Duplicating a voice agent, taking it to another client and changing its type

Building a good agent takes time. You write how it greets callers, what it asks, when it hands the call to a person and how it books appointments. If you then need another one that is almost the same, there is no reason to start over.

Picture an agency that has built the reception agent for a dental clinic, and now three more clinics want theirs. The name, the opening hours and the prices change, but the way it answers is the same.

You have three options for that. Duplicate makes a copy in the same project. Export and Import take it to another project or another client, inside a file. And Convert creates a new one of a different type, from voice to chat for example. In all three, the original does not change and keeps answering as usual.

Open the agent in Agents. At the top right, next to Publish, click the three-dot button and choose Duplicate.

The copy opens, with “(copia)” at the end of its name. It is a draft, the version you work on that does not take calls yet, which is why it shows as Unpublished.

It carries everything the original has, including the keys of its functions and the phone numbers it transfers calls to. It does not carry the phone number it answers on or the call history, which stay with the original. And it copies what you last saved, so if the agent page says Unsaved changes, save first.

Change it, test it and publish it. For it to answer a phone line, an Administrator assigns it in Phone numbers, under Answering agent. That gives you, for instance, the same agent for a second branch with different hours.

Duplicate only copies within the same project. A project is each space in your account, with its own agents, numbers and team. If you are a partner, each client is a project, and you switch between them in the selector at the top of the side menu, under Your clients.

In the first clinic’s agent, click the three dots and choose Export. A .json file downloads, a text file holding its whole configuration.

Switch to the second clinic in the selector. In Agents, click the three dots next to Create agent, choose Import agent and then the file. The agent is created as a draft, with the same name. If anything arrived differently, the panel tells you with the message Imported, but there are things to review before publishing.

The file also works in another account, so you can send it to your client to import themselves. Treat it like a business document, because it holds the agent’s instructions and the addresses of your systems.

Almost everything travels. The instructions or the flow, the greeting, the voice, the model, the variables, the opening hours, the details it collects, the analysis of each call and the functions with their addresses.

Keys do not travel. A function is the request the agent sends to the clinic’s software, for instance to look up free slots, and many carry a key, the password the agent uses to get into that software. On import they arrive empty, the Cal.com key too, and the notice does not remind you. Add the new clinic’s key to each function, because until you do it will not work.

Nor do the phone numbers it transfers calls to, so the first clinic’s number never rings at the second. The notice tells you where they are missing, and you need to add them before publishing.

The knowledge base, the documents the agent draws its answers from, such as opening hours and prices, does not travel inside the agent. If the new project has one with the same name, the agent keeps it. If not, it is removed and you get a notice. So it pays to create the new clinic’s base first, or bring it over with Import in Knowledge base, and then import the agent.

If it used a voice that does not exist in the new project, it arrives with the default voice. If it recorded calls and recording is not available there yet, it arrives with recording off. You get a notice in both cases.

The rest arrives exactly as it was, so check the clinic’s name in the greeting and the instructions, the Cal.com event type, the functions’ addresses and any messages sent to a fixed address, such as the reception email with each call’s summary. And if your system checks the signature on requests, give it the new project’s secret, which sits in the agent’s functions, under Verify requests.

An agent can be a voice agent, which answers the phone, or a chat agent, which answers in writing on your website. And it can run on a single prompt, instructions written in one go like a receptionist’s script, or on a conversation flow, the conversation drawn step by step, such as greeting, taking details and booking.

Under the three dots on the agent page you get two options, one change at a time. One changes how it is built, Convert to conversation flow or Convert to single prompt. The other changes the channel, Convert to chat agent or Convert to voice agent.

When you click Convert, what is on screen gets saved and a new draft agent is created, with its new type added to the name. It opens with Maite, the panel’s assistant, who goes through what needs adjusting with you and does not publish it unless you ask.

From single prompt to flow, your instructions become the general ones and the flow starts with three steps, which Maite replaces with the real one. From flow to single prompt, Maite writes the instructions. From voice to chat, whatever a chat cannot do is removed, such as handing over to a person, pressing keys, passing to another agent or sending SMS or email messages. From chat to voice, the inactivity close and the links are removed, and the agent gets a voice if it had none.

The project’s Administrator and Editor can. A Viewer, who can only look, does not see these options. In a partner’s clients the partner does it, and the client’s people, even as Editors, cannot duplicate, export, import or convert.

Maite can also duplicate or convert an agent if you ask, once you confirm. And all four actions are in the API and the MCP connector, which lets your software or another assistant work with your account. A partner, using their account key, states in each request which client it applies to.

If you take out a plan, the chat agent comes from Essential, and several projects or the API and MCP from Advanced. On pay as you go, which is how partners pay, everything is included.

Does duplicating change the original agent? No. Duplicating, exporting and converting never touch the original, which keeps answering as before.

Does the copy start taking calls on its own? No. It is created as a draft with no number. You need to publish it and assign it a number.

Can I copy an agent from one client to another? Yes, with Export in the first and Import in the second. Duplicate only copies within the same project.

Can you build the first agent for me? Yes. The Lera team builds it, with a quote, and you then copy it for the rest of your clients.

How much does it cost to try? €20 free credit, no card needed. Create an agent, duplicate it and try converting it before you use it with your clients.