Your AI agent can do more than just talk. With custom tools, your agent can take real actions during calls—checking calendars, looking up customer info, or triggering workflows in your other business apps.

Tools give your agent superpowers. Instead of just taking messages, it can actually book appointments, send follow-up texts, or transfer calls to the right person. You set up the tools once, and your agent uses them automatically when the conversation calls for it.

Available Tool Types#

dialnote supports several built-in tool types, each designed for common business scenarios:

End Call — Politely wrap up the conversation when everything's resolved. You can customize what the agent says before hanging up.

Transfer to Team — Route the caller to one of your team members. Pick who should receive the transfer and set a ring strategy (simultaneous or sequential). You can also configure how long each member's phone rings (5–120 seconds).

Send SMS — Send a text message to the caller during the conversation. You can either write a predefined message or let the AI compose one based on a prompt you provide.

Check Availability — Connect to Calendly or Cal.com to check when you're free. The agent can tell callers your available slots in real-time.

Book Meeting — Schedule appointments directly through Calendly or Cal.com. The agent collects the caller's info and confirms the booking on the spot.

Custom Webhook — Call any external API. This is where it gets powerful—your agent can look up orders, check inventory, update your CRM, or trigger any workflow you can imagine.

Creating a Tool#

You'll add tools in Step 4 of the AI Agent wizard, under the Actions section. Here's how:

1. Click + Add Action to open the tool creation modal
2. Pick your tool type from the list
3. Fill in the required fields:
   • Name — Must start with a letter and can only contain letters, numbers, and underscores (max 64 characters)
   • Description — Tell the AI when to use this tool (10–1,000 characters)
4. Configure the tool-specific settings
5. Save and the tool is immediately available to your agent

Tool names must be unique within each agent. The description field is especially important—it tells your AI agent when to trigger the tool. Be specific. Instead of "Book appointments," write "Book a consultation appointment when the caller wants to schedule a meeting with a sales rep."

Custom Webhooks#

Custom webhooks let your agent call external APIs during the call. This is how you connect dialnote to your existing business systems.

When you create a custom webhook, you'll configure:

• Webhook URL — The HTTPS endpoint that receives the request
• HTTP Method — GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE
• Headers — Optional custom headers (like API keys or auth tokens) sent with every request
• Parameters — Define what data your agent collects from the caller. Each parameter has a name, type (string, number, or boolean), and a description that helps the AI extract the right value from the conversation
• Speak while executing — What the agent says while waiting for a response (e.g., "One moment while I check that for you...")
• Speak with result — Whether the agent should read the API response back to the caller

Setting Up Parameters#

Parameters tell the AI what information to pull from the conversation before calling your API. For example, an order lookup tool might need:

• order_number (string) — "The customer's order or tracking number"
• include_tracking (boolean) — "Whether the customer wants shipping tracking details"

The AI reads these descriptions to figure out what to ask the caller for. Write them in plain language so the agent knows exactly what it's looking for.

Example Use Cases#

Order lookup — Caller asks "Where's my order?" Your webhook calls your e-commerce API with the caller's phone number, returns tracking info, and the agent reads it back.

CRM update — After capturing lead info, the webhook pushes the data to HubSpot or Salesforce automatically.

Appointment reminders — Webhook triggers your notification system to send a confirmation email or text.

Inventory check — Caller asks about product availability. Webhook queries your inventory system and the agent responds with real-time stock levels.

Scheduling Tools#

The Check Availability and Book Meeting tools connect to your calendar. Both work with Calendly and Cal.com.

To set up a scheduling tool:

1. Select either Check Availability or Book Meeting
2. Choose your provider (Calendly or Cal.com)
3. Enter your API key
4. Select the event type you want the agent to use
5. Set your default timezone

Once connected, your agent can check your calendar and book appointments without you lifting a finger. It'll collect the caller's name, email, and preferred time, then confirm the booking.

Tips for Better Tools#

Write clear descriptions. The AI relies on your description to know when to use each tool. "Transfer to team when caller asks to speak to a human or the AI can't help" is better than "Transfer call."

Test before going live. Use the test call feature to make sure your tools trigger correctly. Try different phrasings to see if the AI picks up on the right cues.

Keep webhooks fast. Callers don't like waiting. If your API is slow, add caching or move heavy processing to a background job.

Don't overload your agent. Five well-configured tools will outperform fifteen poorly-described ones. The AI can get confused if too many tools have overlapping purposes.