Getting your number forwarded

The onboarding phone step offers two ways a location gets set up: porting the existing number over entirely, or issuing a new Dohos number and forwarding the existing one to it. Porting formally moves the number itself, with real carrier-side paperwork. Forwarding leaves the number exactly where it lives, with its existing provider, and simply tells that provider to send incoming calls somewhere else. For most restaurants that just want calls reaching Dohos without a carrier transfer in the middle, forwarding is the simpler, faster path — and this page is about that path.

01Why keep the number, and why this is reversible

A number already on printed menus, delivery-app listings, a review site, and a search result doesn't get corrected everywhere just because you'd like it to. A returning customer who saved the old number, or a listing you can't quickly edit, keeps working exactly as it always has — the only thing that changes is what happens after the call connects, not the digits a customer dials.

Forwarding is also fully reversible, in a way worth understanding before you start. Because the number never leaves your provider, turning forwarding off there — the same setting, switched back — sends calls straight back to ringing at the restaurant directly, the way they did before Dohos was involved. Nothing about the number, its listings, or its history changes either way.

02Before you start

Two things make this faster: access to whatever account or app you already use to manage the number's settings — or at minimum, that provider's support line — and a few minutes near the end to place a confirming call rather than assuming the setup worked. Whoever normally handles the phone bill is usually the fastest person to ask, not because forwarding needs special authority, but because they already know where that provider hides the setting. None of this needs one sitting — entering the number, changing the setting, and running the test call can each happen as they become possible.

Three things need to line up: Dohos needs to know which number is being forwarded, your provider needs to be told where to send calls, and someone needs to confirm the two sides agree before real customers rely on it. Doing them out of order is the most common way this goes sideways — forwarding set at the carrier before Dohos has recorded the number sends calls into a route nothing is listening for yet.

03Setting it up, in order

1. Open the phone step in onboarding and enter your current number as the existing restaurant number.
2. Choose the forwarding option rather than porting. Saving this creates the number Dohos will actually answer on — a real number, but not one a customer ever needs to know or dial.
3. Note that number down. It's what your current provider needs to forward calls to.
4. Go to your phone provider — the account or app you already use, or a call to their support line — and set up call forwarding from your existing number to the number Dohos just issued.
5. Decide between forwarding every call, or only when your own line doesn't answer. Both are legitimate — see below.
6. Run the test call from the next onboarding step to confirm the two sides agree before trusting it with a real customer.

• Forwarding every call — every incoming call redirects immediately, regardless of whether anyone at the restaurant would have answered. Dohos becomes the first and only thing that ever picks up.
• Forwarding on no-answer or busy — your line rings as it always has; only a call that goes unanswered past a point, or arrives while the line is busy, redirects. Dohos becomes a backstop rather than the first answer.

If Dohos is meant to be the one answering, forward every call; if you want your own phone to get first attempt and Dohos to catch what it misses, use the no-answer option. It depends on what you actually want to happen when your phone rings.

04A different field on the same screen

The phone step also asks for a transfer destination for escalated calls. It sits next to the forwarding choice, and it's easy to assume it's part of the same setup — it isn't. That field is where a call goes when Dohos hands it to a person mid-call, a separate mechanism covered in full elsewhere. Filling in a transfer destination doesn't set up forwarding, and setting up forwarding doesn't require deciding a transfer destination first. They can be answered in either order.

05Confirming it actually worked

The test-call step exists because a forwarding setting can look correct in your provider's account and still not work — a typo in the destination number, a forwarding mode that only covers some call types, or a setting that takes a moment to become active. None of that is visible from the settings screen alone. The test places a real call through the number you configured and checks that it reaches the phone system correctly, without ever ringing a restaurant phone. A pass means what you set up actually routes; a fail means something in the chain still doesn't agree — worth knowing before a customer finds out first.

06When something doesn't go as expected

• Forwarding won't set at all, or the option isn't there. This is happening entirely inside your provider's own system, outside anything Dohos controls. Some lower-tier plans restrict forwarding, or the option lives somewhere unexpected in the app. Ask your provider specifically for “call forwarding” — Dohos has no visibility into your carrier account and can't set this from its side.
• Forwarding is set, but the test call doesn't reach Dohos. Start with the number itself — confirm the destination at your provider matches, digit for digit, the number Dohos issued. A single mistyped digit is the most common cause. Retest after checking; if it still fails, confirm with the provider that the setting actually took effect rather than just being saved — some apply with a short delay.
• Forwarding works, but the call doesn't sound like you expected. Not actually a forwarding problem — a call that reaches Dohos and then sounds unfamiliar or pauses oddly is a question for the first call test, which walks through what a normal call should look like. Forwarding's job ends at getting the call there.

07The one thing this page can't hand you

Every phone provider names and locates this setting a little differently, and no verified carrier-by-carrier reference of exact steps or dial codes exists here to print — a wrong code would be worse than none, since an incorrect forwarding code can misroute your calls somewhere else entirely, silently, until a customer tells you they couldn't get through. What's above is the part that's true regardless of provider: what to configure, in what order, and how to confirm it. The provider-specific part is exactly what your provider's own support line already knows correctly for your account — call them rather than guessing from a general list.