Calls

You can call people directly from your direct messages – one person or a whole group conversation, with audio or video (German UI: Anrufe). A call is not a meeting: there is no lobby and no organizer, nothing is recorded or transcribed, and it only concerns the people you call.

The Calls page#

Calls (German UI: Anrufe, phone handset icon) sits in the left navigation directly below Messages – on phones in the navigation drawer. It collects all your calls in one place:

• Favourites (Favoriten): a row at the top with up to 12 people and phone numbers you call often. Tap one to call (audio); the menu (the "…" button, right click, or a long press on phones) offers Video call, Move forward / Move back and Remove from favourites. With the mouse you can also drag a favourite to another place. To add someone, click the star next to a person in the search, next to a number you typed, or next to an entry in the history (only 1:1 calls and phone calls). Click the filled star again to remove it. Favourites are the same on all your devices. If you can no longer call someone (for example they changed who may call me), the favourite stays but is dimmed and says why.
• Start a call: type a name into Call a person (Person anrufen) and click the phone or camera button next to the person. If your organisation uses telephony, the same field also takes phone numbers (Person oder Nummer) and a keypad appears – see chapter "Phone calls".
• History (Verlauf): your calls, newest first, grouped by day – missed calls in red, incoming, outgoing, declined, not answered, with the duration. A Coviqo badge marks app calls (with the person's picture or the group name, a camera icon for video calls and a lock for end-to-end encrypted conversations – only who, when and how long is shown); a Phone badge marks phone calls. Filters: All, Missed, Coviqo, Phone.
• Call back: click an entry – Coviqo calls ring the person (or the group conversation) again, audio or video as before; the usual rules apply (who may call me, one connection at a time).
• Remove: the bin icon removes one entry, Clear history (Verlauf löschen) all of them. For Coviqo calls this only affects your history – the other people keep theirs.
• Missed calls show as a red number on Calls. Opening the page marks them as seen, and the matching Missed call notifications are marked as read.

Your call history is visible only to you and is deleted automatically after 180 days.

Starting a call#

• In a conversation: the phone button (Call, German UI: Anrufen) and the camera button (Video call, Videoanruf) sit at the top right of every direct conversation. In a group conversation everybody who allows your call rings at the same time.
• In the contact list: Messages › Contacts has a phone button next to every contact.
• On a profile: the profile card and the profile page show Call and Video call. The former Start call (an instant meeting in a shared space) is now Start instant meeting in the "…" menu.

If a button is greyed out, hover over it: the tooltip says why (for example This person only accepts calls from contacts). You can only be in one connection at a time – a voice room, a Runde, a meeting or a call. If you are already in one, Coviqo asks before it ends it (Verbindung wechseln? – for example Anruf mit Anna beenden und dem Meeting „Weekly“ beitreten?, Wechseln or Abbrechen). The same question comes when you join a voice room, a Runde or a meeting while you are in a call. Moving from one voice room to another stays a single click.

While it rings you hear a soft ringback tone and see Ringing … (Klingelt …). When nobody answers, the call view closes and a short message tells you what happened: declined, busy (the person is in another call and declined) or not reachable (no answer within 45 seconds).

Answering#

An incoming call appears as a banner at the top of the window with a ringtone – on every device where you are signed in. Choose:

• Answer (Annehmen) – with microphone only, or With video (Mit Video).
• Decline (Ablehnen).
• Decline with message (Mit Nachricht ablehnen): pick I can't talk right now – I'll call you back, I'm in a meeting right now, Please send me a message or write your own text. It is sent as a normal direct message.

The first device you answer on takes the call; the others stop ringing. If a call comes in while you are already connected, you hear a quieter knocking tone (Anklopfen) and the banner says what answering does (Annehmen beendet deine Verbindung zu „Lounge“); the buttons read Answer & switch (Annehmen & wechseln). Declining tells the caller that you are busy. When the call is over and you were in a voice room before, a message offers Back to „Lounge“ (Zurück zu …) for a minute.

If you join something on another device (or in another tab), the connection here ends quietly with the note Du bist jetzt auf einem anderen Gerät verbunden – it does not reconnect on its own.

In the desktop app you also get a system notification, and the window comes to the front (switch this off in Settings › Privacy & my data › Calls – then the taskbar icon flashes instead).

During a call#

The call opens over the whole window with the video tiles of everybody in the call and the controls at the bottom:

• Microphone and camera on / off.
• Share screen – the small arrow next to it chooses the quality (text, motion, resolution; the highest quality depends on your plan). While you share, the button opens Manage sharing with Change source, Sound and Stop sharing.
• More: Add people (they ring and join when they answer – the call becomes a group call), Add phone number (see below), the layout (Grid, Speaker view, List), Devices (microphone, speaker, camera) and Connection info.
• Hang up (red button). In a call with two people, the call ends when one of you hangs up.

Double-click a tile to pin it; the "…" menu of a tile sets the volume of that person. The header shows the duration.

Minimise (or press Escape) turns the call into a small floating panel at the bottom right. You can keep working in Coviqo – open other conversations, spaces or settings – while the call continues. Click the panel to go back to the call view; it also has mute, camera and hang up. If you reload the page during a call, the panel offers Rejoin.

Adding a phone number#

If your organisation has telephony and you may call external numbers, More › Add phone number calls somebody on a regular phone and brings them into the running call (once somebody has answered it). Enter the number – the dialog shows which organisation's phone line is used. While it rings, the call shows "Phone … 123 – ringing …"; you hear whether the person answered, is busy or did not answer. The person takes part with audio only and appears as "Phone … 123". Everybody in the call can hang them up (tile menu Hang up). If you leave and only the phone participant would remain, the call ends and the phone call is hung up as well.

Not available in end-to-end encrypted calls – phone calls cannot be end-to-end encrypted. The usual telephony rules apply (allowed countries, no premium or emergency numbers, your organisation's minutes); the phone participant counts towards the maximum number of people in the call.

In the conversation#

After a call the conversation shows a short note: Call – 12 min or Missed call from … with a Call back button. Missed calls also appear under Notifications (type Missed calls, with a push notification if you allowed them).

Who may call you#

Settings › Privacy & my data › Calls (Anrufe) sets Who may call me:

• Everyone, Contacts and people from shared spaces (default), Only contacts or Nobody.
• Calls are never more open than messages: if you only accept messages from contacts, only contacts can call you, even if you chose Everyone here. The page shows which setting currently applies.
• Blocked people cannot call you, and your organisation's rules for direct messages also apply to calls. Bots and guest accounts cannot call.
• A call never shows the caller whether you are online: it rings the same way when you are away or invisible.

Let calls ring switches the ringtone off on the current device – the banner still appears. With the status Busy or Focus calls ring silently.

Encrypted calls#

Calls of an end-to-end encrypted conversation (chapter "End-to-end encrypted rooms", section End-to-end encrypted direct messages) are encrypted on the devices: the server only forwards encrypted audio, video and screen shares. The call header shows End-to-end encrypted. You need encryption set up on the device you use, only people in the conversation can be added, and drawing on shared screens is not available.

Limits#

Up to 10 people can take part in a call (25 in Business and Enterprise). Video works in every plan. Calls are not recorded, not transcribed and not summarised by AI.