---
title: 'Pickup lines'
summary: 'A pickup line is a virtual phone line that multiple phones can monitor and answer. Lights up on every BLF watching it - first person to press the button takes the call.'
section: features
tags:
  - crud
  - telephony
  - blf
updated: '2026-06-17'
---

> A **pickup line** is a virtual phone line on the PBX that multiple phones can monitor and answer. It does not belong to anyone in particular.

## Overview

A pickup line turns a shared incoming call into a phone-button race: it lights up on every phone with a **BLF (Busy Lamp Field) key** mapped to it, and the first person to press the button takes the call. Two boundaries are worth keeping straight:

- It is **not a user**: no inbox, no permissions, no identity. Just a routable target with a status (idle / ringing / busy) that phones can watch.
- It is **not a queue**: it is one of the targets a queue can ring. The queue's own ring strategy, hold music, and timeouts still apply.

The line itself is trivial to configure (just a name). The real work happens on the queue and the BLF keys that reference it.

## What it does

The line is invisible to the caller, who hears whatever brought them to it - the queue's hold music when it is a queue member, or ringback when a Dial step targets it - until someone presses a BLF key and answers.

A typical setup: create the line, add it to a queue's Pickup lines picker, then map a BLF key for it on each phone that should answer. When the queue rings the line, every mapped phone flashes, and the first press answers.

> [!WARNING]
> Disabling a pickup line silently breaks queues that contain it - the line stays in the member list but is skipped on every ring. Remove it from the queue rather than just disabling it.

## See also

- [Queues](queues.md) - the most common consumer of pickup lines.
- [Phone buttons](phone_buttons.md) - how BLF keys monitor and answer pickup lines.
- [Call flows](call_flows.md) - the Dial step type can target pickup lines.

```yaml fields
last_name:
  label: Name
  tab: General
  hint: 'Identifies the line in BLF dropdowns and queue member pickers. Use role-based names like "Reception" or "Front desk" rather than person-based ones.'
status:
  label: Enabled
  tab: General
  hint: 'When off, the line cannot ring and BLF keys show idle indefinitely. Use to quarantine a mis-firing line or stage one not yet ready for rotation.'
```