Practical field guide · verified Aug 2026

Dialpad, without the fumbling.

A skim-and-apply reference for your first weeks on Dialpad at work — the setup that matters, the shortcuts worth memorizing, and the gotchas that trip everyone up. UX and workflow, not marketing.

Live transcript · Ai Recap forming

You: Let's get you set up — install the desktop app, turn on Ai, and I'll show you call flip

✓ Sourced from help.dialpad.com ✓ Plan/license limits flagged ✓ 8 sections · ~10 min read

01 · 02

Set it up

Shortcuts to memorize

04 · 06

Get more out of it

Avoid the gotchas

First-week checklist

What Dialpad actually is

One app, four jobs — and one feature that's the whole reason to bother.

Dialpad is an AI-powered cloud business phone. A single app unifies calls, texts, team chat, and video — but its defining trait is Dialpad Ai: calls, meetings, and voicemails are transcribed live as people speak, then auto-summarized with action items.

Surface	What it does
Phone calls	Inbound/outbound business calls over VoIP — your business number, not your personal one.
SMS / MMS	Business texting from your Dialpad number.
Team messaging	Internal chat: direct messages, groups, and channels (Slack-like).
Video meetings	Dialpad Meetings — video, screen share, virtual backgrounds.

The three surfaces are not equal

Surface	Best for	The catch
Desktop app Mac / Windows	Your daily driver	The only surface with keyboard shortcuts and the Dialpad Everywhere floating window. Install this.
Web app browser	A machine you can't install on	No shortcuts, no floating window. Otherwise full-featured.
Mobile app iOS / Android	On the go · call-flip target	Full calling/messaging; DND & profile live top-left (vs. top-right on desktop).

Takeaway

Install the native desktop app and the mobile app — the pair is what unlocks call flip and the shortcuts.

Set these up first

Highest-leverage setup, in the order that pays off fastest.

Turn on Dialpad Ai. Your Settings → enable Ai. It powers live transcription, recaps, and action items — and it's off by default in some setups. Nothing AI works until it's on.
Record a voicemail greeting & check visual voicemail. Settings → Call Handling & Voicemail. Voicemails are transcribed and land in Inbox → Voicemails (and can be emailed to you).
Set personal working hours. Settings → Call Handling & Voicemail → Personal Working Hours. Off-hours calls follow your Advanced Missed Call Routing — set both, or after-hours behaviour surprises you.
Learn Do Not Disturb. Profile photo (top-right on desktop) → toggle DND. Always use the timer (30 min → 1 week) so you don't leave it on by accident.
Configure audio devices before your first real call — in-call device panel (d in meetings) to pick mic/speaker.
Link every device you use under Settings — the prerequisite for flipping a live call between them (see §7).
Favourite your people and know your presence status — teammates see red-with-a-strikethrough as "on DND, going to voicemail."

Call-handling verbs to know

Verb	What it does
Transfer	Send a call elsewhere. Use "Ask First" (warm transfer) to speak to the recipient before handing off.
Hold / Park	Hold keeps it on your line; park places it so someone else can pick it up.
Flip	Move a live call to another of your own devices with zero interruption.

Shortcuts worth the muscle memory

Desktop app only — these do nothing in the browser. Mac uses ⌘, Windows uses Ctrl.

Memorize first

⌘/Ctrl+/ — search, the fastest way to reach anyone. And ⌘/Ctrl+N — start a call. The rest can wait.

App shortcuts

Action	Keys
Open dialer / new call	`⌘/Ctrl`+`N`
Create new message	`⌘/Ctrl`+`T`
Search contacts & messages	`⌘/Ctrl`+`/`
Navigate back / forward	`⌘/Ctrl`+`[` `⌘/Ctrl`+`]`
Refresh the app	`⌘/Ctrl`+`R`
Minimize the app	`⌘/Ctrl`+`M`

In a meeting — single keys

Key	Action	Key	Action
`m`	Mute / unmute audio	`d`	Open device panel
`v`	Mute / unmute video	`b`	Virtual background
`i`	Info panel	`spacebar`	Switch video layouts
`p`	Participant panel	`shift`+`p`	Picture-in-Picture
`c`	Chat panel	`⌘`+`shift`+`m`	Mute all (host)

Note

While joining a meeting only m, v, and b are active. Custom shortcuts aren't supported yet.

Dialpad Ai — the reason to use it

Everything here needs Ai enabled in Settings first.

