Managed Voice / Skills-Based Routing

Floating Agents & Virtual Extensions

A person can belong to a routing group as a floating agent, reachable wherever they’re currently logged in, on whatever device. That way, they’re not stuck with one physical desk phone or line. A virtual extension works similarly — it represents a role or a skill rather than a specific piece of hardware.

What’s the practical difference between a floating agent and a fixed extension?

A fixed extension stays on one desk phone, so calls to it always ring there. A floating agent’s extension follows the person instead — logged in from a laptop softphone (phone software that runs on a computer instead of a dedicated desk phone — see Glossary) at home today, a desk phone in the office tomorrow. Nobody needs to reconfigure routing rules each time they move.

What does a virtual extension do?

A virtual extension doesn’t correspond to a single physical phone at all — it’s a routing identity, like “Backup Sales Coverage.” Whichever team member is covering that role on a given day can use it, so it never belongs to just one person’s device.

How does this relate to hot desking?

They’re closely related. Hot Desking & Shared Phones covers a person logging their personal extension into a shared physical phone. Floating agents and virtual extensions go further — they’re about how a routing group treats availability and role assignment more broadly, including for people who work primarily from softphone apps rather than any shared desk hardware.

Does this affect how skills-based routing works?

No — a floating agent still carries whatever skill tags you’ve assigned them; the system doesn’t care what device they’re currently logged into when matching calls by skill. See Routing by Skill Set for how that matching works.

Is this useful for businesses with a lot of remote or hybrid staff?

Very much so. We built it specifically for teams where “who’s covering this line today” changes regularly, rather than assuming every person has one permanent phone at one permanent desk.