Voice AI: Transfer Tool Configuration – Talkative

When a bot has finished conversing with a customer, it may need to transfer the call away to a human agent. It can do so using the Transfer Tool.

Each Transfer Tool can have multiple destinations. Every destination has a Transfer Type, which determines how the call is actually handed off at the telephony layer.

There are four transfer types:

Type	Best for	Requires
Dial	PSTN numbers, demos, standalone deployments	Voice AI subscription with PSTN calling minutes
SIP Refer	Simple handoff to an existing SIP-connected telephony system	SIP-based telephony already connected to Talkative
Mitel Refer	Legacy Mitel deployments set up before Interaction Parking existed	Mitel PS-installed Voice AI Transfer App (part 53005615)
Interaction Parking (Parking Lot)	Mitel deployments — preferred method for passing interaction context to an agent	A configured Parking Lot, plus MiVB hunt group/workflow setup

⚠️

Mitel Refer is legacy. We no longer recommend using it for new deployments — use Interaction Parking instead. Mitel Refer instructions are kept for customers with existing installs from before Interaction Parking existed.

Configuring a destination

In the Engage UI (Voice Bots → your bot → Tools → Transfer Tool → Add Destination), every destination has the same base fields, plus one extra field for Interaction Parking:

Transfer Type — Dial, SIP Refer, Mitel Refer, or Parking Lot.

Destination — format depends on the type (see below).

Parking Lot (Parking Lot type only) — select the parking lot to use. Required; the destination is invalid without it.

Prompt — tells the AI when to use this destination, e.g. "Use this to transfer to Billing if the caller has provided their account number."

Voice Assist Config (optional, all types) — see the callout below.

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Selecting a Voice Assist Config on a destination changes the underlying transfer mechanism from a SIP Refer to a SIP Dial, and keeps Talkative on the call as a third party (an extra SIP channel is consumed) so Voice Assist can provide live transcription and AI copilot support to the agent. For Interaction Parking specifically, if the associated Voice Assist Config is required but left blank on the routing rule, the transfer will fail and the call will be lost — always double check this is set correctly for your use case.

1. Dial

Talkative dials the destination as a PSTN call.

Destination format: E.164 phone number, e.g. +441234567890.

Use case: Demos and testing, or standalone deployments where Talkative is able to transfer directly to a PSTN number. Not intended as the primary transfer method for production Mitel/SIP deployments.

Note: Any cost incurred by the resulting call is invoiced, and this requires a Voice AI subscription/minutes to be enabled.

2. SIP Refer

Talkative issues a SIP REFER to a SIP address or extension, ending the bot's leg of the call.

Destination format: A fully formed SIP URI, e.g. sip:3000@yourpbx.example.com or, for Mitel/MiVB deployments, sip:{extension}@__ORIGINATOR__ (the __ORIGINATOR__ placeholder is automatically substituted with the originating call's domain by Talkative, which avoids hardcoding a domain and improves resiliency).

Requires: Your SIP-based telephony must already be connected to Talkative.

Limitation: On its own, SIP Refer carries no interaction metadata (no transcript/console URL) — the receiving system just sees a normal inbound call. If you need to pass context (transcript, console URL, destination) to the agent's screen, use Interaction Parking instead.

Good for: Simple handoffs where Talkative's console doesn't need to be surfaced in the contact centre platform, or for testing basic transfer connectivity.

⚠️

A SIP transfer only works if either you have dialled in via SIP - ie via your PBX, or if Voice Assist it enabled and the trunk is configured to accept incoming SIP dials.

3. Mitel Refer (legacy)

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We do not recommend Mitel Refer for new installs — use Interaction Parking. These details are retained for existing customers who set this up before Interaction Parking existed.

Destination format: An extension number (this is passed to the Mitel "transfer to" app — see below).

Requires: Mitel PS must engage and install the Voice AI Transfer App on the Mitel server (order part number 53005615 — Voice AI Bot Data Transfer). This adds an API endpoint on the Mitel server (https://{MitelFQDN}/talkativevoice/api/phonenumber/{dnis}) which Talkative calls to pass interaction metadata, secured with an API key issued by Mitel PS.