Live transcription. Calls, meetings, and voicemails transcribe during the conversation — words appear on screen in real time.
Ai Recaps — the big one. Seconds after a call ends, you get a summary, action items, purpose, and outcome in one recap. On every plan (Ai must be on). Find them in the conversation thread, your Inbox, and on mobile. You can edit them: adjust length, convert to bullets, fix misheard names, and push action items to your calendar. Won't generate for calls under ~100 words or voicemails; Outcomes need a Sales/Support license.
Ai Notes / Ai Assist. Open Ai Notes from the bottom bar during or after a call for AI notes and, where enabled, Real-Time Assist cards.
Real-time coaching (contact-center/sales tiers). Live Coach cards surface suggested responses and battlecards mid-call based on what the other party says.

Get more from it

Fix misheard names in the recap right away — the AI stumbles on proper nouns, and a wrong name propagates into your logged CRM notes. Then treat action items as a to-do queue and schedule them straight to your calendar instead of retyping. Toggle Ai off per-call for anything sensitive.

Messaging & meetings

The chat and video side, briefly.

Team messaging

Three message types: 1:1 direct, group conversations, and channels (formal team/project spaces in the left sidebar).
Use channel threading — reply in-thread to keep sub-conversations out of the main feed. Available on desktop, web, and mobile.
Low-noise etiquette: emoji reactions to acknowledge, @mentions to pull someone in, and bookmark messages to find later.
Message yourself as a cross-device scratchpad for links and notes.

Meetings

Schedule via Google Calendar / Outlook; participants join with no download and no PIN.
Use a randomized URL for one-offs and your personal room for recurring calls.
Drive it all from the keyboard (§3) — and recaps + transcription apply to meetings too, captured live as it runs.

Integrations & workflow

Dialpad is built to work inside the tools you already live in.

Integration	What you get
Google Workspace	Schedule meetings, access contacts, start calls from Gmail, calendar sync.
Microsoft 365	Calendar + contact sync; make/receive Dialpad calls inside Microsoft Teams.
Salesforce	Call from inside Salesforce; auto-log calls, activities, and contacts.
HubSpot	Click-to-dial, call logging, contact sync.
Slack	Call notifications in channels, logging, initiate calls from Slack.

Workflow

Pick your system of record — CRM or calendar — and lean on the matching integration so logging is automatic. The Ai recap then lands attached to the right contact, and click-to-call means no double entry.

Gotchas & power moves

The handful of behaviours that quietly trip up new users.

Gotcha

DND is account-wide, not per-device. Turn it on anywhere and every device goes silent — callers drop straight to voicemail. Great for focus; use the timer so you don't miss calls all afternoon.

Gotcha

Shortcuts and Dialpad Everywhere are desktop-only. If keyboard shortcuts "don't work," you're almost certainly in the browser web app — switch to the native desktop app.

Gotcha

Working hours ≠ DND. Working hours route scheduled off-hours calls via missed-call routing; DND blocks calls right now. Set both, intentionally. And recaps skip short calls & voicemails — don't expect a summary from a 20-second call.

Power move

Call Flip. On a call on your laptop, open the app on your phone and tap "Switch Call to This Device." It continues instantly and drops off the laptop — the other party hears nothing. Prerequisite: every device signed in and listed in Settings first.

Power move

Dialpad Everywhere floats call controls over whatever app you're in when you navigate away from an active call. Tune it under App Preferences → "Launch immediately when starting or receiving calls." Desktop only.

First-week checklist

Tick these off in your first few days. Progress is saved on this device.

0 / 12 done

Install the native desktop app and the mobile app; sign into both.
Enable Dialpad Ai in Your Settings — unlocks transcription and recaps.
Record your voicemail greeting and confirm voicemails land in Inbox → Voicemails.
Set Personal Working Hours and check Advanced Missed Call Routing.
Practice Do Not Disturb with a timer; know it applies to all devices.
Confirm all devices are linked; do a test Call Flip laptop → phone.
Pick mic/speaker in the device panel before your first real call.
Memorize ⌘/Ctrl / (search) and ⌘/Ctrl N (new call).
Connect your calendar and your CRM or Slack.
Turn on / tune Dialpad Everywhere in App Preferences.
Favourite your top contacts; join your team channels and try threading.
After a few calls, open an Ai Recap, fix a name, and push an action item to your calendar.