The DialLink phone system is organized around four key concepts: account, user, phone number, and phone line. These elements define how the system works and how other features connect to it. Understanding them will help you get the most out of DialLink.
These four concepts apply across all three subscription plans: Essential, Professional, and Enterprise.
Account
An account is the top-level concept that ties everything else together. All other concepts, users, phone numbers, and lines, live inside an account, along with all settings and permissions.
User
A user is an individual profile within a company account. Users log in with unique credentials and can hold different roles.
Each user in your account can have one of two roles:
Account administrator (admin): Has full access to all features and data except private user messages. Admins can manage all platform settings.
Regular user: Can use most of DialLink's features but cannot access company account settings.
Phone number
A phone number is a virtual address, the digits a caller dials that tell the phone system where to send the call (think of it like a street name).
A phone line
A phone line is what puts a phone number to work. Assigning a number to a destination, such as a user, ring group, call queue, or auto-receptionist, turns it into a phone line that can actually receive and route calls.
How the key concepts relate to each other
Now that you understand the four key concepts, here's how they work together.
When you sign up for DialLink, you get an account by default with one admin user, who manages settings and permissions, and one phone number. To bring your team onto the phone system, invite them as users, either admins or regular users.
Inviting a new user makes you eligible for one free local phone number. Adding a user to your account also requires purchasing a user license, priced according to your plan.
The free number isn't added to your account automatically. You'll need to add it manually and select the one you want.
To learn how to add a user to your account, refer to the Add and delete users article.
You can also add local, toll-free, and international phone numbers on their own, without adding a user. Pricing for additional phone numbers is available on the pricing page.
To learn how to add a local or toll-free phone number, refer to the Add new local and toll-free numbers (US & CA) article.
To learn how to add an international phone number, refer to the Add new international phone numbers article.
By default, a phone number isn't assigned to any destination. It's simply a digit address you own. To turn a number into a working phone line, assign it to a destination so it can start receiving and routing incoming calls, and be used for outgoing calls too. A phone number can be assigned to a user, ring group, call queue, AI agent, or auto-receptionist.
Note: A phone number can be assigned to only one destination, but the reverse isn't true. A single user, ring group, call queue, AI agent, or auto-receptionist can be assigned to multiple phone numbers.
To learn how to configure a phone number, refer to the Set up local and toll-free phone numbers (US & CA) article.
A phone number can also serve as your main business line, giving your business a single number while letting you create extensions that work exclusively with that designated main line. Extensions can be assigned to a user, ring group, call queue, AI agent, or auto-receptionist, so incoming calls route directly to the assigned destination.
To set a phone number as your main line, go to Settings → Phone system settings → General → Main line phone number.
To learn how to create extensions, refer to the How to create phone extensions article.