Phone Account Suggestion

In Android 10, the phone account suggestion service allows suggestions for phone accounts to be shown to users when making a call. For example, for users with a device with multiple SIMs and lower rates for intra-network calls, this service first identifies the callee's carrier and then suggests using the SIM on the same network as the callee.

The phone account suggestion service is optional and can be implemented on devices running Android 10 or higher.

Implementation

To implement phone account suggestions, implement one PhoneAccountSuggestionService service in an app that is located in /system/priv-app/. The service isn't queried if more than one PhoneAccountSuggestionServiceis implemented. The service must declare the android.Manifest.permission.BIND_PHONE_ACCOUNT_SUGGESTION_SERVICE permission.

When a user makes an outgoing call where neither the default outgoing phone account nor the preferred phone account is set for the callee, the telecom service binds to PhoneAccountSuggestionService to gather information about the accounts, onAccountSuggestionRequest(String number) is called, and the outgoing call process is suspended.

PhoneAccountSuggestionService must call suggestPhoneAccounts(String number, List<PhoneAccountSuggestion> suggestions) with the number returned by onAccountSuggestionRequest(String number).

When suggestPhoneAccounts(String number, List<PhoneAccountSuggestion> suggestions) is called, the telecom service returns a list of suggested phone accounts. The dialer must then display the list of suggested phone accounts for the user to choose from to make the call.

PhoneAccountSuggestion

To make suggestions, use the PhoneAccountSuggestion class. For example, if the service determines the callee is on the same carrier as one of the SIMs in the device, the service should mark the phone account with REASON_INTRA_CARRIER. This information can then be conveyed to the user in the dialer.

For example, in a situation where the user has configured the device to use a work SIM for all contacts in a work Google account, the service should mark the phone account with REASON_USER_SET and set shouldAutoSelect to true to allow the dialer to bypass the selection dialog and automatically place the call using the phone account.

For information on other suggestions, see PhoneAccountSuggestion.

Dialer

When the call enters the STATE_SELECT_PHONE_ACCOUNT state, the dialer must use the information from PhoneAccountSuggestion to handle EXTRA_SUGGESTED_PHONE_ACCOUNTS.

Disabling the service

To customize your implementation for specific carriers, you can enable or disable the service using setComponentEnabledSetting. The service is not queried if disabled.

System UI implementation

Depending on your implementation, changes to the system UI may be required. For example, to allow users to specify that all calls to a specific contact are made from a specific phone account, you must implement a customized set up flow and settings UI for the device.

Validation

To validate your implementation, run the following CTS tests: