Free seating and phones

To place or receive calls, a user must select a phone every time they log in. Free seating controls whether Genesys Cloud retains a user’s selected phone when the user is not using it.

  • When free seating is turned on, Genesys Cloud automatically releases a user’s phone for use by another user when the current user logs off.

For more information about free seating, see Turn on free seating.  

How Genesys Cloud associates a user with a phone

When a user logs in, Genesys Cloud attempts to associate a phone with a user in the following ways:

  • If the user manually selects a phone, Genesys Cloud associates the phone with the user.   
    Note: The user can select only phones that are not associated with another user.
  •  If free seating is turned on, Genesys Cloud associates a phone with a user only if the association was already established. This could be due to a user reestablishing a connection after they lost connectivity for a short duration.
  • If free seating is turned off, Genesys Cloud associates a phone with a user if any of the following are true:
    • The user is already associated to a phone.
    • The user has an available phone listed as their previously used station. (Genesys Cloud will try to associate the last known station).
    • The user has a default phone assigned. If so, and if the default phone is available, Genesys Cloud uses it. 
  • If no phone is associated with the user, Genesys Cloud opens without associating a phone for the user. 

For more information on selecting and deselecting a phone, see Select a phone.

How Genesys Cloud releases a phone from a user 

Genesys Cloud releases a user’s phone for use by another user when:

  • An admin disassociates a user from a phone in the Edit Phone page of the Telephony > Phone Management module.  
  • A user manually selects another phone or deselects a phone.   
  • Free seating is turned on and the user logs off.

For more information on administrative telephony functions, see Get details in the phone information panel.

For more information on selecting and deselecting a phone, see Select a phone.

Note: If a user exits a Genesys Cloud session by closing the browser or desktop app without logging off, the phone remains associated to that user and will not be available to any other user.

The importance of a default phone 

The default phone rings the user when the user is not actively working in Genesys Cloud. 

Incoming calls are routed to a user’s default phone, regardless of whether free seating is turned on, when all of the following conditions are met:

  • The user has a default phone.
  • The user’s presence is offline.
  • The user’s call forwarding is not enabled.
  • The user is not out of office.