How it works: A corresponding Mitel workflow/subroutine must independently be built to query that endpoint and route the call — simply putting a SIP extension in the Destination field does not guarantee the call lands there without this workflow in place. The endpoint returns variables such as Talkative_VB_Transcript_URL, Talkative_VB_History_URL, and Talkative_VB_Destination for use in the workflow.

Gotcha: Requests may contain PII, so the Mitel FQDN must be secured with a publicly verifiable SSL certificate, or requests will fail.

⚠️

A SIP transfer only works if either you have dialled in via SIP - ie via your PBX, or if Voice Assist it enabled and the trunk is configured to accept incoming SIP dials.

See Mitel - MICC-B/MCX Workflow: Mitel PS Transfer Tool Setup Guide for the full setup.

4. Interaction Parking (Parking Lot) — preferred for Mitel

Talkative's preferred method of passing interaction metadata (transcript, collected data, console/history URLs, destination routing) to a Mitel contact centre when transferring a call. It replaces the Mitel Refer tool and doesn't require the Mitel PS Transfer App.

Destination format: An extension number — the destination your workflow ultimately transfers the call to once metadata has been retrieved.

Parking Lot: A required dropdown selection — you must create a Parking Lot in Talkative first (Settings → Parking Lots) before it can be selected here.

How it works:

Talkative claims a free parking slot and stores the interaction metadata against it.

Talkative refers or dials the call to that slot's speed-call extension (SIP Refer if no Voice Assist Config is set; SIP Dial if one is — see callout above).

The Mitel Hunt Group/YSE workflow retrieves the metadata via a REST call to the Talkative Parking Lot API (https://{region}.engage.app/api/core/v1/parking-lots/{lotId}/parking-lot-slot/{dnis}), which also clears the slot.

The workflow transfers the call onward to the returned destination, and the agent sees full interaction context in WebIgnite.

Capacity note: A parking slot is only occupied for ~2 seconds per transfer, so you typically need far fewer slots than concurrent call volume might suggest.

Voice Assist: If you also want Voice Assist (live transcription + AI copilot alongside the agent), the routing rule requires a Voice Assist Config to be selected — without it, the transfer fails and the call is lost.

⚠️

A SIP transfer only works if either you have dialled in via SIP - ie via your PBX, or if Voice Assist it enabled and the trunk is configured to accept incoming SIP dials.

See the full setup sequence in:

Mitel - Interaction Parking: Mitel Workflow Setup (shared prerequisite — hunt group, speed calls, parking lot, API key, workflow)

Mitel - Interaction Parking for Voice AI Handoff (SIP Refer flow, no Voice Assist)

Mitel - Interaction Parking for Voice Assist (SIP Dial flow, with Voice Assist)

Advanced Settings (bot-level Scheme/Destination/Mitel credentials)

Each Voice Bot's edit page has its own Advanced Settings panel, hidden by default. To reveal it: at the top right of the General Settings card, click the small square icon next to the ⋮ menu — it's titled "Show Advanced Settings". The panel then appears at the very bottom of the page, just above Save.

Fields:

Transfer Scheme — free-text field for sip or sips.

Transfer Destination — free-text field. Defaults to dial on every bot, meaning transfers fall back to a PSTN dial unless this is changed. For Mitel/SIP deployments, replace this with the PBX address that, combined with the Transfer Scheme, forms the full SIP address used when transferring back — e.g. Scheme sip + Destination 1.2.3.4:5060. Prefer entering __ORIGINATOR__ here rather than a hardcoded host: Talkative substitutes it with the originating call's domain automatically, so it keeps working if that domain changes.

Mitel URL — the Mitel Voice AI Transfer App endpoint, provided by Mitel PS (only needed if using Mitel Refer).

Mitel API Key — issued by Mitel PS to secure the above endpoint (only needed if using Mitel Refer).

This is a bot-level default, separate from the per-destination Destination field on the Transfer Tool itself — it supplies the scheme/host (and Mitel credentials) that the SIP Refer, Mitel Refer, and Interaction Parking transfer types rely on when actually placing the call. Since it defaults to a plain PSTN dial, new Mitel/SIP deployments should update it rather than leaving the default in place.

Related guides

Voice Bot: Tools & Advanced Configuration — full Transfer Tool field reference alongside the other Voice Bot tools

Mitel - MiVB: Setup Guide — connecting MiVB to Talkative and routing calls back via SIP Refer

Voice AI Troubleshooting