---
key: give-a-customer-their-own-ringtone
title: Give a customer or phone line its own ringtone
audience: staff
section: settings/communications
routes: ["/settings/communications/attention"]
permissions: ["communications.attention.assignments.write"]
features: ["communications.attention"]
since: 0.0.1
updated: 0.0.1
status: published
summary: Make a VIP customer, a particular phone line or one teammate ring or chime differently by assigning a sound profile to them, and understand which rule wins when several apply.
keywords: [VIP ringtone, customer ringtone, different ring per line, per-customer sound, assign sound profile, who rings differently]
related: [add-a-custom-ringtone-or-alert-sound, set-up-a-phone-line, create-an-account]
---

In the sidebar, open **Settings**, then choose **Ringtones** under **Communications**. The page address is `/settings/communications/attention`, and its title reads **Attention Audio**. Scroll to **Assignments**.

## Before you start

- You need a profile to assign; see [[add-a-custom-ringtone-or-alert-sound]].
- Per-customer rules are a plan feature. The **Assignments** tile at the top says whether customer overrides are enabled.
- Your role needs permission to write attention assignments. Reading them needs the read permission only.

## Steps

1. Under **Assignments**, find the **Create or update assignment** form beside the list of rules.
2. Under **Target**, leave **Organization default** so everyone hears it, or choose one teammate so only their browser and Android app do.
3. Under **Scope**, choose what the rule is about: **Organization default**, **Phone line**, **Account** (a customer), **Contact**, or **Exact number/email** for a caller who is not saved as a contact.
4. Fill in the scope. Pick the **Phone line** from the list. For a customer, type at least two letters under **Search account** or **Search contact** and press the match; it then shows as **Selected:** with the name. For **Exact phone number or email**, type it the way the example in the box shows: `phone:` then the number with its country code, or `email:` then the address.
5. Under **Event**, choose **All communication events** or just one, such as **Incoming calls**.
6. Under **Profile**, choose the sound profile. The first active profile is picked for you.
7. Press **Save Assignment**. The rule appears in the list, highest priority first. Saving the same target, scope and event again updates that rule instead of adding a second one.

## What you see

- Each rule in the list shows its name, its scope, whether it is **User-specific** or **Org-wide**, an **Exact event** tag when it is for one event, then the target, the event and the profile name. **Delete** removes it.
- When more than one rule applies to a call or message, the most specific scope wins: a contact method beats an exact number or email, which beats a contact, which beats an account, which beats an email inbox or phone line, which beats the organization default. Within the same scope, a rule for one teammate beats an organization-wide one, and a rule for one event beats an all-events rule.
- The organization default is itself a rule: one with **Organization default** as its scope.
- For a phone line, the same rule can also be set from **Phone Lines**: choose **Ring & text sounds** in the line's menu, stay on **Line default**, open an event, pick the **Sound profile** and press **Save line default**.
- In the Android app, open Phone, choose Calls and press the sound settings button, then choose Custom customer ringtones to manage your own customer rules. The same rules apply in your browser and Android app; Android's own category sound choices take priority.

## If something looks different

- **Save Assignment** is greyed out: your role cannot write assignments. A message such as **Choose a profile first.** means a field is still empty.
- **Account**, **Contact** and **Exact number/email** are greyed out in **Scope**: per-customer overrides are not part of your plan. **Account** and **Contact** are missing altogether when your role cannot look up accounts or contacts.
- **Email inbox** and **Specific contact method** ask you to type an ID that Nova does not show anywhere else. Use one of the other scopes instead.
- A customer still rings with the default sound: another rule with a more specific scope applies, or the teammate has a user-specific rule of their own. Check the list from the top down. A teammate who muted an event, or set quiet hours, in their own sound settings hears nothing for it.

[[route:/settings/communications/attention|Open Attention Audio]]