

More: all guides · Standby, the paging app for Amazon Connect