✔️Setting Up Call Monitoring

Configure real-time call monitoring to enable supervisors to listen, whisper, barge into, or take over active calls for training and quality assurance.

⏱️ Estimated Time: 15-20 minutes

👤 Who's This For

Zoom Phone administrators managing call center operations, quality assurance, or supervisor training programs.

💼 Use Case

Use this guide to set up call monitoring for supervisors, managers, or trainers who need to oversee live calls. Enable real-time coaching, quality assurance, and support for agents handling customer interactions.

✔️ Prerequisites

  • Admin access to Zoom web portal with privilege to edit account settings

  • Understanding of which users need monitoring capabilities

  • Knowledge of which users or call queues will be monitored

  • Desk phones configured (if using monitoring on desk phones)

Understanding Call Monitoring Features

Call monitoring provides four real-time supervision capabilities:

  • Listen: Silently monitor a call without either party knowing

  • Whisper: Speak to the monitored user only (caller cannot hear)

  • Barge: Join the call as a third participant (both parties can hear)

  • Takeover: Remove the monitored user and take over their side of the call

Note: You can switch between listen, whisper, and barge during a call. Once you take over a call, you cannot switch back to other monitoring modes.

Call Monitoring Group Types

Zoom Phone supports different monitoring configurations:

  • Users & Common Area Phones: Monitor specific users and common area phones

  • Call Queues: Monitor call queue members during queue calls

  • Shared Line Groups: Members monitor each other on shared line calls

  • Shared Line Appearance: Executives and assistants monitor each other in delegation setups

Limitation: Common area phones can be monitored but cannot act as monitors. Desk phones will reboot when monitoring privileges change.

Enabling Call Monitoring

1

Access Account Settings

  • Sign in to Zoom web portal as an admin

  • Navigate to Account Management > Account Settings

  • Click the Zoom Phone tab

2

Enable Feature

  • Under General, toggle Monitoring to enable

  • If verification dialog appears, click Enable to confirm

  • (Optional) Click the lock icon to prevent users from changing this setting

Creating Monitoring Groups

After enabling call monitoring, create groups that define who can monitor whom.

  1. Start New Monitoring Group

    • Navigate to Phone System Management > Monitoring

    • Click Add

  2. Configure Group Type

    • Type: Select monitoring configuration (cannot be changed after creation):

      • Users & Common Area Phones: Standard user-to-user monitoring

      • Call Queues: Queue-specific monitoring

      • Shared Line Groups: Mutual monitoring within groups

      • Shared Line Appearance: Executive/assistant monitoring

    • Name: Enter descriptive display name (e.g., "Sales Team Monitoring")

    • Site: Select site if using multiple sites (users from other sites can still be added)

  3. Assign Monitors

    • Monitors: Select users who can perform monitoring

    • For Call Queues: Queue admin is default monitor; manually add members if needed

    • For Shared Line Groups: Only members in same group can monitor each other

    • For Shared Line Appearance: Only executives and assistants in same delegation can monitor

  4. Assign Monitored Users

    • Monitored: Select users or common area phones that can be monitored

    • For Call Queues: Queue is automatically added based on monitor selection

  5. Configure Notifications

    • Prompt: Enable/disable disclaimer warning participants their call may be monitored

    • Conference Barge Tone: (Shared Line Groups only) Play tone when member barges into call

  6. Save and Apply

    • Click Save

    • Associated desk phones will automatically reboot to apply changes (may reboot multiple times)

    • A BLF (Monitoring) line key is automatically added to monitor's desk phone settings

🎮 Click-Through Demo

▶️ Watch: Creating Monitoring Groups See how to create a monitoring group, assign monitors and monitored users, and configure prompts.

Editing Monitoring Groups

1

Access Monitoring Groups

  • Navigate to Phone System Management > Monitoring

  • Click the display name of the group you want to edit

2

Modify Group Settings

  • Click Rename to change display name

  • Add or remove monitors from the group

  • Add or remove monitored users

  • Adjust prompt and tone settings

  • Click Save when finished

Important: You cannot change the group Type after creation. If you need a different type, create a new group.

Understanding Group Limitations

Duplicate Pair Prevention: Users can belong to multiple monitoring groups, but the same monitor-monitored pair cannot exist in multiple groups. Example: If Sarah monitors John in Group A, you cannot add Sarah as monitor and John as monitored in Group B.

Shared Line Group Monitoring: Adding multiple shared line groups to a monitoring group does NOT mean all members can monitor all other members across groups. Members can only monitor other members within their own shared line group.

Call Context Requirements: For Call Queues and Shared Line Groups monitoring, the monitored user must be making or receiving calls from the queue's or shared line's extension/direct numbers for monitoring to work.

How Monitors Use Call Monitoring

Once configured, monitors can use call monitoring features:

In Zoom Desktop/Mobile App:

  1. Navigate to Phone > Lines tab

  2. View monitored users in the MONITORING section

  3. See call status and call length when users are on calls

  4. Click user to access monitoring options: Listen, Whisper, Barge, or Takeover

On Desk Phones:

  1. View monitored users on BLF (Monitoring) line keys

  2. In-call status shows with red icon or indicator light

  3. Press and hold line key to access monitoring features

  4. Follow on-screen prompts to select monitoring mode

💡 Monitoring Best Practices

See Details

Start with Listen-Only for Training New supervisors should begin with listen-only monitoring to learn call patterns before using whisper or barge features. This builds confidence without impacting customer calls.

Use Whisper for Real-Time Coaching Whisper mode is ideal for coaching agents during challenging calls. Provide guidance without interrupting the customer conversation or making the agent feel undermined.

Document Monitoring Policies Create clear policies about when and why monitoring occurs. Include this in employee handbooks and training materials to ensure transparency and compliance.

Test Monitoring Before Going Live Have monitors practice all four monitoring modes (listen, whisper, barge, takeover) with test calls before using them on live customer interactions.

🚀 Quick Wins

See Details

Set Up Queue-Specific Monitoring Create monitoring groups for each call queue so queue managers can oversee their specific teams without access to unrelated queues.

Enable Disclaimer Prompts Turn on monitoring disclaimer prompts to notify customers their call may be monitored for quality assurance, helping with compliance and transparency.

Organize by Department Create separate monitoring groups for sales, support, and other departments so supervisors only see relevant team members in their monitoring list.

⚠️ Common Issues

See Details

Desk phones not showing monitoring line keys → Verify desk phones have available line key slots. If fully assigned, remove unused line keys to make room for BLF (Monitoring) keys. Phones may need to reboot.

Cannot create monitoring group with specific user pair → Check if the monitor-monitored pair already exists in another group. You cannot duplicate the same pair across multiple groups.

Monitor cannot see monitored user's call status → For Call Queue and Shared Line monitoring, verify the monitored user is making/receiving calls from the queue or shared line's extension. Monitoring only works in that context.

Desk phones rebooting repeatedly after creating group → This is expected behavior when monitoring privileges change. Wait for all reboots to complete before testing. Phones may reboot multiple times.

🎯 What's Next

✨ Call monitoring configured! You now have:

  • Call monitoring feature enabled organization-wide

  • Monitoring groups created for supervisors and teams

  • Understanding of monitoring modes and their use cases

  • Line keys configured on desk phones for easy access

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